WHITE GUY RANT REGARDING WHITE PEOPLE WEARING DREADLOCKS GONE WRONG

This post absolutely shows white people do not have a clue when they are being racist and offensive. See if you can see what I mean about a white guy being clueless.

                                              
                                 White people need to stop trying to have Black hairstyles.  
                                          by: idontalwaysblogbutwhenidoiuse.tumblr.com
                                             
Seriously, this is one of the things that pisses me off most in the world. If you’re white and you’re thinking of getting cornrows or microbraids or dreadlocks, STOP NOW. Your hair is just plain not suited for it! White people’s hair is fine and holds a lot of moisture. If white people get dreads, their hair molds! And that can cause serious scalp infections! And if white people get their hair braided, it can cause their hair to fall out. Literally, it is just not healthy for your hair.

But besides that—IT’S NOT FUCKING COOL. Like, if a black person wants to do their hair these ways, they will be branded a “thug” or otherwise judged as a dangerous person because of racialized and reified (if you don’t know what reified means, look it up) stereotypes. And so you want to get a hairstyle that is NOT EVEN SUITED TO YOUR HAIR TYPE, while a person whose hair is actually suitable cannot get that hairstyle without being judged, you’re completely ignoring your privilege.
Like wtf. It’s not as simple as, “I thought it was cool so I did it,” because the cold hard truth is that if that’s all you thought about, then you’re admitting that you didn’t bother to think about a) whether your hair was right for it, b) whether you would be treated differently because of your hair and c) how your race affects the way that your hair is received/viewed by others. You have the privilege of not having to think about your race, you have the privilege of not having to worry that you will jeopardize your job by making this (bad) decision.

Black people’s hair is coarse and well suited for dreads or braids and these styles are viewed as signs of a thug or a dangerous body because in our society we have invented and reinforced the idea that black people are dangerous and violent. Black people are often forced to make their hair look more “acceptable” to white people and are often criticized for natural looks. And when you decide to take on those hairstyles—even thought they are wrong for you—you’re ignoring their struggle and being an asshole.

Basically—stop trying to take something that doesn’t belong to you. Stop deciding that race doesn’t matter. Think about shit before you do it and stop insisting that being a white person with dreads or braids is not racist. It is and you look like an idiot.

**If I read this correctly, the writer was admonishing white people for throwing their white priviledge away by wearing a hairstyle that makes them a thug. Was that what you gleaned from this post and how he tried to say it was offensive to blacks for white people to wear the hairstyles because they were appropriating their thug status??? REALLY???? Get a bleeping clue. You should be angry about your false sense of wisdom and total lack of ability to speak on behalf of a black race/culture. Stay in your lane PLEASE. Face the fact that your race is leaving the herd going after all things black; which is truly what your rant is about.

Sack Cloth and Ashes are no longer in Style

I don't care what you say about me; even bad publicity is good publicity 

1 Timothy 2:9 ESV 

Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,

The Bible holds so many rules and regulations for women. For me my style is an expression of who I am or at times who I am striving to be. I have said, my apparel speaks to others, including strangers, long before I utter a word. How many times have you heard a man complain how long it takes a woman to get dressed? How many times have you changed outfits when getting ready for an event?

Social media has joined in the STYLE game with men and women posting pictures of their outfits. The people go wild hitting the like buttons on cutting edge fashion. The outfits alone do not draw the masses. It is a combination of clothes and attitude that sells the onlooker on the clothing items.

Photographers and models get in various twisted positions to get the perfect picture. And when everything falls into place you have a perfect picture selling anything and everything to the populous beginning with just the right clothing items. Need a family car - put the people in the pitch in everyday general outer wear. Need to sell a sports car - put the people in the pitch in classy upscale clothing. Need to sell a motorcycle - leather clothing items required.

What do the style described in the Bible passage tell you about the person? I say it screams PAY ME NO ATTENTION. I know others will argue it is modesty, purity, or humbleness. I say invisibility is the goal. How invisible must a woman be. She has also been instructed not to speak in church 1 Corinthians 14:34 "Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says".

What is self control clothing items? Are there clothing items that MAKE you lose control when you wear them? I know you are saying there are clothes that say HERE I AM AND I AM SEXUAL, but is demonstrating sexuality being out of control? I would argue people who are color blind and mix the wrong colors or patterns together can be someone who lacks self control. I mean come on how hard can it be not to clash like that? Lacking self control is adding another piece of jewelry like Mr. T. is showing a lack of control.

How do you avoid costly attire? Inflation man. I remember when I was a child and my family would go shoe shopping for back to school. Back in the day my mom could find a nice pair of shoes for me costing $5.00. Now, shoe prices do go to the extreme. Should the woman wearing designer shoes be seen as sinful? Do her shoes tell you of her sins? Is the woman in the $20.00 pair of shoes a modest, self controlled woman?

Gold and pearls belong to the wicked? Are we supposed to use the guidelines of biblical attire to judge the person's character and heart by a gold ring or string of pearls. It would seem we should. If I am to decipher this passage on face value it would seem wearing poverty is an outward symbol of how religious one may be. Is the look of poverty, what we who believe, be clothed in? Should our street style be "I choose not to draw any attention by fashion but to draw attention for the lack of fashion?" No matter what you wear a statement is being sent.

I have become jaded with these outward appearances because everybody is trying to pitch (sell) something to the masses through clothing or style. What is being sold is completely vain. Clothing manipulates whether it is for good or evil. A person can be selling a fantasy or lie with clothing. I find it strange the clothing code is not for both men and women. It is the woman who must put forth the effort to use her body as her billboard. It is not self control through clothing choice but power through clothing choices. a person has the power to say who they are through clothes.

My mind begins to wander when I see the dressed down look of lack of color or accessories on a woman. I wander what is she trying to sell with nothing. Yes, my impression jumps to religious connections when I see a woman without makeup and wearing orthopedic shoes just to make me want to steal her shoes and burn them. I also wander if she is abused or have been abused in her life to want to hide behind drabness. Modest clothing makes me wonder what scar is being hid.

Oh stop pretending that when you see women in prairie clothes you don't assume they belong to a cult.

I have to search my bias and ask myself do I recoil at this biblical fashion statement because I myself am not a woman who desires to wear respectable clothing or am I offended because my respectability does not rely on my outer garments? Either way, just as I am judging one's appearance, I am being judged for my appearance. It all boils down to judgement and if you are going to base your expression of your being solely on what others decide to label you as.

Take time to howl at the moon screaming yes, my clothes initially define me, but never believe I am the summation of items of clothing.

Give me points and adulation for my style because your opinion matters that much to me - never.

*****side note: prostitutes were recognizable because they braided their hair and wore jewelry. Surely that does not still hold true in our psyche in this day and age.*****

AMBER ALERT YOURSELF

I had a melt down. I felt it coming.

Now that I am writing about my emotional state or to be accurate, most anticipated recovery, my melt down should be correctly referred to as my melt up.

Let me begin at the beginning. My beginning begins with the always, never disappointing, wretched Facebook.

Yes. Facebook is wretched. Facebook is the extension - continuation of that all so beloved high school experience we have come to know and overtly ignore. The always easy to access experience of the low brow yet titillating to the leader - social group. The social group or clique is known by all with pain and loathing. Social groups or cliques are not only for our youths, but also for the adult who dabble in this wolf in sheep's clothing social media called Facebook.

It was around July when I started noticing with unbelievable boredom, how people I had friended on Facebook spent hours on end saying stuff without saying anything. Posting cute quotes, wise sayings, and the ever never ending "Like if you love Jesus." I tried to find the cyber definition of these posted and reposted sayings; which do not fall into the definition of meme or gif, but, do fall into the realm of aggravating as hell.

I love Jesus. I am for Jesus. But, I hate seeing over 75 posts a day insisting I demonstrate publicly, by clicking on a like button or on a share button, my true spiritual leaning and gut feeling each second about Jesus each day all day every day. I am comfortable enough to declare right here and now: my love for Jesus does not change every five minutes and I do not to prove it to others in any way.

It was this one day when 75% of my friends on Facebook had Jesus it up for hours on end in rapid fire: Jesus loves you, Jesus died for you, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus to the point where I felt like I would be some how looked down upon for not liking, sharing, or posting in like manner.

There it was the nexus of my melt up. I was about to start wanting to belong to the Jesus clique. I began to wonder what group would the Jesus kids (by kids I mean adults) put me into if I did not do as they did? Would I be considered a nonChristian? Would I be shunned as Satan's spawn and if any one liked anything I posted would they surely catch fire or believe they had soiled themselves in some way by sharing a thumbs up with me? Would anyone like anything I said at all that was not Jesus-esque?

I began to think about FAKING IT to fit into the group. And yes, that is when I felt like saying "You know what - I do not have to belong to your group. I am grown."

But my last post was a final attempt to reach just one person, (who in a wonderful twist of my never dull fate turned out to be myself), before self was sacrificed. It was me who was in danger of self sacrificed and being replaced with another voiceless member of the cool kids page constantly saying (posting) something and yet saying nothing. My final post was wrapped in a last gasp of defiance to be different proudly. My last post asked; "Do you ever feel like just taking the mask off and howling at the moon?" To me the mask is the action of copying, following mindlessly a crafted ideal of acceptability. The mask perpetuates a day spent on Facebook being validated by likes and shares of a clique generated sense of being loved. Truth be told we have used Jesus as our cover for many things. Can our need for attention to belong become a pretense of liking Jesus when each like Jesus gets makes us feel some kind of way? Is it the account holder, who does their best to generate hundreds of likes for Jesus a day, that mean girl or jock who has found a way to separate as was done in high school?

I met the slippery slope. I stared the slippery slope in the eye. I refused to lose my little girl who wants to belong and yet yearns to follow her own path. The vulnerable high school girl who lingers still - escaped being sucked up into the world of reposting generalized verbiage. Verbiage Facebook users use to send  smoke signals dictating  who belongs where continually guided by high school standards of operation. I refused to let my essence to be kidnapped by the insidious nature of wanting to belong or to feel loved even if it is love by "like"generated by 4,000 plus cyber friends. 

So, today I say I had a melt up. I decided to get rid of Facebook and make sure to take every opportunity to howl at the moon and have people just stop and stare at me and declare openly I could never be a part of their social group whether it is on Facebook or in any ecohigh school type climate plopped down anywhere.

I felt my little girl inside of me being lured away to some place forever lacking security and genuine love and I Amber Alerted myself refusing to be carried off. I must howl and hear my voice whether or not I have well formed words at the time of my pending demise of my autonomous thought, feeling, belief. I will howl at the moon to remind myself to remain free.

I howl at the moon for those who do not have the courage or strength today to how. I howl at the definition of the word CLIQUE. A clique is a social group most often seen in junior high or high school settings, and generally more often noted among girls than boys. However, adults can certainly belong to a clique as well, and one might see these characteristics displayed particularly in the upper echelons of society. The adult group might also be called a “set.”

Generally, the clique is organized among younger children by those who appear to have enough in common to befriend each other. Unfortunately, friendship can quickly give way to power struggle, peer pressure and ostracization of those outside the group. In fact, outsiders targeted by a clique may be subject to insults and bullying, which can be psychologically damaging.

Often the group has a defined leader, though leadership may change from time to time. The clique may extend informal membership to younger girls in order to perpetuate it beyond the original members remaining in a particular school setting. This group may be seen as the “in crowd," and may have a corresponding male group with which they exclusively socialize.