Almost every small town in Brazil — especially those in the interior state of Minas Gerais — has its town eccentric, that person the whole town knows, takes care of, and looks after like a sort of patrimony. Ibiá, where I was born, had Zé Tem Dó. With him, I learned about the symbolic value of certain objects. I was about 4 or 5 years old. My mother was a seamstress and Zé collected spools of thread. His visits to my house were constant, because my mother saved all her empty spools for him and always offered him something more like a drink, clothes, or a plate of food.
Once when I thought that Zé was distracted, I tried to grab one of his spools. He jumped up and in two swift steps was right in front of me, protecting the precious goods that to my mother were just scraps. I ran off in the other direction, startled and afraid. Zé gathered his things and went on, conversing with one of the spools that he tied to the tip of a piece of thread and dragged along with him. It was his pet or his little cart, something that went far beyond what I was or ever will be able to see, unless one day I become a Zé and become the folkloric figure of a small rural town. But there, in that moment, I learned something that I will write about here: Zé was not playing with a spool and we are not playing with a head wrap.
Thauane Cordeiro posted on Facebook this image of herself using a head wrap on Feb. 4. Since then, an intense debate has ensued and her photo has received more than 138,000 reactions.
Photo: Facebook
Last week, in Brazil, a young white woman published a message on her Facebook page, explaining that, while using an African-style head wrap because of her cancer treatment, she was approached by a black woman and questioned about her choice. Young black activists say that, based on conversations within their various movements, it is unlikely one of them would make such a comment. This specific case was quickly generalized and the controversy spread through Brazilian news and social media, with attacks and attempts to delegitimize the historic struggle of the black movements.
We are signs created by white people so that our blackness can be commercialized.
Much of the white Brazilian population knows its European origins and cultivates, with pride and care, the Italian last name, the recipe book from a Portuguese great-grandmother, the menorah that has been in the family for many generations. Those with resources travel, at least once in their lives, to visit the place where their ancestors came from and to meet the family members who are still there. But what about the descendants of the African diaspora? When they arrived in Brazil, the traffickers had already destroyed registries of the places they were from and redefined ethnicities with generic names like Mina for all the people who embarked from the costa da Mina, or Gold Coast of West Africa. They had already made them go round and round the Tree of Forgetting (a ritual that was believed to clear their memories and history) or through the Door of No Return, so that they would never want to go back and had already separated them into lots that were more valuable if they were diversified, so that they could not understand one another.
While still on African soil, they were subjected to Catholic baptism, so that they were no longer pagan and acquired a soul through a “civilizing” religion, receiving a “Christian” name that was joined, once on Brazilian soil, to the last name of the family that acquired them. In Brazil, they could not speak their own languages, manifest their beliefs or make decisions about their own bodies and destinies. So that anything at all could be preserved, there were centuries of fighting, lost lives, beatings, torture, humiliations, and confrontations in the name of the thousands that arrived here and also for those who were left along the way.
Protestors on the streets of São Paulo to advocate for the rights of Brazil’s black community during the 13th annual Black Consciousness March.
Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
As a result of this, we are who we are: Beings without a defined belonging, without easily traceable roots, who are no longer from there and were never fully planted here. We have our “belonging lodged in a metaphor,” as the Canadian poet, romanticist, essayist, and documentarian Dionne Brand says in her marvelous “A Map to the Door of No Return.” To live in the black diaspora, according to her, is “to live as a fiction — a creation of the empires, and also self-creation. It is to be a being living inside and outside of herself. It is to apprehend the sign one makes yet to be unable to escape it.”
We are signs made by white people so that our blackness can be commercialized. And we cannot escape from this because without even listening to us, you always already seem to know what we are, what we want, what we know. Blackness, social movements, black women, “those people” — never individuals, always in lots. And we live in a metaphor that from this point forward I am going to call a head wrap, but it could be any other symbol.
The collective head wrap that we inhabit was constantly racialized, disrespected, invaded.
Wearing a head wrap is a form of belonging. It is joining with another member of the diaspora who also wears in a head wrap and, without needing to say anything, know that he or she knows that you know that the head wraps on our heads cost and continue to cost our lives. To know that our precarious housing was once considered illegal, immoral, abject. In order to carry this head wrap on our heads we had to hide, pilfer, disguise, and deny it. It was cover, but it was also a symbol of faith, of resistance, of union. The collective head wrap that we inhabit was constantly racialized, disrespected, invaded, made profane, and criminalized. Where were you when all of this was happening? You who now want to kick down the door and take a seat on the living room sofa, just as we have almost been able to restore the dignity of our head wraps. Where are you when we need help and humanity to preserve these symbols?
I remember seeing a sign at the recent Women’s March that asked, “I’ll see you nice white ladies at the next #BlackLivesMatter march, right?”
“I’ll see you nice white ladies at the next #blacklivesmatter march, right?” — Sign held up during Women’s March (seen on #Tumblr) pic.twitter.com/SHhB8hqbl8
— Mckenzie Lacroix (@MckenzieLacroix) January 22, 2017
You nice white ladies who want to wrap yourselves in our head wraps, you will be with us when we weep over the deaths of young black boys and cry out for justice, right? You will use head wraps when our Afro-Brazilian religious leaders (mães e pais de santo) are kicked out of their communities and held down on top of ant hills by police, right? When we complain of pain because we received less anesthesia than white women while giving birth? When we denounce that we suffer more violence, more abuse, and more assault than you? When we demand to receive the same pay as you? You will echo our voices when we say that we have been rejected by men (white or black), and you will understand and have comforting words for us when we feel guilty for leaving our own children at home in order to care for yours, and you will listen to us and defend us at the top of your lungs when someone else is trying to invade our head wraps by force. Right? Because then the head wrap will be yours. You will listen, understand, and speak with us when we try to explain that our (distorted) claims of appropriation have nothing to do with pizza, jeans, and feng shui, right?
Black Women’s March Against Racism in Brasília, the nation’s capital, in front of Congress on Nov. 18, 2015. During the protest, police fired pepper spray and live ammunition.
Photo: Lula Marques/Agência PT
When you say “I am going to use it, period, I want to see who is going to stop me,” sometimes I feel like sitting you on my lap, just as the “black mothers” that probably played a role in many of your lives, or in the lives of your ancestors used to do, and say that this is not the way good children behave. And say that, yes, some things are yours, because they came from your great-grandmother, from your grandmother, from your mother. We too can have some things that are ours, that we inherited from our family.
Take a look: Pizza! (“It’s Italian food!”). Acarajé, from the Iorubá words akara (a fried rice cake) and ijé (food) — (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s!”). Hashu’al (“It’s Israeli!”). Congado (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s!”) Kimono! (“It’s Japanese!”) Ojá! (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s”!) Kung Fu (“It’s Chinese!). Capoeira! from the Tupi word ko´pwera or the Umbando kapwila (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s!). Abajur, the word for lamp in Portuguese (“Comes from French!”), Moleque, quiabo, berimbau, samba cafuné, zumbi … and an endless list of other Afro-Brazilian words, concepts and cultural manifestations (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s!”).
We got tired of being characters in the jokes that are funny only to you.
And then we are the ones called segregationist, egotistical, without culture, while other groups can keep, without controversy and without being forced to share (“IT’S MINE! It’s from Brazil! It’s everybody’s!”), the “contributions” that their people brought to Brazilian soil. We understand that you think it is (and always has been) all yours. But we got tired of staying in the kitchens, the back rooms, the halls, the pool decks, without being included in what you call “Brazilian people.” We’re tired of hearing that we don’t know, don’t see, don’t understand, don’t want, can’t — of having to ask permission for everything, of having to say we are sorry even when we were the ones who were offended. We’re tired of serving people who don’t know our names. We’re tired of being characters in jokes that are funny only to you.
Our discussions and our intellectual production, which are carried out under our head wraps, are delegitimated by the call to order #WhitesWillUseHeadWraps! (#VaiTerBrancaDeTurbatneSim!), yelled at us with the same arrogance and expectations of obedience that the owners of our ancestors yelled #WeWon’tHaveBlackThingsHere! (#NãoVaiTerCoisaDePretoAquiNão!) Many things happen in our head wraps that you have no idea about: We have to build support networks — which are invisible to you and distant from your privileged existence — to help, console, orient, and strengthen the victims of racism committed by people who, offended when we show where they are lacking, become victims themselves.
Under this head wrap we teach young black children not to take bananas to school for lunch because the other kids will call them monkeys. We tell our children not to use clothes with hoods, not to run, not to make harsh movements in public and not to look suspicious, whatever that means to you. Protected by these head wraps, we share information, discuss theories, we communicate with foreign head wraps and even raise money to pay for the funerals of young people who have been assassinated by the police. We agree, disagree, laugh, cry, tell secrets, shout, love, hate, study, tell one another that we have to have infinite patience to go back five, ten, twenty steps from our point of understanding to be able to respond to egocentric comments like “I read Monteiro Lobato and I didn’t become racist,” or “If I use a head wrap, will I be called racist?” Because we know that they are not innocent comments or questions, they are also metaphors. They are the walls that protect the places where you reside, where we are not admitted, because on the door there has always been a sign that says “whites only.”
You always have another place to go, the place of whiteness.
The head wrap we wear is not the same as yours. What for you is the simple desire to be cool, to project yourself as a free being without prejudice, for us is a place of connection. Connection among us and also with something that we lost, not always knowing exactly what it is or where it was left behind. Wearing our head wraps has the same meaning for us as “going to the villa where my Italian grandparents were born,” or “I could really feel what my great-grandparents went through in that concentration camp.” Yes, because among many others, the head wrap has these two meanings: comfort and pain.
We don’t make fun of you when you defend these places that are part of the history of your people. We do not make jokes about the meanings that these places have for you. We do not say that they are merely constructions of rocks and bricks piled one on top of the other. We do not call them stupid because our ignorance does not let us understand what you all say about these places that are dear to you, because they carry the markings of your great-grandparents, grandparents, parents and will continue to mark the lives of your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And, nevertheless, we have to observe in silence, under the threat of being silenced by force, like the ravenous beasts that you think that we are — it’s not action, it’s reaction! — you kicked down our doors, invaded our head wraps with shouts of #WhitesWillUseHeadWraps!
For you the head wrap is temporary housing, the kind that you may come and go from as you please and as style dictates, because you always have another place to go, which is the place of whiteness. We don’t have that, because our existence is embedded in our skin, our home is fixed on our back, just like the snail’s. Our home, for you, is fetish, is exoticism, is accessory, is costume. Our home.
Photo: Marcello Casal Jr./Agência Brasil
In our home, we aren’t talking about head wraps when we talk about head wraps. Among its many names, the first is racism. It is racism when you think we do not know what you are talking about. It is racism when you deduce that you need to teach us that pizza is Italian, that the cotton used to make the fabric of the head wrap is Indian, that in a globalized world, etc., etc., etc. We have to go back five, ten steps in the discussion that you are not accompanying because you don’t want to — but you still think you are qualified to offer your opinion — so that we can level your understanding, in order to say: It’s the racism, stupid! And before that we have to go back thirty steps to hear “I am not racist!”: It’s the system, stupid! And because it is structural, it structures Brazilian society, which means that you work to maintain it whether you want to or not, whether you know it or not.
We can talk about cultural appropriation after you have read this article by the philosopher Djamila Ribeiro, which was published long before your fight for the right to wear the head wraps came into fashion. Or the poem by the master Nei Lopes, which can be read below. In this case, you can be sure that when you come with the corn flour fubá (from the Quimbundo word fuba or the Quicongo mfuba), we are already eating angú (a dish made with fubá and whose name comes from the Fon àgun).
BRECHTIANA (for Abdias Nascimento)
First,
They usurped math
Medicine, architecture
Philosophy, religiosity, art
Saying they had created them
In their own image and likeness.
Next,
They separated the pharaohs and pyramids
From the African context
Because Africans would not be capable
Of such invention and advancement
Not yet satisfied, they said
That our ancestors had come from far away
From a strange Asia
To invade Africa
To push out the natives
Bosquimanos and hotentotes.
And wrote History in their own way.
Calling the nations “tribes”
Kings “regals”
Languages “dialects”.
Then,
Then they blamed slavery
On the ambition of its own victims
And put racism
On our tab.
So,
They reserved for us
The most sordid places
The most degrading occupations
The dirtiest roles
And they said:
“Laugh! Dance! Make music!
Sing! Run! Play!”
And we laughed, danced and made music
We sang, ran and played
Now, enough!
— Nei Lopes
Translation by Courtney Crumpler.
One can’t help but suspect that the author of this article has lived in the United States for too long. I don’t dispute that Brazil is an innately racist society – that is patently obvious – but some of the other assertions made by this contributor are ridiculous. First, the concept of “white” in Brazil is for the most part based on skin tone and for that reason there are many cases of families where one brother is “black” and the other “white” – neither of them has a clue where their ancestors come from and both regard themselves as “Brazilian”. I have met plenty of people in that situation. There are some families which have a stronger idea than others of their cultural roots, but these are, without exception, immigrant families who have moved to the country in the last 120 years – one can hardly blame a Brazilian of Polish origin whose great-grandparents moved to Curitiba in 1920 for knowing she is of Polish decent; it’s not her fault! Is she entitled to be proud of her heritage? Why not? As for black Brazilians not enjoying the identity privileges of such migrant families – neither does anyone else whose family has more than two centuries’ history here. It hardly seems a source of angst. There are plenty of recent migrants to the country from Haiti and Senegal. They are of course black. If you ask them where they are from they say “Senegal” or “Haiti” – the Haitians never say “I have no idea, my ancestors were brought to Haiti as slaves by the French” – they have an identity and a language all their own (which would not, I don’t doubt, protect them from accusations of false consciousness were they confronted by Ms. Gonçalves).
Race in Brazil is a complicated matter and should not be treated as a surrogate battleground for the race and culture wars of the USA, especially by deracinated Brazilians who should know better. Brazilian racism, the product of Brazil’s own history and circumstances, should be dealt with in its own terms and not by reference to the false and failed dichotomies of “white and black” used in the miserable, pathetic, failed and despised joke democracy of the un-United States.
Sorry, not buying into the notion of cultural appropriation. People adopting facets of other cultures? So crazy! Actually, no, that’s just what people have done since the beginning of time.
What matters to me is whether the adopter is mocking my culture or actually finds it personally appealing. The latter I can’t criticize. You want to use chopsticks? Listen to K-pop? Dye your hair black? That’s… pretty cool.
When did people get this bizarre notion that “My culture is only for me”? When did people start wanting their culture to be exclusive and inapproachable? That’s crazy to me. Go around the world– most people are proud of their culture *and* are excited to share it. I’m of Asian descent– what is the objection to me trying your clothes or eating your food? That I might like it?
Sharing of culture and cultural appropriation aren’t the same thing though. When something that’s culturally important is reduced to costume, I don’t think that’s a healthy way to share culture.
They are exactly the same thing. The only useful distinction of the matter was made by Skim:
“What matters to me is whether the adopter is mocking my culture or actually finds it personally appealing.”
Even then…the central problem is ‘mockery’, not cultural appropriation.
Cultural segregation is **not** a virtue, and errs on the side of racial segregation.
By saying “never individuals, always in lots.” you show that you have learned nothing and are exactly like those, or we, you purport to be so offended by.
Plus, great whitewash on the whole slavery thing.
The Tutsis and the Jews and the Russian military officers and the Chinese Bourgeoisie were all privileged.
Railing against the privileged in a hateful way is dangerous
This essay feels familiar to me. I am a white woman, who grew up in a very white world. I had no black friends for a very long time, not from intentional avoidance, but because there were very few black people in any of my schools or early workplaces.
When I finally, living in the city, began to meet people who had grown up in the black community, I learned that many of the things I said were offensive to my new friends. I didn’t wear a headscarf, but I easily could have done so, out of ignorance. I knew that racism existed, but I didn’t understand the details of how it operated in our society. I was sheltered.
When I first became friends with an “angry black man”, I found his viewpoints very strident, and his anger disconcerting. We weren’t able to bridge the divide – we tried, but we didn’t understand each other well enough, and each felt foreign to the other, so we drifted apart.
Now, many years and many friendships later, I see a thousand ways that our society continues to offer dramatically different opportunities to different people, many of those inequities born through overt current racism and many more born of centuries of historic racism, and I am always learning more. I’ve seen how painful it was for my friends to face the depth of my ignorance, to observe how people like me benefited from a privilege we did not see or appreciate, to see how our ignorance allowed us to happily enjoy that privilege, making no effort to help others.
I also see how some of my white friends, who have not been as exposed to black culture as I, still operate as I did growing up, feeling warmth and respect for people of all races, but uninformed as to many of the details of how racial inequity operates in our society, and to the cultural trigger points that are upsetting for many members of the black community when a white person says them.
Knowing that it hurts people, I wouldn’t wear an African headscarf – to respect the wishes of the community that treasures this symbol is the very least I can do.
At the same time, I do feel some sadness that white people’s ignorance causes such pain, because I think that it sometimes may get in the way of support and connection. None of us feels good when we see reproach, hurt and anger in the eyes of another person, especially when we are well intentioned. This essay explains that having to step so many steps backward in a conversation, to meet an uninformed white person where they are, is tiring, and that it feels very frustrating to be forced always to have conversations on white people’s terms, instead of white people having to make up the distance themselves. That makes sense. I have tried to take as many of the steps as I can myself, and still I know that the steps taken by my friends have felt (and still do often feel) too long and too many to them.
Nonetheless, the reproach that I’ve met has sometimes made it difficult to continue. I sometimes felt hurt. Sometimes, it felt as if a conversation with a friend was putting me in a “white” box, and berating me categorically, instead of meeting me as a caring person. If I had been struggling for my life against cancer, and had made the uninformed mistake of putting on a headscarf, a barrage of criticism would have made an already perilous-seeming world feel even less safe, less hospitable, less welcoming to me.
I also feel that sharing and building upon one another’s inventions is the open, joyful best way for us to live as human beings. I do see though how impossible that is in a world where we have not healed the systemic inequalities that lead to pain over cultural appropriation – only if the appropriation is truly from all groups, by all groups in equal measure could it lead to the happiness I imagine. If the racial distribution of CEOs and janitors mirrored their percentages in the population, if all of the unfair advantages white society has in wealth, health, education, housing and social stereotypes were erased, then I doubt that a white person wearing an African headscarf would be painful. It would then be like an Indian child wearing a kilt and learning to dance an Irish jig, a Mexican man opening up a Persian restaurant – not traditional, but perfectly acceptable, an exchange in a multicultural society. The main problem is not that a few white people fail to realize what the headscarf symbolizes to the black community. The main problem is that the white community has not restored to the black community all of the many, many things it has taken from them, and then adds insult to injury by not even knowing or caring what has happened.
This article does a helpful service in explaining the meaning of the symbol, and more articles like it will surely make more white people sensitive to that perspective. I hope that white people who read it will recognize that avoiding wearing headscarves is a very small sacrifice for them to make to not further hurt and offend a community of people who have already been hurt and offended so much. At the same time, it’s unlikely to reach everyone, and I wonder whether, when that happens, it may be helpful to remember that inequality and indifference are the true source of the deep and ongoing wound. If we focus more on the heart of the issue and less on the symbol, I think that far fewer people will feel the reaction to be too much. I am happy to give up headscarves, but until the greater wound is healed, I fear that white people’s ignorance, in all of its many forms, will continue to pour salt on the wounds of the black community, and that resentment expressed towards uninformed, well-meaning white folks will continue to leave them feeling a bit estranged.
Do you believe that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race??
If not, does it make sense to you to presume a person’s culture and life experience based principally on that person’s race?
OraleHohms: I suggest that you reserve a little bit of your time to read more on the difference between “race” and “ethnicity”. From your questions, I believe that having a clear understanding of those concepts will help you to clarify some things.
I asked questions to Shira (whom you seemingly are not)…which you didn’t answer.
Before you decided to extrapolate my opinions, perhaps you should have considered that I’m asking probing questions so that Shira may elucidate her thoughts on the subject.
But since you’d like to chime in; answer the questions:
Do you believe that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race??
If not, does it make sense to presume a person’s culture (ETHNICITY) and life experience based principally on that person’s race?
The article is beautifully done and makes a great contribution to the debate that must occur at this critical moment in US history. Trump’s ascendancy has exposed the vast number of Aryan racists in the US. Caucasian humans are forced to choose sides. The debate has been joined. The comments here speak to the intense emotion on both sides. Let’s have at it.
If you felt a little startled by this story, I suggest you also check out this article explaining how affirmative action is being implemented in Brazil: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/09/29/495665329/for-affirmative-action-brazil-sets-up-controversial-boards-to-determine-race
sad to see the explosion of “White Fragility,” in the comments after reading such a brilliant piece.
Those white sisters and brothers, who are left with a desire to explore whiteness – even and especially if you are also offended and confused by this article the link below is to an article (from a white U.S perspective) that may be of some use. Regardless, keep seeking understanding.
final thought: white loved ones, We didn’t personally create white supremacy/racism, we inherited it and if we are going to free ourselves from it we have to explore it and take responsibility for our inherited roles in it. Our nature is good, taking responsibility for white supremacy moves us toward Wholeness.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/
Other resources for white people in the US (and possibly elsewhere):
Books, to start with:
* “Why are the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria”
* “Learning to be White”
In Peace and Love,
k
“Whiteness”? What would you say that is?
I hope that The Intercept seriously reconsiders publishing pieces like this in the future. My readership is in jeopardy.
I largely disagree with it but I respect the author’s right to her opinion. Having some stuffed suit in the head office give the thumbs down to story ideas because their politics is wrong is not actually a good thing. A media world of hierarchy and yes-men is what gave us President Trump.
It’s definitely a good thing for people to consider the things this article speaks of. Too many people don’t, which is what I think is the real issue – not what white people can wear. But one of the reasons this issue caused a huge backlash is that people know that equating all cultural appropriation is wrong. They also know how divisive it is. I do think that this kind of thing makes enemies out of the types of people who want to support you the most. Maybe the white lady in the head wrap can’t understand your struggles in the same way as you, but I think there’s a good chance that she wants to.
(Not really for publication but do if you wish.)
Thank-you for a fine article. This caught my eye:
“We’re tired of being characters in jokes that are funny only to you.”
I am about to complete the first comprehensive account of the history and functions of laughter from 6 million years ago to now and, if you are agreeable, I would like to use this quote, probably in the context of the paragraph it ends.
Please let me know if you are happy or not to allow this. I am happy to provide more information. I propose to start publishing my work online in the next couple of months. This account of laughter and humour is unique in history – I hope that is some incentive (I meantunique in a good sense!) and I would love you to be in it.
Best wishes,
Robert Nowak
February 18 2017, 6:19 a.m.
I just wanted to say that your article was absolutely beautifully written and that I thank you for the greater understanding I now have for the common suffering shared between our cultures,and at who’s hand it was by.blessings to you and your family.
There is nothing wrong with headwraps…period.
The concept of not approving of people wearing bits of cloth around their in a certain way based on their ethnic history makes as much sense as those who would ban others from touching certain parts of their body together because of their sex. It’s really none of your business. It means what YOU want it to mean to YOU. To others, it may mean something else. THAT is called personal freedom.
Oppression
Imperialism
Capitalism
Racism
The white folk
Ripping off the African
God don’t like ugly
A god complex race
The Lion will have its day
As Gil Scott Heron rapped
Ain’t no new thang
Europeans steal what they
Can’t become
Cold hearted
Addicted to death
The Lion will have its day!
Nkrumah
Malcolm
Martin
Kwame Ture
Frantz
Marcus
Che
The Mau Mau
The Lion will have its day!
Uhuru!!
Next up…
Listening to and creating rap music is bad… if you’re anything but black.
But heck, let’s just go full cultural appropriation… listening to black people is wrong. Wouldn’t want you, as a person anything but black, adopting thier ideals.
Thought provoking. Thank you.
Ana Maria is ANTI-FREEDOM.
No, little girl. Your skin color does not give you the right to decide who is allowed to wrap cloth around their heads.
Very nice article!
So white Brazilians shouldn’t where head wraps? I don’t know about this. I’m not a fan of cultural appropriation and I’m not a fan of Buzz feed styled articles either but think I see where the authors going was going with this.
But nonetheless, I would have much preferred reading an article about the symbolism behind the Redemption of Ham painting there instead of this piece about the head wrap, would have done a much better job in opening up the subject of racism in Brazil.
This piece to me,on the other hand, just makes racism in Brazil seem like petty issue that revolves around symbolic nonsense when there’s definitely more to it, because racism in Brazil is much alive.
And when you’re bald from chemotherapy, you will go bald, right? The white woman suffers and pays homage to black culture and she is castigated and PATRONized by an effete intellectual. I made it about halfway through this tedious piece. It sounds so familiar and so lame. The writer claims all the suffering and all the virtues of the dead, while enjoying the fruits of privilege and freedom. She’s more free than “whites” because she is privileged to appropriate the suffering of others and so to feel superior. Sorry, that’s self-indulgent and shallow.
When I see a headwrap, I see someone whose head is too warm.
Articles like this belong on Salon, next to rants about belly dancing.
Hi Doug
Can the white people quoting MLK in the comments just stop.
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
“Young black activists say that, based on conversations within their various movements, it is unlikely one of them would make such a comment.”
Is something just lost in translation here? Cause this article sure sounds like such a comment itself.
Also, what are people in recovery from chemo, or people with alopecia, supposed to wear? Using this girl as the stand-in for “priveleged white woman” is so bizarre, and glossing over the specific details of whatever social media firestorm seemingly precipitated this article is a little sloppy. Why not just use a picture of one of the many generic privileged white women? Very hard to accept the rage leveled against that poor girl but otherwise I thought this was beautifully and thoughtfully written.
A wig
Sure. I get that there are other options and I think I understand and am open to/appreciate the politics behind it. I have a friend with alopecia in the US (so already different context) who wears head wraps often though honestly not sure they are specifically African. So just made me wonder about that particular point.
I’m still very confused what the passage I cited was supposed to mean. I don’t understand why these anonymous young black activists title as “activists” is relevant and what is the point being made that it’s “unlikely one of them would make such a comment” and do they mean it’s unlikely that anyone from their various unspecified movements would make such a comment, or just them personally? It’s confusing no?
To argue against ‘cultural appropriation’, one must adopt an ideology of racial segregation.
Remember: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength!
What makes a race feel solidarity? If it was not you on the anthill, or your son being massacred, what links you to him? Well, there is common hardship – you face the same stupid racist comments as others, so you feel closer to those victims. But … if we end the hardship, then there is no special link that only you share, and we can all feel as we should feel — that it is our race, the human race, that has been oppressed and maltreated.
It is only natural for those in the worse position in a segregated society to cherish what little they are given. If people accept there is a black beach and a white beach, then one can hardly expect blacks to be enthusiastic about race-mixing at their beach, because the next step is for it to be designated Whites Only. And yet — today there are no black beaches in the U.S., and that is no loss at all. The same is true of segregated occupations, even segregated clothing.
It follows that whites can indeed appropriate customs without shame, provided the intent is honest. One must accept that blacks continue to have the custom and the right to it and the right to do it as they want, and not allow for the slightest machination of excluding them and replacing how they do it. In other words, if a white girl wants to wear a head scarf and feel good about it, great! If a few white girls in every schoolhouse like to wear the things, it will be harder for some bigoted schoolmaster to start a stupid crusade to ban them. On the other hand, if the goal were only to “dress up like blacks” for some purpose of mocking them and making them feel self-conscious, then it would be a very ugly thing to do. Still within their nominal rights as human beings, but not in a way that should go without criticism.
We should remember that one day all this anti-black racism is going to end. And that day is not far off! I want to give you a magic spell here, something to remember when it seems like it won’t: “Non Angli, sed angeli.” What that is is the sixth-century equivalent of “Black is Beautiful”, but it wasn’t said about blacks. It was said about the English, by Pope Gregory the Great, who saw pale-skinned slave children at the market and spoke out against the practice! It meant, “not Angles but angels”.
Believe you me, prejudice against blacks will end and end so thoroughly that no one can imagine it ever was. And yes, there will be some “appropriation” that goes with that – some taking and some taking back. Today people think that Martin Luther King, Jr., was a great black leader — but that is not what history will say! History will say that, like Pope Gregory, he was a great Christian. And I do expect that is what God will say in the end.
However much white people are fetishizing head wraps, I think you’re fetishizing them a lot more.
Ana! I want to say first this was beautifully written, just brilliant and I am even more happy to wear my wrap so to connected to you and the rest of my sisters across the diaspora. Thank you for the links included on subjects and people I know nothing about but now I will know. This was really amazing.
Seeking pity is not a virtue nor is bemoaning the incorporation of great things into the rest of civilization as being usurped.
Unfortunately this article of the black head wraps is deplorable and and its superficiality equated to accessory as insult when used in fashion is uncalled. Bandana or paliacatevis from Mexicans yet I see the Africans anywhere in the world using it as a head wrap.
Just as the head wrap has these two meanings: comfort and pain, the same can be said of the stolen Mexican lands and the destruction of ENTIRE AZTEC and Mayan culture because the African American or black peoples many don’t understand that the “border crossed the Mexican and their lands” not the opposite. One could write the same kind and style of writing but there are deeper thing when it comes to DIGNITY of a human being/person. ( the Jewry believed in their upbringing and culture that they are the only humans on planet earth and any non-Jew (gentile or goyim in Hebrew) is worst than a dog/animal) A verified fact.
– Alejandro Grace Ararat
thank you for writing this <3
We should all of course demand clear divisions between races and strict dress codes. Ethno-nationalism forever!!! Total surveillance of our daily lives by internet-based heritage enforcement squads!!!
Articles like this do immense damage to the left and to any sense of solidarity. Putin and Trump are laughing their asses off.
you should visit my culture, where most people would wonder what that thing on your head is no matter what color you are. equality.
Thank you so much for this amazing text!
Fatuous. From classical Greece and Rome to this!
I came for the folklore, I stayed (and comment) for the literacy.
Multi-lingual cognition holds a fuller ‘germ of an idea;’ as artful folk-scripture, (‘my’ ancestry), induces in mind a wholesome durable leap that’s greater than the sum of its steps.
Seeing this contribution here, (and I picked it out of a list too long to read them all – picked this one, for whatever reason), broadened and improved my favorable opinion of The Intercept. Counter point being my second opinion contention that The Intercept is a geo-chess gambit in some plotted meta-motive toward cognitive infiltrations.
That is, I love this woman in words, I wonder what’s contained, or released, or signified, or dignified, if anything in this pleasing occasion tracking her thoughts and concerns with mine.
We synchronized thoughts when she said, “headwrap,” and I transliterated the meaning of, ‘mindset’ or ‘worldview,’ (a wrap inside the head, the interior mental personality terms of character).
I study to learn dimensions of character in human nature. So far, the strongest influence (but not pre-determination) as I see human nature — strongest because something of it is built into each person’s genetic instruction; people cry, “we have now owner’s instructions manual for life, no operation manual for the software.” Ah, but there is. Instructions for life are built in, or pre-built, since humankind began, call it political correctness or civility or mutual amity, about 6,000 years ago. Human nature, humankind, humanity DNA began. Replicating itself.
Point being: humanity or humaneness began about the same time in several separate places around our planet. About 6000 years ago. (Briefly, in DNA sequencing.) An example is Egypt when there were pyramids, burial-of-dead-with-possessions, pharoahs, annualized ritual (solar, contra lunar), floods, Hebrews, upriver contraband, plagues, heiroglyphic proto-literacy, ‘see the symbol, say the sound,’ stele markers, monarchs, vizars, scribes and astrologers – all mixing together (in Jungian archetypes) and in no particular order. About 6000 years ago my study of humankind, and the gene of human nature, begins.
So we read in synch that was perfectly contained in mutual regard for Nei Lopes’ poem, in which I soared from and sailed beyond the moment in the line, “separating the pharoahs and pyramids / from the African context.” That’s right. Those can’t be separated. Together inseparable in the timeline, funda-mentally. Saying ‘African context’ means human character, human nature. Seeded 6000 years ago.
I read, I soared, thank you.
As a heretofore white liberal, I am fucking tired of this. This is dividing the left and undermining so much of the things we can agree on that we are trying to fight for. I stand for people’s freedom to wear whatever they want, even if it means the delegitimation of another culture. What really matters about a culture can’t be delegitimated by the appropriation of something as superficial as clothing.
God, yes.
Keep this stuff in academic conferences and leave the rest of us alone.
It’s so hard — bordering on impossible — to organize the working class and create a sense of solidarity without this constant return to the “circular firing squad” formation.
I’m queer and grew up in the 80s — in the Suffering Sweepstakes, I feel like I’d actually outcompete a lot of people who assume that they have much to teach me about being a marginalized minority — and I’m sick of the nonsense.
Nobody wants to hear my disquisition on the uniqueness of my identity and the ways in which it has been appropriated, and I don’t want to hear yours. If you have a compulsion to start petty, divisive, unproductive squabbles — if you’re totally unwilling to pick your battles wisely or build coalitions — then you are serving entrenched power.
To state the obvious: a privileged white woman who enjoys African dress is indicating, whether consciously or not, that she is a potential ally in meaningful fights. Rather than recruit her, you’d prefer to eviscerate her on style points while trying to claw your way into some sort of Best Identity-Based Internet Essays of 2017 anthology.
Another escape from the complexities of the real world into simplistic black and white schemes. Also known as “We are good and they are bad.” Didn’t expect this from The Intercept, though.
Will humanity ever grow up?
If this article was written by an alt right person in the US, I would have not read it through its entirety. However, I hoped it would redeem itself in the end. I was wrong. This is the most racist piece of trash I have read since Mein Kampf. It’s main focus was stereotyping and generalizing any other race besides black. Do you not realize that the Jews you hate have been wrapping their heads for millennia? Do you not realize they were also slaves? Do you not realize when they immigrated from Europe they were subject to persecution that made them stop wearing head wraps? Their is still a deeply ingrained racism again white people wearing head wraps. They are considered eastern European. The opposite of racism would be to treat each individual on their own merits without prejudice. I do not wish to trade one brand of racism for another. Please try to think that other people have their own histories and truths before attacking their actions of which you are woefully ignorant.
EVERYONE has suffered, and ANYONE can wear whatever the fuck they want on their head, even if it IS fucking ugly
oes There are many peoples in the world who have lost the connections to their heritage, mostly due to discrimination. Jew in USA can not follow their lineage in Russian areas because synagogues were destroyed in WWII. I went to the library in salt lake Utah when it was announced that they had obtained birth and death records from Russia, I thought I could trace my lineage. Apart form all the records being hand written in old Russian, they were all from Churches. My Jewish ancestors The Museum of the Holocaust in WASH dc . listed there little town sa having been destroyed in WWII. Any gov’t records were also destroyed.
Luckily, reparations were paid to Holocaust survivors, and their children and grandchildren have been allowed to live and prosper, keep their names, not have your language destroyed and much more, with far less oppression than the Blacks in America, South America and many other places. Not the same, and can we please just let the people in this article have it be about them?
The blacks have suffered! Are you alone? My history and heritage are both Slovak and celts Slovak the root word for slave are some of the original slaves and yes they are white. the celts were also slaves of the colonies brought from Ireland to work the minds and fields the indigenous Indian that is my wife’s heritage were also used as slaves as were the Chinese that worked on the railroads you are not alone. what sets you apart is your skin color. you are easily recognized. when cotton and sugar cane was imported from the islands they brought more black to America. originally less than half a million were imported directly to America. When my father immigrated to the states he found many signs that said Irish need not apply. subjugation and segregation have been around for centuries. slavery was highly practiced in Africa. The one thing I do know is that you can never be accepted into any society by violence or demonstration. our Martin Luther King set the example of peaceful demonstration but you choose to follow the Malcolm x example instead. We all have choices to make in life so why do the masses choose violence over peaceful demonstration? The Irish were shunned as nonhuman but we occupy the highest and most respected places in government and America. the same with the Jew, Italian, and many other races. all overcoming their barriers imposed by society. I grew up in a mixed-race neighborhood and had many friends of all races. My thoughts were never of spicks niggers Jews or wops I ate at their table and them ours and were as welcome as the family. even now my friends who are black want nothing to do with the uncivilized actions that seem to be the point of any demonstration. You state that black lives matter but it is the black that takes more of their own lives than white or any other race. why do you then point the finger at the white? Look to government and how they use you. Until you awaken to this fact you will never step out from under the thumb of slavery. it is easier to blame someone else for your own shortcomings. I refused the easy way government offered and now live a comfortable life as part of the middle class. A neighbor who is black also made it out and most see where he went. He is Dr. Ben Carson. part of the president’s cabinet. The friends who took governments hand are still in Detroit along with the third generation who are on assistance and still dirt poor. In truth, it may be harder for the black to step out of the norm that government has created but not imposable. we all have choices. we must step back and see what works. We all have choices do you want to win a skirmish or win a war?
Grampa
Grampa,
Where did the author refer to violence? I am unsure as to what point you are trying to make by again belittling black people with the exception of those that choose to assume that everything is great with the world as it is. I am a middle class black person that earns in excess of $300K per annum but that does not prevent a cop from pulling a gun on me and telling me I look like a gangbanger from the southside in my own office (that really happened). The author is focusing on the deepness of our roots as black people, the ease with which we can be targeted just by the color of our skin. You cannot tell that a person is Irish just by looking at them. That is not to diminish the challenges they face but just fact. I do not understand why it is so hard to understand that all the Black Lives Matter is trying to achieve is to ask others to look at us as people, not just based on the color of our skin. The fallacy that blacks that complain are those looking for handouts from the government is also disingenuous. There are lots of us that are doctors, engineers, accountants. We don’t need handouts, we need people to treat us as peers not underlings.
Wise words Grampa. My thoughts exactly. People are people. We have all had historical challenges. I was raised Jewish and had family members in concentration camps. My parents never finished high school but they always taught me to treat everyone the same. Some of my dearest friends were white catholics and african american christians. My black friends lived in the ghetto, did not blame anyone for their plight and picked themselves up, went to school. One became a medical tech and the other two opened a hair salon instead of being on welfare. They chose to do that. My Dad worked hard all of his life, made sacrifices and without a diploma went into business himself. When he was in school, his parents would pull him out to work. No BS, no excuses, no blaming. I could blame everyone for my issues. I went to college, PAID for it myself. Paid ALL of my STUDENT loans. Did not expect my parents to pay, did not complain, that I am a women, jewish, my family was tortured, blah blah blah. We create our own reality. We can speak up, help others, doing something positive, work together and create a better word. Alejandro Grace Ararat, why did you comment if you were going to complain about Blacks and Jews. WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS!!!! Open your minds, take POSITIVE ACTION! STOP WHINING!!!!
The Jews, Irish, Italians, Slovaks etc success in this country has been aided by them all haveing a common valued commodity: light skin color. The darker your skin the less value is placed on your humanity.
This cultural appropriation stuff is going too far. To me, the point of living in a multicultural society is you are exposed to the ideas, customs, foods, clothing and everything else the other people living with you brought to the society. You are free, indeed should be free, to adopt the ones you find appealing.
Almost none of the foods I eat are products of “my” culture. My clothing is a mixed bag of proletarian blue jeans, Western formal attire, shirts and jackets with patterns and designs from everywhere. My music collection ranges from sambas to symphonies.
Certainly disrespectful, mocking cultural misappropriations like minstrel shoes, and college fraternities’ seeming endless number of “theme” parties where attendants dress in parodies of other people’s dress and act in stereotypical ways are offensive, and should be called out. Wearing an African headdress because all your hair fell out and you though it was beautiful is not disrespectful. A long, grievance-filled, largely tangential screed because the wearer was white – now that’s disrespectful.
A cultural appropriation hit-piece on the intercept? It’s really us against them, nicely separated by color, right? The author is a petty, pitiful racist.
When you visit an indian, excuse me, native american, reservation, (even though indians did not call themselves indians or americans much less call their land America), you can sit in a tee-pee, indian-style, with other indians of the tribe, and pass the peyote, smoke together, talk, meditate, and relate. Just like Walker Texas Ranger. You can be a friend. Be accepted. And the only way, is to adopt the cultural ways and garb. You do it in friendship, in kinship, and in understanding.
It does not matter, the color of your skin. Your so called “white priviledge” doesn’t allow you to barge in on a meeting. You ask nicely, you show respect, and you make friends.
This article suggests that it is impossible, and they are unwilling to accept any white person. They are all guilty of their ancestors crimes, even if their bloodlines don’t touch africa or the slave trade at all. The accident of their pigment is enough. They are simply guilty, guilty, guilty, no judge, no jury, no burden of proof, just an academic text book and a pissed off college professor is all you need.
If you are sensitive to a white person or light skinned person, culturally appropriating a head wrap, you might ask, nicely, why they chose to wear it. You might be surprised to find out it could be in solidarity! Or it could be, they like the style, the same way they learned to like chinese, mexican, or italian food.
Are we all supposed to stop eating food from other cultures now? What about my shirt that was made in a bangladeshi sweat shop? Should I assume it is stritly for them to wear? Should we stop using chinese cell phones, japanese computers or cars? Should I stop listening to Rush because they are Canadian? No that would never happen!
I am sorry if you feel offended, but we are well into the 21st century, we have the internet. You don’t have to be a christian, but I recommend it… Not the tv prea her kind, but the good samaritan kind… We all benefit when we understand others cultures and l think by now, it is time you learned what that means.
There is no white privileage. We are not all rich trust fund kids. We did not go to the same church. Some never went. Many were in, gasp, public school! We never attacked any kid because of the color of their skin. We might have play faught on the playground, or played tag, or dodgeball.
We were/are not privileged! We get pulled over by the same cops you do. When they write a ticket, we get pissed, just like you do. When they try to “build the stop” by searching the car through the window, or when they look at your prescription medication as if you are a dealer or user of illicit drugs, you get pissed as much as I do.
Stop this cultural divisiveness. Be proud that others find your culture interesting!
White, black, or whatever!
Thank your for your comments , got me to thinking as a child I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood , blacks , italians , jews , irish and it’s funny none of them made me feel like a outcast didn’t realize a difference until I went to school and the teachers pointed out the difference, but playing with the kids on the block was all together different it was all about who could win the games that we played outside after school , the Ice cream parlor was ran by a Italian family where we all went after school to get ice cream and hamburger & french fries and play the jukebox and if you cause any trouble you were ban from the store for a week or two depending on your crime , nobody wanted to be ban because you would miss out on everything, it was one place where your parents could find you everyday and Tony the owner would tell your parents if you acted out and then your parents would ground you, my first job was turning out lights for the Jewish people in the neighborhood on the weekends and was paid 25 cents a household , I was rich at the end of the day, candy store here I come from Mr. Goldman’s candy store and Mr. Goldman would even let you buy candy on credit , had your name written on a list knew every kid on the block as a matter of fact mostly all the store owners knew all the kid on the block and their parents It was a different day back then , one by one the italians , Jewish, Scottish moved out and we were left with us and hate to say it but it’s real the black on black crimes began at least in my world something change in me , being a only child I wanted friends but most of the kids came from big families and would jump you starting with the youngest because maybe you had something that they didn’t and they would fight you for it , as I got older and grown I saw prejudice in the schools at work subtle but there, I saw light skin , pretty get more and it still exist today not just with my people but in other cultures too now my neighborhood is going thru gentrification and I’m very confuse with my feelings because I’m so seeing people that look like me I can’t understand why these people are here the same people who didn’t want us around are here in packs some speak some look straight ahead . The prices at our local stores have went up because of this gentrification and I don’t think its fair, so most of the time we all shop elsewhere but for a quick run we still patronize the locals and they don’t even come from here but have always had businesses here but lived somewhere else , some people say well the neighborhood will improve and services will be better and I say it should have improved a long time ago for the people who already live here but then I remember it was a better place when it was diverse a long time ago , at the end of the day I’m trying to change back to the open mind of my youth trying to be the old dog that learns new tricks
I really liked this article from a cultural perspective, however I sensed a strong underlying racial stereotyping. Hard to avoid when you start off with a premise of racial bias.
Its a f-cking head scarf! Worn by my mother in the 1960’s-70’s, my grandmother in the 1950’s, and her mother before her in 1920′-40’s. And we’re Irish immigrants to the USA. I live in Italy now and almost every elderly woman has one. So in 2016, its an African thing not to be “appropriated.” That’s cool. It was not really attractive anyway. You can also have that… and hair curlers, perms, and chain smoking Pall Malls in you want.
Racists behind every hat, sneaker, pair of jeans, and skirt across continents and time. Sigh…OK. If that makes you happy to believe so……
I wonder what people reading this 3 generations from now will think? Will they think we are as stupid as we really are? Somehow quaint, innocent, or misguided in our concepts of race and culture? Will this read like Cold War propaganda from 1950? Yes…I think it will….The word is trite. Its trite. The article is entertaining and trite.
Just another racist diatribe from the social justice perpetual outrage machine. Ignored.
One could also argue that people battling cancer = who might die soon have other problems than worrying about fxxxing head scarfs.
Although there is no denying that black women are much more oppressed than white women in america (north and south), some of these arguments are similar to the ones made by neo-nazis in order to not let refugees in a country like “they will come and steal our jobs, culture and so on meanwhile they will “infect” us with their culture”. As an immigrant in i wasn’t allowed to take part in some cultural events because i was’t a native. Cultural exchance, even when it’s not done properly, can help bring communities closer and demolish stereotypes.
The turban was invented in Persia. This is the stupidest article I’ve ever read. Shame on HP to publish this shit from The Interception.
Whether you despise or discomfit privilege, you should never abandon the aim of understanding or forgiveness. We all carry the baggage of those whose skin we wear, and it adds an indelible veneer to any message of hope we wish to share. When a compliment is taken as condescending approval, we’ve missed an opportunity to connect. Just remember that you feel injustice whether you reject the structure or it rejects you.
I don’t believe the author takes offense at one crime of fashion, but the 100,000 papercuts that were lanced cruelly in response. The depth of that pain makes the song cried out more beautiful.
The comments section here is soaked in white tears. Watch out! The river you are creating will wash the world away, but based on these thoughts perhaps that would be the best. Its amazing how through your twists in logic – abracadabra- the victim becomes the victimizer. Some of us though are used to your magic and haven’t been convinced that the rabbit wasn’t under your hat the entire time. I must see the humor in it all or I could cry.
Unfortunately, the world is a bit more complex than black and white. There are all sorts of privilege and oppression, some of them we might even not be aware of yet. It’s called “intersectionality”.
You may not be able to see it but some of these tears you call “white” are actually of a certain species and not of certain race.
Ugh, I’m so sick of this American racial resentment damaging the cultural legacy of Latin America. I’m glad I still live in a place where I can call a black person Negra and it’s viewed as an endearment term rather than someone getting outraged and demanding some civil rights BS.
I’ve collected scarves from many countries. I wear them. Not the same type, or style.
On one of my journeys to the jungle I had my very long hair braided. It was going to be hot & humid.
I was harassed, repeatedly, before I left. The women claiming I was “trying to be black” were indeed sporting hair styles that white women often wear. I don’t have to straighten, iron, oil, my hair. It never upset me.
I can’t claim to understand what other people have experienced, nor, can they call me filthy names for wearing a scarf in my hair.
I’ve also had handmade jewelry given to and made for me by Asian women, Indian women, indigenous Americans, Italians, etc. Does wearing it make me racist?
I wish for the empowerment of ALL people.
I find this article, in an excellent publication, sadly divisive.
The “place of Whiteness”? Really? And would you care to explain how this notion is anything other than blatant, hypocritical racism, or will you just delete the comment?
Wow, that didn’t take long to take my initial comment off. I was simply trying to state that nobody owns anything exclusively, and to try to make anything allowable only to certain people is basic bigotry 101, and it applies to black folks too.
I remember Carmen Miranda and her famous head dress. I never thought it was a racist symbol. Or the Famous Baiana dress, I thought it was lovely. How times have changed.
It is unfortunate that the black Brazilian woman who invented the headscarf did not patent it. What Brazil needs is several dozen American intellectual property lawyers to rewrite the country’s laws to prevent this type of injustice. Otherwise intellectual property will continue to be ripped off with no compensation.
Benito (el/le duce?) is known for his witty provacative satire not meant to be advice and, once in a while otherwise opinion. This one is different. IT’S BOTH and SPOT ON.
Wake up creators! You can also get DESIGN PATENTS!
get busy.
Dear Non-White People. Nobody on the planet owns, or has exclusive rights to, any hairstyle, hair color, dress, makeup, music, language, style, food, religion, thoughts, or anything else. White people can, and will, do as they please, and you’ll just have to get over it. Maybe just go to your safe space, your place of blackness, suck on your binkies, and weep, and try to grow the f*ck up!
Very disappointed that something like this would get published on The Intercept.
As a Brazilian living in the US for the last 20 years I must say that this article saddens me. Even though the US has a great and rich history of civil rights movement, from which we can learn so much, there is an ever present leaning toward segregation that I now see reflected in this article. I hope Brazilians find our own way of overcoming the undeniable inequalities rooted on race in our country without choosing segregation of any form.
Segregation is part of the problem, not the solution. Please, look what it’s done to this and other countries. You are now proposing the same white supremacists have always wanted: “You stay with yours and I stay with mine.”
By the way, I can’t really tell the ethnicity of the girl so many think should not be wearing the head wrap. Which is very common in Brasil and a wonderful thing! Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
There are 4 problems/limitations/characteristics that human beings are saddled with that prevent integration.
1. familiarity and identity, belonging
2. mental efficiency and habituation, simplicity
3. specialisation, refining, delimiting, intolerance
4. competition for resources
Each of these make-up components defeats integration of differences culturally.
In order to have integration, external forces are needed to reward becoming so – and i do not see that happening.
So you’re with george wallace? segregation now, segregation forever?
keep black music black!
Yikes. So whites generalize blacks, and the answer is to generalize whites?
And they say the US is racist…
I don’t think you read the article… the author goes out of her way to talk about the connections white Brazilians have with their diverse heritage.
god, what nonsense. i’m not even sure what the facts are. you once couldn’t wear your head wrap, but now you can, but now white women are also wearing them, and that’s bad because . . . you once couldn’t??? is that right? it’s not enough that you can wear what you want, and everyone can wear what they want? now you want to tell other people what they shouldn’t wear??? that can’t be right, it’s too stupid
> I remember seeing a sign at the recent Women’s March that asked, “I’ll see you nice white ladies at the next #BlackLivesMatter march, right?”
that question would only make sense at a White Women’s or #WhiteLivesMatter march. but then again rational thinking is one the white man’s many tools of oppression
Butt hurt, are you?
Right over you head huh? Tou may want to work on reading comprehension before you try that “rational thinking” thing again. Lol
They both have and are protesting the same oppressor.
So it would therefore only make moral sense to want to support each other.
But the push for change, outrage at injustice, etc. never seems to come from the lighter side when cried out by the darker.
This is sadly a worlwide thing
It is very sad to watch that afro-brazilians are falling prey of cultural colonialism coming from the US and adopting reactionary concepts such as “cultural appropriation” and the racist “one drop rule” – things that make sense in the segregationist US, but did not belong in Brazil until recently.
Ironically, Brazil has a sad history of opposition to cultural appropriation against afro-brazilians. Most afro-brazilian cultural manifestations have an element of appropriation of European and Catholic culture and in the past there was serious repression of these things: from syntretic religions such as Candomblé to Carnaval. A canon of Brazilian literature – O Pagador de Promessa – tells the story shows of a conflict surrounding the appropriation of Catholic elements by Candomblé practitioners.
Brazilian culture is what it is because the taboos against cultural appropriation were defeated. In the early in XX century, Carnaval was the source of civil rights struggle against the prohibition of “african” parades, to preserve Carnaval as a Catholic, European celebration. Luckily, the appropriation was successful.
cultural colonialism exactly
culture hijacking
a new market to be discovered and exploited
the rationales vary
but it’s always
money money money muh…….nee……
muh..nee..
What a bunch of Regressive Left racist crap.
This is a leftist (liberal)newspaper,everyone in the world except you knew that.Did you make a wrong turn on the internet from Breitbartt or Alex jones?
no logical points debunking any of the author’s points.
Bye troll
What makes you think this is Left racist crap. For one thing it is the right that is fostering racism in the USA not the left that fights against racism. That being said I am a progressive and all this stuff about cultural appropriation is pure BS. We hear the same nonsense from so called Native Americans. Fact is there is no such thing as stealing the culture of another. Making a big deal over a head scarf is nonsense. When you watch tv or drive a car is that cultural appropriation since both of these things were not invented by Native Americans or Blacks? Do Blacks in modern society’s really want to live by what their more primitive culture used to be without any modern devices that were not invented by blacks? Do native americans want to do without modern medicine or their car or tv? If they answer truefully they would say no they do not want to live as their ancesters did and neither would white people want to live in times past where whites were savages and did not have the benefit of modern medicine and various inventions that make all of our lives better. So get over it and realize that will all learn from each other and we all have the benefit of the best of what was our individual cultures. Today we melt and mix and create a new culture and none of us should be unwilling to share elements of what we are and what we used to be instead of fostering divisions by making the false claim that a element of your culture is being ” stolen” by others while at the same time you take advantage and benefit from aspects of a culture different from your own just as we all do. Stop with the racial divisiveness and be grateful all of us benefit from the ideas and inventions of all races that came before us.
Without intending to do so, you have proven the writer’s case. You misunderstand what appropriation is. Appropriation is to criminalize or marginalize the culture of another for years, and then to adopt its tenets for yourself only without honoring or acknowledging where it originated. So the article references Fung Shei, why? Because its not appropriation as when practicing the tenets we acknowledge the Japanese culture it originates in. We acknowledge, when we eat sushi, its Japanese as well. But in Brazilian and, also US culture, when it derives of Africa or Africans, we never acknowledge it as such. Often we criminalize and marginalize it as long as the practice remains exclusively black or African, but transform it into a feature of the dominate culture, intrinsically Brazilian or intrinsically American, once the practice spreads. In other words, Africans are robbed of the acknowledgement that their culture contributed anything to society, whereas practices or foods that originate in Europe or Asia are forever applied and recognized for where they derived and how they are fused with a separate culture.
You helped make this point when you brought up driving cars. Black people contributed to every aspect of the creation of the car. From patents of steam engines, to the first automatic transmission vehicle. Hell, before Ford, there was Patterson who created the first factory-line consumer-focused cars in America serving a global market.
This is the appropiation discussed. Any culture or invention created by people of African discent is applied to the glories of the West or white people. The over-arching Western culture gets the credit, and the African is forgotten. Anything created by the European however is forever remembered as a European invention, as is the nationality of European.
Obviously we want to share our culture – we just don’t want to be erased from said culture as it is shared. We don’t want all the positive we’ve contributed to modern life erased, so that we are left only with the negative stereotypes of said culture, and our history is assumed to have ceased somewhere in the 1450s such that, in your words, our primitive contributions are all we can be thought of – such that our timeline stopped with the transatlantic slave trade and everything we have contributed is erased and absorbed as inventions of whiteness.
You don’t have cars, you don’t have cell phones, you don’t have various medical technologies, you don’t have a whole host of modern inventions without Africans – and yet you are quick to appropiate all modern inventions to a sense of whiteness, and relegate our contributes to the far off past.
This was the basis of the article, and the poem at the end. Share don’t consumer our culture and reinvent it your own.
“For one thing it is the right that is fostering racism in the USA not the left that fights against racism. That being said I am a progressive and all this stuff about cultural appropriation is pure BS.”
The notion of ‘cultural appropriation’ is purely borne of racism.
How does the left’s peddling of ‘cultural appropriation’ constitute ‘fights against racism’????
“Stop with the racial divisiveness and be grateful all of us benefit from the ideas and inventions of all races that came before us.”
I completely agree.
This article was racist and the author is a racist. White people are a race, and her obvious hatred of them makes her a racist.
Haha!
This is a real disappointment coming from the Intercept. A white person (and to be fair, this woman appears to be at least biracial) embracing the shared culture of her home country should not be stigmatized due to the perception of her racial identity based exclusively on her skin color. It’s obviously not a sign of hate and I ultimate fail to see how it is a “commercialization” of african heritage. If one is worried about the preservation of their native culture, I’d be more concerned with the adoption of outside culture by the members of the native group. When members outside the native-group take part in the culture of another, they are actually contributing to the preservation of that identity. Is it not more an issue for the members of the african diaspora to leave their own cultural traditions behind in favor of adopting non-native (such as western) lifestyles?
Get lost, you don’t own the head scarf. Throughout history the peasant women of Europe wrapped scarfs around their heads. The cheek of it! Neither did you invent maths. Maths was probably invented simultaneously in many different places. Also the populations of the areas where the first mathematical tablets were found probably had a very different population at the time, to the one there now. As we all know that civilisation started in the warmer parts of this planet, presumably because it was easier to live there.
Also the reality is that it’s only the very rich who know their ancestry going back a long way, for everyone else it disappears, and most know people don’t much about their family history beyond their grandparents, and great grandparents, which is probably as much as you know. Nasty bitter article. Grow up. You don’t own any part of culture, most early civilisations grew up in similar ways, though with slightly varying traditions, which are fine things, and should be preserved, but the assumption that something belongs exclusively to one culture is ridiculous, especially when we all know that humans started trading very early on.
Cultural appropriation is such bullsh*t. Shameful that the Intercept thought this was worthy of posting.
I do see some racism here, but it’s not from the young girl wearing the headscarf.
The menorah throw-away line seems a bit anti-Semitic, as there are good reasons why Jewish people would treasure a religious symbol passed down for generations.
In the same breath you argue (rightly) that women of color should not be generalized, and yet, you do just that to white women.
As other commenters have argued, the cultural appropriation shtick is getting old and is a distraction from the real problems facing communities of color all over the world. Cultures have always borrowed, exchanged, rearranged, etc. It’s not wrong or bad for a young white woman to wear a head wrap any more than it is for a young Brazilian to wear a baseball cap or blue jeans.
anti-semitic???? wow, how easily that is applied.
“the cultural appropriation shtick is getting old” because it is old because it is a way of life for some people/s.
if anything is getting old, it’s that anti-semitic accusation as the weapon of choice.
i’m not racist and i cannot be racist because i am wearing a colorful head wrap. And i bought it at the department store for $29.95
COLORS.
Most people in America are not familiar with colors. Certainly not the loud or provocative or bright ones. But in latin cultures south of the border, they are everywhere and are indicative of a pervasive persistent will to celebrate life. The image of the lady above (Demonstrator wearing a head wrap at the Black Women’s March Against Racism in Brasília on Nov. 18, 2015. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr./Agência Brasil) is common – even for some cultures in America. Also note her beaming smile. It’s a wonderful thing.
At the ROOTS, the causation is an inborn physiological difference. Some people are born with a fear of environment which manifests into a fear of criticism then a desire for perfection then into an attitude of political correctness all of which frequently jumps out into daring adventures of artistic fashion as if to rediscover something buried in one’s soul. Other people are more accepting of the natural differences of life on the ground which manifests into the celebration of the differences in colors.
The clash of these two resultant cultures is the basis for many problems today. Electing perfectionists is not any kind of solution, it is a problem.
I would ask that people use culture of USA instead of American culture considering that America encompasses two continents north and south
will keep that in mind, thanks.
Hey Ana Maria,
In making the transition from self-identifying as a corporate advertising executive to a chic literary child of the African diaspora, have you ever questioned your own propensity for counter- cultural appropriation? Or the effort made by fringe race-centric groups (eg. BLM) to supplant the broader aims of the Black Liberation Movement with their own radically niche agenda? How are you or BLM any different from those “white” women who assume that a headdress is an appropriate symbol of cross-cultural empathy and/or solidarity? The very act of gratuitously defining yourself as a “being without a defined belonging” is a form of literary appropriation, is it not? After all, if empathy alone is not enough justification for “white” women donning cross-cultural symbols of solidarity, then what right do you have speaking for those whose cultural alienation you do not share on an ongoing basis?
You don’t understand, Karl.
Minorities cannot appropriate anything because they are victims and therefore beyond reproach.
“White” people, OTOH, become racists if they so much as eat a burrito.
you can do better than that.
victims of cultural hijacking need to realise that eating a burrito is just the effect or consequence of a larger trend called “Adopt-a-Culture” as is evident of where and from whom you can get those burritos…. Pared Calle
So, I cancer victim who wraps her bald head in a cloth is a racist.
Articles like this reveal both the lunacy and the intellectual bankruptcy of the left.
One is an admirer.
Many is an apologetic wave of political correctness.
Mass is an act of economic piracy.
Q. Where did that ONE obtain the wrap?
Someone wearing a head wrap because they are getting chemo or radiation is not racism, it’s someone who has cancer dealing with their illness.
Getting in someone’s face over this, whether or not they have cancer is rude.
While I fully support the unnamed woman’s right to be rude, she was being a jerk, and should be called out as such.
On a more general level, the entire cultural appropriation shtick is crap.
Cultures borrow from each other, and lend to each other.
The only ones that don’t are dead (note my use of Yiddish up above as an example of cultural interchange).
In addition to completely lacking intellectual rigor or an understanding of how cultures interact, these arguments are akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Borrowing from other cultures is ok, as long as you give credit where it is due. Remember Bo Derek and her braids? It was such an “exotic” “cool” thing when she wore them, but Black women never got any credit, hell, they can’t even wear them in the military
oh for pete’s sake haha
“but you still think you are qualified to offer your opinion”
People are allowed to disagree with critical race theory and postmodern leftism and still have opinions on things.
One of the funny things about pieces like these is that things like “cultural ownership” (a scary term imo) is that the writer always presents it as a completely logical, factual thing. As if it was chemistry. But it’s not, it’s a highly subjective idea subject to a whole bunch of interpretations, on historical, cultural, social, moral, even practical level, in which if you asked one million people for their respective opinions, you’d have a million answers with a solid number of blocs of agreement.
Rather than do the legwork, most pieces just take on a moralist stance: those who don’t agree with these concepts being outside the realm of acceptable debate. Hence the quoted section. I notice this style more broadly doesn’t seem to be winning elections, but that’s another point.
And in the long run, in such a globalized capitalist world, you aren’t going to convince anyone not to wear a particular thing on their head for this-or-that cultural reason. Or, if you do, Richard Spencer and his ilk get justifiably empowered to do the same thing. I’d prefer if neither group did. The reason you are being called a segregationist is because of your support for cultural segregation.
It’s a hat… and although I can respect its origins, the segregation preached in the article is disturbing. What’s needed, globally, is unification, empathy and inclusiveness. Should I discard my beautiful kufi because I wasn’t born in Africa? I weep for humanity when I read an article like this.
determining the motive is perhaps what is at the heart of it and what is at stake.
There is so much legitimate anger in this piece. Brazilians – and all peoples of every nation – should stand and fight for the cultures they admire and appropriate in any way. That’s the thesis (or should be). But what happens to arguments like this is that the boil down to a concept of ownership – what is mine and what is yours – and this is a losing argument because this argument plays by the rules of the majority culture. The logic doesn’t become “FIGHT WITH US”, it becomes “DON’T STEAL WHAT IS OURS.” It creates DIVISION instead of unity. This is an opportunity for dialogue that gets twisted into the dominant culture adopting politically correct practices – like not wearing a head wrap – and STILL ignoring the plight of their black and brown neighbours. If this does anything, it gives the dominant culture an excuse: I DO NOT WEAR HEADWRAPS, THEREFORE I AM ON THE SIDE OF RIGHT (meanwhile, another black kid bites the dust).
Is this a victory for your culture? Or is this suicide? Culture is fluid. Culture IS communication. It is language. Culture IS appropriation. Culture is about finding commonality where commonality never existed. About tribes coming together and, hopefully, sharing what is best about both of their cultures and making something new. It is about overcoming this horrible instinct in ALL human beings to OTHERIZE people who do not look or act like them. To become interested in the culture of the other is to EMPATHIZE with that other so that eventually, ideally, we WILL fight for the other because they are us (we’ve lifted the simulacra of race and culture and revealed flesh and bone).
Think for a minute about the things in your life that did not come from what you deem to be your OWN culture. In the United States, there’s a strong argument that the basis of a lot of freedoms comes from the culture of ancient, rich white men. Now imagine if those rich white men said only rich white men are the only ones to have access to these cultural ideas (you don’t have to imagine that because rich white men have been saying this since the beginning of time and fuck ton of them are still saying it). But isn’t it better to reject what these rich white men want? To appropriate their culture? Or should we respect their wishes? No. I reject it. I take what I want from where I want because I am free. I have no interest in finding safety in arbitrary identity groups save for knowing that I have more in common with the OTHER than I don’t. I will fight rich white men, I will fight isolationism, I will fight for your life and mine, but I will not play a game where we divvy up what is yours and what is mine because I know, being a white man, I will win to your detriment. I do not accept this and you shouldn’t either.
“The song aint good and popular until Elvis does it.”
i believe the point of the article is that rich white men ALWAYS take what they want if it is profitable. And… that act is not a matter of cultural sharing, it is a matter of cultural theft, as if to say, it’s ours now. The article merely points out the ways and means of this so-called cultural exchange, nothing more. If you take offense to someone illuminating this difference, or condemning it, then that too is your privilege as a white guy.
Let me get this straight.
People who are non-black are supposed to leave black culture alone, and not celebrate it and use it, because it is only for blacks.
And you say “rich white men” and “white guy”, when clearly the person with the head wrap is a white woman, not only that, but a disabled person based on her having cancer and dealing with chemo.
Would there be any point to mention that her wearing a headwrap could actually be embracing the idea of “otherness” that those of African ancestry in the Americas feel?
“If you take offense to someone illuminating this difference, or condemning it, then that too is your privilege as a white guy.”
If you took that I was offended from this piece then I would ask you to read again what I wrote. Simply, I reject this argument. I also reject the premise of “The song aint good and popular until Elvis does it.” Not that this isn’t true, but that Elvis opened people’s eyes to a music and a culture they were rejecting and oppressing for arbitrary reasons (because it was being disseminated by people they perceived to be the other). Elvis becomes a gateway for SOME ignorant folks to overcome their ignorance and upbringings. Elvis becomes an ambassador. Through his appropriation, he opened the door into a world a lot of white folks didn’t want to know existed (that black folks weren’t so different from them, that they had a beautiful and deep history and culture that should be adored and consumed and, yes, imitated). Does it suck that the only way white culture could be exposed to black culture was through a white man? Yes. Of course it does. But to be exposed to black culture, to demystify it, and ALSO to be reminded of where it came from is to build bridges to a better, more inclusive world.
I understand that white folks – like Elvis – have appropriated other cultures to their own benefit and profit. I have no issue with people pointing this out and saying to consumers of culture to go back to the source. I do have a problem with this is OURS and you can’t have it. You want to know why? Because this type of argument means that someone will argue that WHITE CULTURE cannot be appropriated. Think about how absurd that sounds. To you want to take White Jesus away from Black Folks in the South? To fight over who gets to wear a head scarf or does yoga or worships a white god is absurd when we literally have people dying in the streets or are being forced to REMOVE their cultural identifiers by the state (the direct oppression of expression and culture) and we’re as a nation – from every culture – are paying taxes to drop bombs on the heads of poor people half a world away.
White folks wearing head scarfs does not stop black folks from wearing head scarfs. It does not take the meaning or history of their culture away unless we as a culture allow it to (via removing the context and meaning that these cultural items represent). I’m not apposed to EDUCATING those who appropriate another’s culture. I think that is completely valid. But this article goes a step beyond EDUCATION, it takes ownership. And that’s a big ole problem ALL humans have been dealing with for a very, very long time. When capital is at stake (cultural or otherwise), it becomes the source of our greatest divisions, conflicts, and wars.
You make many good valuable points. In deed Elvis was an ambassador of sorts. But to many, acceptance of such music was a trojan horse. I will not ascribe a right or wrong, never intended to. But a depiction of the relationship method and it’s benefits is entirely appropriate.
The ownership of what this article aspires to is a point of REFLECTION of what conquering cultures always do, deny the language, the history, the symbols, and the taking of resources and ideas. This article points out that perhaps the robbery has not stopped, just a possibility. And ALL human beings include both the beneficiaries and the victims. As you say, When capital is at stake (cultural or otherwise), it becomes the source of our greatest divisions, conflicts, and wars., spot on.
Appreciate your response. I feel like we’re in alignment on this issue in a lot of ways. I suppose my rejection of this type of fight is that I don’t see it as destruction of culture (especially this specific example). It is not a law. This is an interpersonal conflict, at best, that would be very problematic in practice on a wider scale (via the governance of a mixed cultural society where we would codify it and police who and who cannot have access to different-types of culture). I would fight ANY law that would argue this and I suppose that’s really the point of my rejection. It punches down on this girl without acknowledging that 1. she is human and 2. she has a right to be whoever she wants to be (because to deny her this right, deny us all of the right).
This type of speech EMPOWERS folks to claim ownership of arbitrary ideas (on all sides of the argument) and from this core thesis (this is mine not yours) it can extend to problematic outcomes. I’m reminded of the fight that happened at one of the college campus in the U.S. where a young black girl cornered a young white guy because he was wearing dreads. She physically stopped him from moving in the hallway until her friend returned with scissors so that she could cut his hair. This is an isolated event, this is not normal, this is not what this author is advocating at all, I understand that, but it comes from the same core logic (this is mine, not yours). The offence of his appropriation led to the reasoning that he could be physically violated, that if he wants to take our culture, we can take it back with violence. This is not a sound way forward for anyone. It is, to be quite honest, the appropriation of the worst bits of white culture – the violent oppression of free expression.
Just think if this reporter chose to welcome this young woman into her arms, invited her to visit areas of Brazil where this headdress is worn, and educated her. What if that was the article?
I’m not saying it’s just the responsibility of minority cultures to be open, but I am saying that we all should be open to each other no matter what silly tribe we think we’re a part of. I’ve had this exact same fight with Islamaphobes. I tell them to go visit a refugee centre or a local mosque. That’s what the folks in Quebec did after the shooting. They opened the doors to their mosque. Is it shitty that they had to do this? Yes. Of course. But think of the alternative, imagine that one of these Islamaphobic idiots actually went to a mosque on my suggestion and the reply was, “Go away, you don’t belong here.”
We need to do better than this or we will all lose.
Thank you! A great read.
We’re confused and conflicted enough about our heritage. The last people to lecture us about it should be those who made us confused and conflicted.
– Tircuit (my family’s French-American owner’s name back in Louisiana)
Did my ancestors from Eastern Europe and Asia make you confused and conflicted? When my ancestors were treated royally when they were serfs, did that make your ancestors slaves?
When will people ever recognize that yes, there were certainly white people who were slavers, and slave owners, but that there also are many people in the world with white coloration who have no slave owner ancestors, rather have serf or slave ancestors?
If one wants to argue that the success of Brazil, and the US, was dependent on slavery, then ALL Brazilians of ALL colors and ALL Americans of ALL colors benefit. The only real issues are those of the propensity of police to shoot black boys dead in Brazil, much worse than anything I’ve read or heard about in the US. Stop complaining about culture appropriation and get rid of the racists on your police forces who kill.
In a world where diversity and inclusion of all races is fought for on a daily basis, your article really left me cold. I cannot believe you think you have the right to exclude others from an item of clothing, who very well may only have that clothing in support of you and may have worn it in solidarity with you but lets forget about that because they are the wrong skin color to wear it. You do not even realize how racist you are do you?Since all things African and Brazilian are now off limits to anyone other than black women, I promise you I will never patronize another African/Brazilian store again or wear those goods since it offends you so much. Signed Estella Aniston, Native American woman.
I looked you up. You’re not a Native American woman. You are a white supremacist who has supported the likes of Pamela Geller, Trump, and other far-right hatemongers, hiding under a fake name and persona. Please, don’t patronize the establishments of any actual person of color. You’re probably a fifty year old overweight basement dweller from bumfuck Texas.
Thou dost protest too much, methinks….
I am in awe of your sophistication, perhaps you should publish a book detailing your serious endeavors in stalking people our of some deep need to feel morally superior. Wait, I just got the rush too, ah, yes that’s it. Moral superiority is so addictive.
Thanks for this version. I used Google Translate when it was available, and the power of the piece was evident even through that constrained window. One can appropriate fashion, but one cannot appropriate the history or the meaning behind it. It’s not up to me to judge the appropriation, but I can judge the lack of self-awareness, or respect, which might arise in its wake and find it wanting.
translate.google.com