... About Appropriating Black Hairstyles

A few weeks ago I noticed something unusual. My cousin added a bitmoji profile to his contact. Even more strangely, in his profile photo, his bitmoji had its hair done in Bantu knots. My cousin is white. I never expected that I would have to have a conversation with him about why this was inappropriate. My cousin is a freshman in high school and even though Hawaiʻi doesn’t have a very large Black population, we are not completely unaware of the appropriation of Black hairstyles and the blackfishing phenomenon. When I saw his profile image, I was shocked. I was also at college 5000 miles away from home and not in regular contact with him.

I felt strange reaching out to him to talk to him about it. I was worried that he would feel like I was attacking him and that he would immediately go to his mother, who would probably support him even though she knew deep inside that I was right. They are liberal. We are liberal. Most of Hawaiʻi is liberal. Yet so many kamaʻāina are willing to turn a blind eye to uneducated jokes and microaggressions. If we are just joking then it’s okay. But the thing is, that is not always the case. Without knowing the history and having cultural knowledge, the jokes aren’t so funny. Instead, they reflect generations of discrimination and prejudice so deeply ingrained that we don’t even realize how deep it goes. The stereotypes that we make fun of in our “post-racial society” we still secretly believe to be valid. That is why we laugh—because even as we say we don’t really believe what we are saying, there is still a small part of us that believes it is true.

But I digress. People in Hawaiʻi, like most people, don’t like to admit that they have done racist things. It is always “it was just a joke” or “you know I don’t actually believe that”. I knew that if I talked to my cousin it would be the same. Even though he is young, he wouldn’t just say “I’m sorry, I didn’t know”. Instead, he would try to justify it. I didn’t want to deal with that or to put myself in a position to be gaslit, but I realized that I could just look away and that is exactly why I didn’t. His actions didn’t affect me personally, but that is exactly why I had to talk to him. Black people are not responsible for educating my cousin. His family is. I am.

The conversation went much as expected. He said he didn’t choose the hairstyle because it was a Black hairstyle, he just thought it looked funny. He saw that as an excuse. I asked him why he thought it looked funny and kept probing him until he came to the conclusion that him finding the hairstyle funny looking was in a large part because of white supremacy. We talked for a little about Black hairstyles and professionalism in the workplace and the appropriation of Black hairstyles and then our conversation was over. It was difficult. It was uncomfortable. It was necessary.