It's not all that cool in 'Europe'

As my eyes travelled down the Youtube sidebar I noticed this video. It's about a pair of irritating Canadians who decide to have 'dreads' put in their hair because "it's cool in Europe". Not necessarily. In England it marks you out as a Crusty or a New Age Hippy. Or maybe just a fashion junkie, especially if they are salon made. Of course if that's what you think is cool then read no further. This isn't my main point though.

White Privilege

They had it in spades! This naturally led me on to thinking about black hair, which dreads itself rather well a la Bob Marley, and then to the reasons why people do it. Bob identified as a Rastafarian so for him it was a religious thing. Historically dreadlocks have been worn by Ancient Egyptians, Indians and African tribes. Hey, people of colour! So, if white folks are going rasta, what are black folk doing?

Going straight

Although you wouldn't think so by the prison population. Hair. While white folks have appropriated a black hairstyle as a fashion statement, black women are practically obliged to relax their hair in order to get on in life. And again, that's fine if they want to have straight hair, but not fine if society is treating them as less than equal for having naturally frizzy hair. That's bad, but when you add injury to insult this happens:

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Getting your hair relaxed can be positively dangerous. Chemicals and shit. Dreadlocks can be combed out (if you are insane) or cut off and still combed out but as the hair is shorter it won't hurt so much. Not a lot you can do with a burned bald head except wear wigs. So, white people can wear dreads because they want to whereas black women feel obliged to have straight hair. What is society coming to?

Disclosure: I never had actual dreads, but for ages I had 12 plaits on each side of my centre parting. My hair was shoulder length and dead straight, very dark brown. So there was my white scalp! Then one time I took the time (ahh it took ages) to put 50 tiny plaits in, 25 each side. I was on the High Street one day not long after when a very odd looking albino chap rushed up to me and gave me a flyer for his art exhibition. You must come he said, with that hairstyle it will look fantastic! I'm not going to be an exhibit I thought. That's not why I did it. Plaits out; straight hair in.

And should you be wondering (now that you've almost reached the end) which particular video sidebar I was perusing it was this. John Lydon might give me a grin for my effort. After all, I blame him for a lot of things.