Comments

  1. leerudolph says

    I would take it as a kindness if someone who watches videos would briefly describe what I’m missing. (But not if that would be a spoiler, of course; or maybe ROT13d?)

  2. Bruce says

    After talking about white use of hip hop, she concludes by asking: what would America be like if people cared as much about black people as they do about black culture?

  5. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I’ve been schooled on Black hair – that came a while back during some discussions in queer communities about “lesbian hair”. But I don’t keep up with popular culture, so specifics about which artists are doing what, and about cornrows at fashion events, that’s all new to me.

    But even if the general trend of the analysis was familiar, holy I am Groot! that was a great summation.

  6. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Did I just say “summation”?

    Law school is getting to me, obviously.

  7. Menyambal says

    Yeah, when the people of Ferguson were standing up for black people, I thought there should have been a lot of white folks joining in for all the black culture that they have appropriated. And there should have been a lot of very white folks standing up to the police for destroying citizen’s rights through superior firepower. That would have been an interesting mix.

  8. moarscienceplz says

    leerudolph (@#1)
    Can you access the audio, and just need the video described, or do you need a description of the whole thing?
    Frankly, she speaks so fast that I probably missed 1/4 of the audio myself, and as an old white guy I don’t think I’m qualified to try to summarize her point of view.

  9. The Mellow Monkey says

    That was a truly brilliant piece. She brought it all together on par with some real heavyweights on the topic. The distinction she makes between appropriation an exchange is honestly one of the best I’ve encountered:

    “The line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurred. But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.”

  10. leerudolph says

    moarscienceplz: thanks. I also don’t do audio, but I think I have the drift of the presentation by now.

  11. Pteryxx says

    leerudolph, I haven’t found a transcript (and the automatic captions are horrible, don’t even try) but here’s a detailed summary from NBC: (link)

    In a Tumblr post called, “Don’t Cash Crop My Corn Rows,” Stenberg begins with the subject of hair, diving into examples of black celebrities who made the corn row style popular in the ’90s and early 2000s — people like Alicia Keys, Beyonce and R. Kelly. Her thesis boldly states that some white celebrities have adopted aspects of black culture as “a way of being edgy and getting attention.”

    From twerking to grills, Stenberg points out that pop culture has the tendency to assign white ownership of long ridden styles in fashion, hair and slang that originated in black culture. She specifically references Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Macklemore and Taylor Swift as offenders.

    She also gives cultural appropriation a clear and concise definition, acknowledging that the lines that define it can be blurry. “But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves,” Stenberg says on Tumblr. “Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.”

    Stenberg also mentions that although certain artists have gained momentum indulging in aspects of black culture, many have remained silent on the recent killings of unarmed black men like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice.

    She references outspoken adversary to cultural appropriation, Azalea Banks who has taken fellow rapper Iggy Azalea to task numerous times on social media. Stenberg’s video shows a clip of Banks in an emotional Hot 97 interview where she voices her concern that ownership of hip-hop culture is slipping from black America’s grasp.

    Stenberg ends her video with a reflection that’s been echoed throughout social media: “What would America be like if we loved black people as much as black culture?”

  12. footface says

    And she’s the actress who played Rue in The Hunger Games. Her casting caused the I’m Not Racist, But brigade to flip their shit. “How can Rue be black?!” “That’s not how I pictured her!!” Even though, IIRC, the character was described that way in the book.

  14. unclefrogy says

    to answer the question
    it would be very a different place indeed!
    uncle frogy

  15. Muz says

    I like that she’s recognising it’s complicated at least. I think Azelia Banks’ position is almost impossible to parse except to fall on the position of simply ‘not taking black people’s stuff’. Which is a bit difficult since I don’t think the shift of Jazz, Blues and Soul, and, hell, Rock n Roll too, over to white artists is a neat process either. We’ve just all come to accept it. So we have instead that Hip Hop is the last bastion and people are going nuts over it, more than anything. Which is understandable to a certain extent.
    Mainly I wonder what it would be like if there was Twitter back when we had 3rd Bass, Vanilla Ice and Snow around, since not even this is particularly new.

    Hair is always an interesting subject too, when you think there has been strong movements in the past for black Americans to be “natural” as a show of pride. Changing your curly hair is a sign of emulating white people etc. Which it might be some times. But difficult to parse out that influence when people everywhere have messed with their hair since forever (a quick google of Himba hair for instance).

    The takeaway is, really, that none of this is necessarily bad except for the US Black-White situation.
    So I guess I’m saying…um..I liked the video.

  16. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I was in the mood. Apologies for mistakes, if a sentence sounds weird, it’s probably me because Amandla is eloquent and just brilliant.

    Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so read with caution.

    Transcript, with mistakes:

    So, black hair has always been a central component of black culture. Black hair requires upkeeping in order for it to grow and remain healthy. So black women have always done their hair, it’s just the part of our identity. Braids, locks, twists and cornrows, etc.
    Cornrows are a really functional way of keeping black textured hair unknotted and neat but like, with style. So you can see why hair is such a big part of hip hop and rap culture. These (?) are styles of music which African American community is creating in order to affirm our identity and (?) inner voices.
    In early 2000s you saw a lot of r’n’b stars wearing cornrows: Alicia Keys, Beyonce, and many more .As hip hop became more and more popular, and integrated into pop culture so did black culture. Eminem’s album went 4 times platinum in and he achieved immense success in hip hop world. Black culture had become popular.
    As the early 2000s turned into the 2010 white people began wearing clothing and accessories associated with hip hop. More and more celebrities could be seen wearing cornrows and braids and even grills. So by 2013 the fashion adopted cornwors as well. Cornrows wre seen on high fasion runways, for brands like marquisa (?) .. alexander mcqueen and magazines had editorial campaigns featuring cornrows as a “new urban hairstyle”.
    When Riff Raff came onto the scene, a suburban white middleclass man who almost ironically took on a black (?.missing a word.) wore braids and gold teeth. And then James Franco took inspiration from Riff Raff for his role of Alien in Spring Breakers.
    Pop stars and icons addopted balck culture as a way of being edgy and gaining attention.
    In 2013 Miley Cirus twerks and uses black women as props. And then in 2014 in one of her videos called “This is how we do”, Katy Perry uses ebonics and hand gestures and eats watermelons while wearing cornrows before cutting in (word missing) to picture of Aretha Franklin?
    [pause, a couple more second of Katy Perry’s video]
    Sooo, as you can see, the cultural appropriation was rampant [insert bits of various music videos]
    Not only were white people becoming rappers but they were excelling in the world of hip hop. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ song Thriftshop in number 1 spot on Billboard’s year (?) chart in 2013 and then Iggy Azales’s song Fancy reached number one in following year. And in May 2014 Forbes releason an article “Hip hop’s unlikely new star: a white blond australian woman”
    [excerpt form Iggy Azalea’s video]
    But at the same time police brutality against black people came to the forefront. In an incredible movement ignited by the murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner and many others, people began protesting institutional racism by marching and by using social media. Celebrities spread awareness and shared condolences. Well, at least some did, as Azelia Banks, black female rapper pointed out. As Azelia Banks observed in her tweets, white musicians who partook in hip hop culture and addopted blackness, Iggy Azalea in particular , failed to speak on the racism that comes along with black identity. Banks and Azalea feuded on twitter
    [Azelia Banks’s twitter message reads: “its funny to see people Like Igloo Asutralia silent when these things happen… Black Culture is cool, but black issues sure aren’t huh?”] until Banks participated in an interview on New York’s (… 97 )
    [Excerpt from her interview:]
    I have a problem when you’re trying to like, say that it’s hip hop and then you’re trying to like, put it up against black culture.. like, it’s like a cultural smudging… is what I see. All it says to white kids is like, oh youre’ great, you’re amazing, you can do whatever you put your mind to, and it says to black kids: you don’t have shit you don’t own shit, not even the shit you created for yourself. And it makes me upset.
    [back to Amandla Stenberg]
    That itself is what is so complicated when it comes to black culture. I mean the line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurred but here’s the thing: appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalisations or stereotypes (mord missing) originated but is deemed as high fashion, cool or funny when the privileged take for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriators are not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they’re partaking in. Hip Hop stems from a black struggle, it stems from jazz and blues, styles of music which African Americans created to retain humanity in the face of adversity, which itself stems from songs used during slavery to communiate and survive. On the smaller scale but in a similar vein, braids and cornrows are not merely stylistic, they’re necessary in order to keep black hair neat.
    So I’ve been seeing this question a lot on social media and I think it’s really relevant; “what would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?”

  18. Reginald Selkirk says

    Interesting. But apparently the narrator has appropriated white culture by adopting white hair. “Do what I say, not what I do.”

  19. says

    @18Reginald Selkirk

    Interesting. But apparently the narrator has appropriated white culture by adopting white hair. “Do what I say, not what I do.”

    Read the narrator’s lips:

    the line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurred but here’s the thing: appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalisations or stereotypes (mord missing) originated but is deemed as high fashion, cool or funny when the privileged take for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriators are not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they’re partaking in.

    You need to listen better if you want to give a valid criticism.

  20. anteprepro says

    Reginald Selkirk:

    Interesting. But apparently the narrator has appropriated white culture by adopting white hair. “Do what I say, not what I do.”

    False equivalence for the lose.

    ————————–

    Also, though the specific hair style examples might have only been appropriated in 2010’s or so, black cultural appropriation by white people has been going on for far, far longer.

  22. The Mellow Monkey says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 18, others have already pointed out the false equivalence in your comment so I won’t rehash that. I’ll just point out that, additionally, Amandla Stenberg is of mixed ancestry. Her family is African American, Danish and Inuit. You can’t “appropriate” your own parents.

  24. Garys says

    A possible answer to the final question could be, of course, that people who love black culture would generally not be the same people who do not love black people.
    Also, although the point of ‘cultural appropriation’ is no doubt valid for some instances, a do have a counter argument. Both American and music culture can not be easily divided into white and black, it is multicultural and this is how many of us, including me, want it. In such a shared context ‘cultural appropriation’ should never be an issue or may not even exist.

  25. says

    And no, you cannot appropriate “white culture” the same way you cannot be racist against white people. Because power.
    Non western people wearing business suits isn’t “appropriating white culture”, it’s one of the many ways of cultural dominance, because somebody who would show up at a business meeting wearing whatever would be appropriate for a serious appointment in their culture would be deemed unprofessional and inappropriate.
    The subject of black hair is another one. Little girls get expelled for wearing their hair natural, Beyoncé gets her parenting abilities questioned because her child wears her hair natural.
    “Acting white” is a survival strategy and also a great obstacle when it gets turned into “respectability politics”, the denial of one’s own culture in the hope that the dominant white culture would finally acccept them.

  26. says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 18:

    Interesting. But apparently the narrator has appropriated white culture by adopting white hair. “Do what I say, not what I do.”

    What’s interesting is your assumption that long, straight hair is definitively a white characteristic. Makes you a bit of an idiot, eh? My hair is very long, and utterly straight. Can’t get it to curl for love or money. So, I do wear my hair in twists, because it’s the only thing which keeps it from constantly snarling and driving me up the fuckin’ wall. What’s all this have to do with anything? The characteristics of my hair are not from the various white sides of me, they’re from the Oglala Lakota side of me. Long, straight hair – not just from white people.

  27. rietpluim says

    Hip hop and R&B never appealed to me. I do care about black people though, like I care about all people. And I love Freedom.

  28. Grewgills says

    @Gilliel #25

    Little girls get expelled for wearing their hair natural,

    I had to look that up. One girl at a private Southern christian school was threatened with expulsion.
    I grew up in the deep South in the 70s and 80s. There was undeniable racism in countless contexts. I attended both public and catholic schools and there were a fair number of African American kids that had natural hair and there was no threat of expulsion or any other administrative action. There are so many legitimate criticisms to make without treating a very rare instance as though it is commonplace.