UnNews:Cultural appropriation raises its head again
| A newsstand that's brimming with issues | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Thursday, November 21, 2024, 16:27:59 (UTC) |
| Cultural appropriation raises its head again | 
|
28 April 2021
OTTOWA, Canada Justin Bieber, post-teen idol, has again attracted public outrage against himself, his songs and his success by changing his haircut. Despite the fact that he has changed his haircut quite a few times, the indignation aroused by this particular modification has burst onto the mass media like a really nasty pimple. UnNews has convened a panel of experts in hair styling, incuding Swarthmore Filbone (SF), Professor of Cultural Purity at Charisma University, Mitzee Botox (MB), hair stylist to the ageing and discontented, Watso Philament (WP), hair chromaticist and Pardace Dome of Down With Hair.
UnNews: "We're practically quivering with admiration for your bravery and sensitivity in putting forward your views on this burning issue. Professor Filbone, I'd like to get your take on this first. Exactly what has Justin Bieber done to ignite this pyrotechnic disapproval in the hearts and minds of the socially aware public?"
SF: "It's these locs he does. Now we wear locs to show that we're poor and oppressed."
UnNews: "By 'locks' to you mean like 'locks of hair'?"
MB: "No, he means dreadlocks."
UnNews: "So why don't you call them dreadlocks? I know what dreadlocks are."
SF: ""No, man, you don't know what dreadlocks are or you wouldn't call them dreadlocks. It's L-O-C-S, man. L-O-C-K-S is like, yeah, locks of hair and doesn't express the poverty and oppression that locs ae supposed to express."
UnNews: "So nobody who isn't poor and oppressed should wear dreadlocks, I mean locs."
SF: "Right, but you must have the correct hair, too."
UnNews: "So what's wrong there? Aren't dreadlocks, oops, locs just matted up bits of hair?"
WP: "What Professor Filbone is saying is that Justin Bieber's hair is kind of blondy-browny and that signifies white supremacy."
UnNews: "How did we get to white supremacy?"
WP: "Easy. What color of hair do white people have? Mostly blondy-browny with some carrot-tops here and there. Who can look at those hair colors and not immediately think 'White supremacy'? Nobody. If people with those hair colors were aware of the offense they cause just by being there, more of them would get into non-white-supremacist hair colors like green and purple."
UnNews: "So it would be okay if Justin Bieber had green dreadlocks, oops, locs."
SF: "Oh, no. Green locs would not only be cultural appropriation but also cultural mixing. Cultures have to be pure."
PD: "The only purity in hair styling is no hair."
UnNews: "How can you have dreadlocks, oops, locs without any hair?"
PD: "You have to imagine them. If you can imagine something, it's very much like something is really there. So at Down With Hair we promote the purity of imagination over hair styling."
MB: "How can you style hair that's not there?"
WP: "Or color it if it's not there?"
PD: "You can imagine styling it. Or coloring it."
SF: "How does anyone know what you're trying to express with your hair if it's not there?"
PD: "Imagination. Now you can imagine that Justin Bieber is appropriating your idea of culture my messing with his hair. Watso, you can imagine that Justin Bieber is promotin g whitre supremacy by having blondy-browny hair and Mitzee, you can imagine that Justin Bieber's many hair styles are just appropriating different types of culture. What am I appropriating?"
SF: "Uh, racial profiling?"
MB: "Old age?"
WP: "Invisibility?"
PD: "Three appropriations for the price of one. I rest my case."
Sources[edit]
- Priya Elan "Justin Bieber accused of cultural appropriation over hairstyle". The Guardian, April 28, 2021
Category:North America