In this op-ed, writer Alisha Acquaye highlights the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation.
When I started writing about beauty last year, I had a clear intention in mind: to elevate and celebrate the ways people of color use beauty as an instrument of self-expression, artistry, resistance, and social progress. Our bodies are already considered political statements, and declaring our beauty as normal — exceptional, even — is a rejection of Western Eurocentric standards, as well as the male gaze.
Yet, it is nearly impossible to explore the realm of beauty, especially from an intersectional identity perspective, without calling out problematic moments in pop culture that diminish, degrade, and take advantage of marginalized and underrepresented communities. As we proclaim our style and identities and shatter beauty standards, we also find ourselves having to reclaim, preserve, and defend it. Because our histories of beauty are entangled in these ideologies, we can’t ever truly let our hair down without undoing the knots of oppression, micro-aggression, and appropriation.
Although it is necessary for us to defend our beauty traditions, practices, and values, it has become an exhausting action that can distract from our personal beauty statements. I long for the day when we can express ourselves without our signatures being stolen, misinterpreted, or deemed “unprofessional” and “unacceptable.” I long for the day when we can simply discuss POC beauty without having to respond to or arm ourselves against toxic whiteness. Far too often, media publicizes POC beauty and expression by centralizing whiteness — white celebrities wearing box braids and cornrows, others masquerading in bindis and blackface — with more vigor and frequency than news about people of color embracing their style and culture in magnificent ways. Controversy is clickbait.
Thus, this piece is about the persistent and unapologetic appropriation enacted by white celebrities, but it transcends celebrity and willful ignorance. It is a conversation on cultural appropriation, appreciation, privilege, and what it means when a white person continues to appropriate other cultures with reckless disregard for the feelings and opinions of cultural arbiters. That is an act of violence that implies that one’s interests and adoration for a culture is more important than respecting the culture itself. An implication that one’s fame or position of privilege grants them a free pass to pull inspiration from any culture they please — a very specific form of “post-racialism” only afforded to white or white-passing people with power.
Let’s begin by unpacking Kim Kardashian’s history of appropriation. Kim’s entire image was created and is maintained by controversy — from her leaked sex tape to the Paper magazine cover that was supposed to “break the Internet” to her photo shoot for KKW Beauty that sparked blackface allegations. Kim’s inspiration has largely been black women — see: her cornrows — and what makes this most problematic is that she is awarded for her appropriation, whilst black women are often demonized or misjudged for those same styles. This is why cultural appropriation is harmful: it glorifies or degrades cultural aesthetics based on skin color, as if the value changes when something is expressed on one race as opposed to another.
In a similar way that brands can profit off of controversy, celebrities can as well — especially if they are unapologetic about it. A friend suggested to me that sometimes when celebrities stand by their problematic actions, we learn to accept them or eventually forget about it. This isn’t the first time Kim has worn cornrows, and I doubt it will be her last. She fails to express remorse each time she sits down to get her hair braided, which sends the message that she is innocently living her truth or just carelessly disrupting cultural cues. In her most recent hair-raising incident, she attributes her cornrows to her daughter North, and further justifies wearing them because she knows where it originates.
“My daughter actually loves braids, like this last time I wore [them], she helps me pick out a look and will show me pictures,” Kim said at BeautyCon in Los Angeles on July 15, according to People. “I just think if it comes from a place of love and you’re using it as cultural inspiration, then I think it is okay. Sometimes I think maybe if you don’t communicate where you got the inspiration from — and I’ve done that in the past — then people might not understand it. But yeah, I think as long as it comes from a place of love and you’re getting inspired, [then] it is okay.”
To clarify: having a mixed-race daughter and knowing the origin of a hairstyle does not make it permissible to wear said style. Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel that Kim using North (who is just a kid) as permission to wear cornrows is similar to white people saying that, because their one black friend said they’re okay with them doing something credited to blackness, it makes it generally okay.
📸: Getty Images