For some reason this mini-kerfuffle has gotten me quite depressed, for much of the world seems to be deliberately seeking to be offended, even when there’s nothing to be offended about. This case involves Kendall Jenner, a member of a family for whom I have no love, but who’s entitled to her vocation as a model. Unfortunately for her and the magazine, Vogue published two photos of her with highly teased hair, to wit (Instagram posts):
. . . and another
Well, look at the photos and then guess what happened next. I bet you can, and it’s summed up by the Independent article below (click on screenshot to read it):
Yes, you guessed it. The hairstyle, which is simply big teased hair, was taken by the Pecksniffs to be an Afro. And that hairstyle is worn by blacks and white models simply aren’t allowed to adopt it. The thing is, that is not an Afro! It’s most likely a wig, and if it were an Afro wig it would look like this style, as worn by the famous Angela Davis:
Nope, that’s simply big teased hair, and reminds me of the hairstyle you sometimes see on Helena Bonham Carter:
In fact, Vogue had no intention of making this an Afro hairstyle. As the Independent reports:
The magazine posted the images of the model on Instagram, where they sparked a wave of negative comments from people who found Jenner’s afro-like hairstyle “offensive”.
In a statement, the Condé Nast publication explained how the photos, which had been taken to promote the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund, were meant to evoke a nostalgic aesthetic reminiscent of the early 20th century.
“The image is meant to be an update of the romantic Edwardian/Gibson Girl hair which suits the period feel of the Brock Collection, and also the big hair of the ’60s and the early ’70s, that puffed-out, teased-out look of those eras,” the magazine told E! News on Tuesday.
“We apologise if it came across differently than intended, and we certainly did not mean to offend anyone by it.”
There is nothing to apologize for. If some Pecksniff is offended and thinks this is an Afro, well, too damn bad for them. And even if it were an Afro (which it is not), do only blacks get to wear their hair that way? What about Steve Pinker? And the “Jewfros” worn by Jewish guys who have naturally curly hair (see photos here)? It’s not an Afro, but if it were it wouldn’t be intended to mock black people but to adopt aspects of their culture that people like. But it’s not an Afro. Nope, not one.
It didn’t matter. The Pecksniffs emerged in force, saying that if Vogue wanted to display an Afro, they’d damn well better have a black woman underneath it. You can see some outraged people at the #kendalljenner site and in the Instagram comments , and it will depress me to show even two of them, but I’ll persist:
Definitely not an Afro. @KendallJenner boxer braids ain’t a Black Womyn’s cornrows. She is in pursuit of Black adjacency knowing that her Whiteness protects her movements. Perfect example of the Colonizer in motion. #KendallJenner https://t.co/0YnhVsguQU
— 🇨🇲 Onyx Scholar (@DrBHotchkins) October 24, 2018
People were wondering why Vogue couldn't hire a black model with kinky hair instead of teasing #KendallJenner's hair into a fro. What do you think? https://t.co/QPHtIDChzA
— Casino_ZA (@Casino_ZA) October 23, 2018
But Jenner has her defenders, too, and there’s some funny comments. I’ll show one.
I am disgusted at this #KendallJenner shoot where she was clearly culturally appropriating a scouser from the 80s pic.twitter.com/F5pr4GIFlM
— Young Sandwich, 🌋🌋🌋 (@SpiffCorgi) October 24, 2018
In truth, there’s a real discussion to be had about whether black women are unjustly denigrated or subject to bigotry for wearing their hair in styles like cornrows or dreadlocks—styles that originated in the black community to take advantage of naturally curly hair. But that is not this discussion.
In the end, I want to know what the outrage accomplishes here. Does it increase racial justice or the awareness of racist bigotry? I doubt it; it just divides people, and angers those who think that this kind of manufactured outrage is either misdirected (BECAUSE THIS IS NOT AN AFRO), or those like me who think that the principle that one culture cannot admiringly borrow aspects of another is just dumb. It also serves to call attention to those who are outraged, and I’ve long thought that, for many, this is a primary motivation for cries of “cultural appropriation.” It’s a way of making yourself feel special, or calling attention to yourself.
If you want to make those cries, though, be sure that a). it is cultural appropriation, which it is not in this case (that is not an Afro), and b). it’s cultural appropriation of the disrespectful or bigoted sort, a form that’s exceedingly rare. As Davy Crockett said in real life:
I leave this rule for others when I’m dead
Be always sure you’re right — THEN GO AHEAD!
Enough, for I’ve learned from a CNN bulletin that “suspicious packages” have been sent to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (in addition to the bomb sent to George Soros), and so now we have the problem of right-wing American terrorism to deal with, too. It’s not going to be a good day.
My hair is blonde and very curly. Perhaps I should shave my head, instead of being ”inappropriate” in my hair style? THIS IS LUDICROUS, PEOPLE! STOP IT!
If your hair is naturally that way it isn’t really cultural appropriation. You should stop with the genetic appropriation!!
/s obviously.
GASP! We’ll have to go back in time and prevent my parents from meeting…at the “Under The Sea” dance in high school…right?
Anyone have a Lamborgini?
DeLorean, not Lamborghini.
And don’t forget to add the flux capacitor.
One note in proof – while it can’t be denied that dreadlocks are today associated with a segment of the black community it didn’t originate there; the hair style dates back millennia. For example, there are paintings and figures of dreadlocked ancient Greek warriors.
Pictures on ancient pots right? But pictures of cultural appropriation! Those pots should be smashed!
The so-called “Black Athena” school claims that ancient Greeks were already appropriating black culture.
Looks more like a ”jewfro.” Albert Einstein and Bob Dylan would be very offended.
Phil Spector wouldn’t be offended http://mehallo.com/blog/archives/27272.
The ghosts of the Gibson Girls would be exceedingly offended. I doubt that in those days they strived for the “messy” look. Forget about ‘cultural appropriation,’ which it ain’t; these models need to comb their hair.
Slovens who don’t comb their hair should be offended that others get paid big bucks for spending hours just to get that effect.
This ‘messy Gibson Girl’ style matches well with artistically ripped designer jeans and ‘distressed’ leather jackets for a chic street person look. It is paupers and the homeless who should be crying cultural appropriation, and legitimately so.
First time i saw someone with ripped jeans ,i asked them if they had fallen off their bike.
Yeah but they are just Palestinian oppressors anyway so who cares if they are offended.
I was at a Halloween party once where a girl showed up in a penis and scrotum costume. I wasn’t upset for her appropriating my gender. People need to lighten up.
My wife (Polish descent) has very curly, almost kinky reddish brown hair, and she wears it ‘big’. My #2 son has the same hair and his is worn totally Afro. Like Art Garfunkle, only bigger.
If you have hair like that, you should be allowed to wear it long.
Oh, and in answer to your question – what does this nonsense accomplish? Virtue signaling seems to me all it does for them, but in my meaner moments I think it is an acceptable expression of their hatred of white people.
+1
Oh yuck!!! Poop!!! Jeepers criminy!!! I’m white, and back in the day when I was young I teased my hair!!! I first got a beehive hairdo when I was in my early 20’s and the year was the early ’60’s. Oh, those crazy hairdos! Tease the hair like the dickens, put lots of hairspray on it to keep it from going anywhere, wrap something around it at night so that you could sleep with it, and you could make this thing last several days!
Oh phooey!! And I continued to tease my hair over the years. Mercifully the beehive went out of style, but other styles came in. And NO, they are NOT afros!!
(Now I’m an old fart with grey/white hair and I don’t tease it because it’s thin and I don’t want to damage what is left.)
Quilette has something to say about Cultural Appropriation. I found this very helpful:
https://quillette.com/2016/11/02/you-cant-build-walls-around-a-culture/
Lately I’ve been walking on eggshells, afraid I’ve unknowingly stolen something and will bring the wrath of somebody or other down upon me, feeling increasingly constrained. (If it’s cultural appropriation for a musician to play or sing the music of another culture, is it wrong for a white person to merely *like* another culture’s music and play their CDs? Must I not like Black blues? Must I not like Ledbelly?)
Oh crap! Enough! And yes, there’s just too damn much bad news these days.
Go for a touseled, spiky pixie if you have cheekbones – a punk / Helen Mirren cross. Oil your hair! This is the best era ever to be grey [highlights are not forbidden]
I have a new respect for you as a men’s beauty advisor, Michael!
Women of a certain age are on top today – educated, monied & autonomous. Old geezers [without the female support of a spouse] are mostly grumpy, livin-out-of-a-tin individuals. I know which side of my bread has butter. 🙂
😀
And I think Laurance is a girlie
Thanks to Walt Disney, every kid growing up in the mid-1950s knew that Davy Crockett quote. Did you wear a coonskin cap (probably not considered correct today) as did every kid in my neighborhood? 😎
No, but only because real fur was expensive! I know I had something with a fake dangly tail.
I am offended that Vogue apologized. Where’s my apology?
I agree, there is far too much “apologizing” for imagined slights. People really just need to grow up.
Sub
I think the most depressing thing is not all the people doing the complaining but that Vogue seems to be prepared to give them the time of day.
Even if it had been an Afro, so what?
If everybody and every firm could use a standard reply to such ‘outrage’ perhaps the world would be a better place. After all if you reward poor behaviour you encourage it…
Something like:
“Thank you for your concern. We have carefully considered your complaint and found that it has no merit.”
Repeated over and over by many individuals and organisations then it might just make the flood of fake outrage dwindle leaving ‘proper outrage’ standing above the noise.
I prefer a simple FO.
I’m sorry to hear of this depressing you professor CC! I don’t think this will make it entirely do away–but it prompted me to think that the culture of offence may not be an entirely bad thing (although particular instances of it may well be–as appears here)
https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/10/what-dueling-can-teach-us-about-taking-offense.html
The essence of the writer’s insight is that the giving and taking of offence implies a level of equality reached/assumed and the logic of duelling helps to reveal this. I found it an intriguing and provocative thesis. I hope it cheers you as it did me.
The current notion of offense is different. It is not an attack on amour-propre, and it has nothing to do with equality. If it were about equality it could go both ways. It explicitly cannot.
Instead it is an assertion of power, a rebuke to a presumed underling for raising his eyes. It is a demand for deference, that you tug the forelock and look down.
You’ve missed the point of the 3 Quarks article HH linked to. It doesn’t claim that the offense-taking is any type of call for equality; it makes the point that tho empowerment to take offense is itself symbolic of the extent to which equality has been obtained — as opposed to the not-so-distant past when some minorities were expected to avert their eyes and cross to the other side of the road.
You can talk about tugging forelocks and looking down all you want, but, with the possible exception of some rarefied college campuses, that’s not now, nor has it ever been, what’s expected or demanded or done by white Americans.
I get that point, though it seems to me overly optimistic that just having the ability to call out appropriation (whether real or not) indicates equality for the out-callers. Viewing this very silly instance from another angle, I hope that it is also a sign of equality that I’m unashamed to tell the ‘fro-shamers to FO.
So, except where it is, it isn’t. Got it.
The ability to call out isn’t really the important sign of equality, it’s the necessity to do so to make a claim of persistent or widespread oppression that is.
This is the idea of “appropriation” and other PC tactics. Anyone can object to false or odious statements, the trick is to have an effective way to object to those that are neither.
Have you even read the piece linked to? ‘Cause you don’t seem to be responding to anything in it.
It may just be coicidence but, of course, “calling out” was done in duels as well. Be that as it may–we dotn see call outs happening with (say) children or with (say) royalty. In other words–the tendency is to call out social equals–with the implication that they are social equals (which was not always the case) I think there is something to what the author says.
Reblogged this on Obscurum per obscurius.
I’m old enough to be vaguely familiar with the “don’t borrow their hair/music/food/fashions” complaint coming from the racist segment of the population. White people who emulated anything non-white were lowering themselves. They were admiring and borrowing from races and cultures which were inferior. And, as far as I could tell, people of color were on the side of those who loved what they also loved. The side which called for strict barriers were the racists.
There is of course a problem when no credit is given. But many of the complaints re ‘cultural appropriation’ remind me of the separationist rhetoric which was rapidly losing steam when I was young. It’s like they kicked started it up again.
Yes, if you look at some of the things the iGen have come up with you see a revival of old notions of ‘inherent’ racial/sexual characteristics.
There is a course out there called “Healing from Toxic Whiteness” whose authors clearly believe that racism is inherent in ‘White people’ but never come right out and say it.
For an idea of where this might lead I’d recommend checking out a 1960s novel called “The Jagged Orbit” by John Brunner, it’s a ‘straight-line’ extrapolation from what was going on at the time, but there are some eerie parallels with what seems to be going on now.
I’ll take reasons Trump won for $200, Alex.
That is a good ‘ne, Curtis.
Me for $400 … … as well !
… … +1
Blue
Thanks but I don’t deserve credit for the meme.
Unfortunately, my wife and I use it daily as we read the idiocy of our “progressive” friends on Facebook.
And the clue for $200 is: “White Resentment.”
I you want to stay with that column, I’m sure Alex will uncover “nativism,” “bigotry,” “xenophobia,” and “misogyny.”
Tunnel Vision for 800 Alex.
[click here]And the correct response to our Final Jeopardy question is: Who is a Trump apologist?
Funny how millions of bigots who suffer from white resentment voted for Obama twice but did not vote for Clinton. I am sure that calling them names makes them much more likely to vote for democrats. But don’t forget “deplorable”, it worked wonderfully last time.
You have a point, but it’s a small one. Most of the people who voted for Obama but didn’t vote for Clinton, didn’t for her because they didn’t show up; they didn’t vote at all. IOW – much of this difference isn’t due to the deplorables insult. For many of those “missing” voters it didn’t matter though for a significant and likely sufficient number, it did.
The Dems have shown no sign they’ve learned the lesson.
No one can verify how individuals voted. However looking at the aggregate numbers comes as close to disproving your claim as possible. Trump won lots of districts in PA and other rust belt states that Obama had won. Exit polling showed a mass defection of white democrats in those areas who had voted for Obama voting for a Trump.
You need those voters back to beat Trump next time. Understanding them beats vilifying them IMO.
Mitt Romney won 1.1% more of the popular vote in 2012 than did Donald Trump in 2016, though about 2 million fewer votes overall. Sure, some Obama voters likely switched to vote for Trump, but there’s no evidence to suggest there was any type of large-scale defection from Obama to Trump. It seems more likely that many Obama voters stayed home on election day 2016, while Trump excited certain people who hadn’t been politically active before to go to the polls for the first time.
In any event, I’ve said that somewhere around half of all Trump voters supported him for reasons other than his appeals to people’s worst instincts (of which some small portion were likely former Obama voters). Can anybody seriously dispute that Trump also drew the near-unanimous support of bigoted white-nationalist elements as well?
Late to this but I want to clarify what I wrote. One of the biggest reason Clinton lost is because too many black voters – almost all voted for Obama- stayed home. We can’t know why they didn’t vote but it’s a safe bet it wasn’t because of the deplorables insult.
I believe their turnout for Obama was exceptionally high; i.e., they weren’t so much not voting for Hillary in the last election as they were just falling back to more typical turnout numbers. Given how so much of the right-wing voter-suppression tactics affect blacks more than other voters, not to mention the weakening of the Voting Rights Act, I don’t think this is surprising. Sad, yes.
The “deplorable” label fits about half Trump’s voters — the 57% who claim to this day that Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim, the 20% of the US population that “strongly approves” of Trump, the mouth-breathers who show up at Trump’s rallies to scream “lock her up!” and cheer his lines about “body slams” and “enemies of the people” and “nationalism.”
The other half, the half that tolerates Trump’s rancidness but isn’t drawn to him because of it? I think those Trump voters might be persuadable — but, then, I tend to be an American optimist that way.
Keep digging.
The bile your ilk spews (“mouth breather”, “bigot”, “misogynist”) is abhorrent. I would never vote for Trump but it is so tempting when people like you insult half of my friends and family. I don’t because I never vote for hatred.
Because of the Republican anti-gay stance, I registered as a Democrat when I moved to Oregon 10 years ago. I still vote against hatred but now that means voting for Libertarians and Republicans because the Oregon progressives sound just like you. I still love my progressive friends but I cannot stand their Facebook posts. They are good people who suffer from TDS.
Do the good people you know go to Trump rallies and scream “lock her up” and cheer when Trump praises a US congressman for body slamming a reporter for asking him a question about healthcare? Do they still believe the completely bogus claim (the claim Donald Trump got his political toehold by promoting with vicious lies) that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim Kenyan?
Or are they among the other half of Trump voters I’ve described, the ones who are merely willing to tolerate such behavior because they think there’s some redeeming value to Trump?
The “derangement” here belongs solely to Donald Trump, a man who is totally unfit to hold high political office — let alone to be leader of the free world — by experience, by intellect, by character, and by temperament. It is not “derangement” to see the man clearly for what he is; it is the duty we citizens owe our nation.
“The bile your ilk spews (“mouth breather”, “bigot”, “misogynist”) is abhorrent.”
Nice way to argue Ken’s observation, calling him an ilk who spews bile.
Keep digging indeed. The half of my family who are Trump supporters should be insulted, but I don’t do much of it. I mostly ignore. No one “suffers” from TDS. We just suffer Trump and his new GOP, simple as that.
And if you don’t think Trump is a misogynist and bigot, then please stay under your rock and choose a heavier one.
Actually Curtis did respond to one of Kukec’s assertions, see the bit about the white voters who had supported Obama.
Is telling someone to “stay under your rock” spewing bile? Or is that your idea of arguing an observation?
The reason I put the words in quotes were because they came directly from Ken Kucek’s fingers (I did change “misogyny” to “misogynist”). They certainly sound like spewed bile to me but your mileage may vary.
As far as TDS, I know many very nice people who have turned into angry, nasty people since Trump has been elected. They are not actually deranged but, when it comes to politics, they do a good impersonation.
Mobs are scary whether they are Trumpists or the Control Left.
If there is anything more insignificant than cries of “cultural appropriation,” it’s people getting the vapors when someone accuses them of it.
I grok complaints about “cultural appropriation” as they relate to the hustlers and grifters who ripped off R&B and blues and other “race music” in the late Forties and the Fifties by not paying royalties or giving credit due to the artists responsible. But this shit’s dericulous.
It’s cultural borrowing, and lending, and melding that’s made America mankind’s great melting pot. And, when we’re lucky enough, it’s what’s given us lightning in bottle, like Bitches Brew, or Sly & the Stone family, or Herbie & his Headhunters.
Hate to be Phoebe Snow tryin’ to start a musical career today. She’d probably get the Rachel Dolezal treatment.
Unfortunately, there are some people who reject the metaphor of America as a melting pot. They prefer the metaphor of America as a stew. And then there are others who view America as the sole preserve of one race; all the others should be allowed here only on their sufferance. This tendency to reject the melting pot idea is as old as the Republic and there have been several outbreaks of it throughout the centuries. The current one is particularly bad and is a real threat to the common social fabric that holds the nation together. If the fabric tears irreparably then say hello to the emergence of an authoritarian, most likely much worse than Trump.
All should listen to Bitches Brew – it should be on the curriculum of every educational institution [all age groups]
Indeed! That album also acquainted me (among many others) with John McLaughlin. So happy to have “met” Mahavishnu.
Absolutely. And he emanates from the musically isolated town of Doncaster, South Yorkshire – such an unlikely start for a guitar genius. Can’t imagine how he came across the material that fuelled his journey.
[A Tribute to] Jack Johnson is also smashing. The orchestra stuff is for winter evenings with a six pack &/or a spliff – a real trip from the comfort of a sofa.
I’m with you on Jack Johnson…spliff + 6-pack please. 🙂
The millenials complaining are simply too young to have experience, and too ignorant to check before pontificating, that this look was common in the 70s, let alone the 1890s.
Are Afro-Americans who straighten their hair guilty of cultural appropriation?
I think the thinking goes: you can appropriate up, but you can’t appropriate down. Stupid stuff to be sure.
What dumbasses think that’s a ‘fro?? I dated a Jewish woman whose hair was naturally frizzier than that. AntiSemitism, I tell you!!
Anyone watching “Jeopardy” the past few days? The young man who’s winning has a real Afro, the Angela Davis kind.
I knew a kid in high school, fair complexioned, reddish hair. He had a real, honest ‘fro. He may have been part African American (not sure), but at any rate not one kid in our 45% black high school thought he was appropriating anything. I do think some of the ‘fro-wearers were envious, tho, since a red ‘fro is something to behold.
Malcolm X was a redhead, too — known as “Detroit Red” when he moved to Boston, and then as “Boston Red” in his early days as a hustler in Harlem.
So, is Isaac Newton a problem??
https://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/mf_image_16x9/public/Screen-shot-2010-04-22-at-10.07.43-AM_6.png
That what she is? I thought le portmanteau juste was “celebritante.
IOW, she’s famous for being famous.
Exactly. She’s a “model” in the same sense that the Gabor sisters were “actresses.”
What a pack of culturally appropriate wankers! (I mean those half-assed hair-trigger grievance merchants).
I like that hairstyle and no way is it an Afro. It’s just long bushy hair. IMO it’s much nicer-looking than the slicked-back short hair she’s wearing in the ‘Vogue apologises’ pic. (I like Afros too, when worn by good-looking chicks).
And even if it was, what of it? Blacks ain’t the only people in the world with frizzy hair, what’s a white with frizzy hair supposed to do – shave it bald?
cr
Oh, and ‘why not hire a black model’? Because she would have looked different. Kendall Jenner in that hair does not look ‘black’, she has her own look. Other models have different looks.
Naomi Campbell (first black model that comes to mind, doesn’t that date me) has long dead straight hair – what’s with that? Is she culturally appropriating Cleopatra?
The whole thing is so petty.
cr
I’ll pay more attention to cultural appropriation when the pecksniffs start paying more attention to their own victimhood appropriation, diverting attention from real suffering, e.g. the girls punished for seeking education in Muslim countries, to feed their own sense of entitlement as victims. And in the processing making dangerous right wing propaganda mills like Fox look almost reasonable by contrast.
The pecksniffs are working day and night to re-elect Donald Trump. They should be proud.
Absolutely! I’m so very weary of all this eagerness to be ”offended” for no reason! I’m certainly not a fan of the Kardashians, but if this girl wants to tease her hair to great heights–who CARES? Did she say she wanted to look ”black” and wear an ”Afro?” I don’t think so. Even if she did–is it a crime to wear an “Afro” when you’re not black?
When I was in India, (it was monsoon season and we were wading through swamped streets. After changing clothes a time or two…I put on a sari, which made it easy to raise the hem above muddy, flooded streets.
Was I being ”culturally indiscreet?” Or was I simply wearing a garment which made perfect sense in the weather?
When people come here from other nations, do we scream “OFFENSE” at them for wearing clothes such as we do? Nonsense!
They’re clothes and hair and they have no more ”belonging” to us than they do to anyone.
JUST CUT IT OUT, ok?
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Unfortunately, it seems that it would take a real problem like nuclear war to distract these idiots from their self involved lives of gaining status by taking offense.
Here’s a different meaning to “You mess with the ‘fro, you gotta go!” It’s all in good fun, from Undercover Brother:
Ooops wrong one….www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsHC3iFeTI
Dumb and corny, but got a laugh out of me.
Made in 2002. They wouldn’t dare release it today, can you imagine the outraged screams of indignation at the black/white-stereotype jokes?
cr
sub
Noone ever should raise the right hand (unless he/she/it is NSDAP, not even when calling a taxi! This is “Nazikultur”. And vorbidden by law (in Germany).
I guess not enough black guys are getting shot by cops without justification or given long sentences as slaves for private prison companies after being caught with a joint so now the perpetually enraged have to find trivial things to get pissed off over. I’m gonna culturally appropriate an appropriate phrase here: This Some Bullshit!