This article was originally published by The Emancipator.
There are fierce debates surrounding how cultural appropriation is qualified and judged, but one thing is for certain — it is often the case that the thing that is stolen and subsequently popularized and monetized by the White cultural mainstream is subject to denigration and belittlement when it was practiced and consumed by marginalized communities.
In other words, a cultural artifact lifted from said community is only deemed valuable when it has been “discovered” and validated by White tastemakers.
Historic instances include when Empress Josephine of France started a fashion sensation by donning tignon head coverings in the 18th century, which were first pioneered by Black women in Louisiana who were legally required to cover their hair, as Contributing Managing Editor Halimah Abdullah recently noted. Modern examples range from Elvis Presley’s shot to stardom by adopting Black musical styles to food writer Alison Roman’s viral chickpea stew recipe that closely resembled a South Asian staple.
This month, The Emancipator is examining the tactics and costs of survival. This includes ways in which, in order to survive the merciless regime of conventional White sensibilities, we are forced to excise, flatten, and shatter pieces of ourselves to be considered acceptable. Within this racist cultural market, the same cultural labor may get paid in wooden nickels or real hard cash — depending on who’s selling, as Abdullah recently wrote in her analysis of the movie, “Sinners.”
While the most vibrant aspects of our culture get plucked, packaged, and sold at a premium without our involvement, the path to economic and social success shown people of color is often White coded and largely lies in carefully navigating assimilation and respectability. For children of color, packing a bologna sandwich for lunch might spare them from brutal bullying over their stinky lunch box full of ethnic food, a now-iconic trope of immigrant childhood.
For a Black professional, it might mean “fixing” their natural hair just to get hired for a job they are qualified to do.
As journalist and culture critic Jay Connor recently shared with The Emancipator, these respectability politics were certainly at play when three-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes proudly announced his decision to rid himself of his luxurious locks of hair. Typically, an NFL star getting a haircut doesn’t warrant international headlines. But when it’s framed around questionable verbiage rooted in White acceptance, Connor noted, it’s gonna raise a few eyebrows.
“I told everybody during the season that win or lose, if we win three [Super Bowls] in a row or if we lose, I’m getting a haircut like, that’s enough. I’m very excited,” Mahomes told news station KCTV5. “I can’t believe all you guys let me keep that nappy hair for so long. I look way better now with the short hair, so I’ll be keeping this going forward.”
Contributing Senior Correspondent Chandelis Duster will further delve into this idea of exactly how much personal collateral is too much to trade off later this month in her exclusive sit-down with controversial former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Spoiler: He has a lot to say about what he thinks are the financial benefits for communities of color in working with the Trump administration.
And, later this month, I’ll explore the racialized performance of political protests, the personal and communal costs, and why the spectacle’s importance is second only to the mission itself.
It is gauche to try to place a price tag on culture, pride, and identity. But when it comes to cultural appropriation, I think we don’t talk about what it costs us nearly enough. Especially when it is a seemingly endless source of wealth and cache for culture vultures who punish us for being different from them, and then reward their own richly for being innovative or worldly in imitation of us.
While admiring the outfits from this year’s Met Gala, both Connor and we at The Emancipator couldn’t help but think of the risks taken by the original Black Dandies who dared to cut dangerously dashing figures in a world that punished Black folks for looking too good and living too well. How would they feel if they knew that decades later, their radical sartorial stylings would become the defining theme of what many society elites consider the party of the year?
Is the respectful and tasteful homage of a formerly marginalized aspect of culture an end to the painful need to assimilate into Whiteness in order to survive? Or is that cultural artifact simply absorbed into Whiteness without empowering a marginalized group to finally be able to benefit economically off of their own culture, on their own terms?
Out of all the Black Dandyism-themed outfits at the Met Gala, how many were crafted by Black designers? What is the point of being honored and respected if that respect doesn’t transform into actual equity? Into money to pay the bills?
Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour said at the Met Gala that “at this moment in our political history I think it’s very very important to stand next to the Black community.”
While I wholeheartedly agree with her sentiment, I also think turning a defiant piece of Black fashion history into a costume theme for the 1% while the Trump administration’s resegregation efforts aim to set Black social and economic progress back by decades is ironically juxtaposed — to say the least. Further, Vogue and Wintour, the gala’s chairperson, have had a deeply problematic history when it comes to equity and racial representation both in front of and behind the camera and in its pages.
The spectacle also raised the question why, years after the death of André Leon Talley, the legendary Vogue editor-at-large, author, fashion director, and style icon who epitomized Black Dandyism in its most chic form, did Wintour now decide to honor Black fashion in such a forward way.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “appropriation” as “to take or make use of without authority or right.” In other words, theft.
Even in situations where permission is given and blessings bestowed, this is all moot within the unequal power dynamic of White supremacy. Until the appropriation stops, until we are sole proprietors of our own culture, we must recognize thieving for what it is and settle for nothing less than true equity.
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