White Apologetics: Appropriation (ROUND 2)
Let's workshop this essay that goes over tips for handling "antiracist" bullies who insist that whites stop certain practices (like wearing dreads) on grounds that it appropriates black culture.
Fuck this dude. A white person can wear a Native American headdress. Lol.
White Apologetics: Appropriation
You are white with dreads and someone blocks your passage in the hallway in rage over your so-called “theft of black culture." In today’s climate of run-amok antiracism (its anti-diversity ethos conquering territory upon territory in the fraudulent name of “diversity”) cultural appropriation is one of the gravest indictable sins. The sin turns most unforgivable when the appropriation targets “black culture,” the culture of a people it is fad to say (whenever possible, however awkward the timing) are hyper-downtrodden by an indelible antiblack racism woven into every US institution—a deception that drives so much of the mainstream kowtowing and moral grandstanding that, despite being carried out allegedly on behalf of black people, only serves to hurt and humiliate black people (almost as if, so a more conspiracy-minded person might say, to justify the continuation of the fad). In the burgeoning religion of antiracism, yes, appropriation of black culture is an unpardonable evil right up there with white people daring even to mention words that sound merely reminiscent to that Voldemort word. It is right up there, to cite just one more of its many taboos, with contradicting a black woman (and thereby “invalidating” her “lived experience”).
Although it has metastasized into cyberspace and even onto street corners in a city near you, the menace is still most concentrated at its spawn point: the university. Never forgetting that we are all cunts and faggots and wannabees in our own way (with rare, and even then perhaps only relative, exception), the college cunts and faggots who wield the appropriation cudgel are so often wannabees. Calling out a kid for wearing dreads while white is a move of overcompensation as transparent as the micro-penis guy in the red sports car or the evangelical raging nonstop against gays. What does the accoster have to prove?
It is not uncommon for the accoster herself to be white. The savior stereotype is all-too-real. The parallel, of course, is the person (almost always white here too) intervening with a self-righteous shriek of “How dare you, you ableist monster!”—intervening simply because of what you said to the stranger in the wheelchair, as he struggled to get up the rain-slicked ramp: the joking—obviously joking—comment “My money’s on you not making it, ahahaha.” You are laughing and the man in the wheelchair is laughing, and yet the how-dare-you warrior for justice is rushing over to grab the reigns—yes, the literal reigns since, by this point, you have already started pushing the man.
We all know the type. She is the type to flip out over seeing a white lady with chiney bumps. After all, she knows better than the damn Jamaicans who blessed the lady with the hairstyle. She’s the type to take offense at the white kid dressing up as Pancho Villa for Halloween, even as Mexican people for the most part feel rightfully honored—well, at least those yet to be touched by the sickness (although, yes, adherents of the religion will put it differently: as “yet to be woke”). She is the type to demand that the white man take off the charro outfit “right this minute,” even though tons of Mexican people are saying “You look good, gringo.” And yet she is the type, of course, that would not be offended if the same man was in lederhosen even though he lacks any German heritage.
The whole thing is just so sad in how bad of a look it gives humans, an embarrassment when we consider the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrials looking down. The dogmatic asininity of it all, oddly enough, almost makes it harder, more frustrating, to criticize. Part of the problem is that the criticism it baits, baits in virtue of being as repeated as it is ridiculous, only serves to make it seem worthy of criticism in the first place—a legitimizing strategy well known by advocates of hollow-earth theory (and other sensational stances that have been selected as fittest by the Darwinian hand of the algorithm).
So yes: if you are getting berated as a white person for sporting dreads, it is likely that you are being berated by a college student who is white. The psychology is rich, but it typically boils down to desperation for black approval and for the good feels of calling out what is widely deemed an evil.
Do not be so quick to think you are better than this virtue-signaling savior. Because we find ourselves in a victim culture, and because black people are deemed the victims of all victims (since the very fabric out of which every western institution and person is made is allegedly toxic to blacks), and because the “plight” of black people garners such grave respect (especially in these college spaces), and because white appropriation of black culture is classified as one of the chief evils of our age (an audacious robbing of a people that has already been robbed and beaten into intergenerational skittishness)—intervening like this, as a white savior, is one of the cheapest ways to feel excellent about yourself as a white person. It offers cheap absolution from the guilt it pays in our society—pays bigtime—to say white people deserve to feel. It is an easy step toward acceptance as an ally, a badge almost as coveted today as finding out you have African ancestry on 23andMe—a badge that unlocks various possibilities: perhaps most importantly, the chance at some of that black pussy and black cock hyper-glorified in our culture. So do not be so quick to think you are better than these messiahs. That would be almost as cringey as saying “I’d never own slaves back then. I’d be the difference.” Motherfucker, you weren’t gonna be no difference! You eat factory-farmed meat, bitch—an ethical travesty, a human embarrassment, that dwarfs the horrors of Trans-Atlantic slavery.
If you have lived long enough perhaps you have noticed an uptick in wheelchair people themselves voicing offense at these harmless humanizing jokes. Shocking as it might sound to some (although younger people are less likely to feel the impact of the point), even the damn wheelchair guy himself—not just his virtue-signaling handlers—shouts “Ableist pig!” He shouts this even though you were obviously just messing around. He shouts this even though—well, precisely because (and that is the point, since we are in a victim culture)—you were not treating him as a pity case to be condescended to (but rather as a fellow human among humans, suffering in their own ways until obliteration)! We are all sheepish and we all can get hooked on handouts just as easily as opiates and so, just as addicts start doing things they never thought they would (stealing their mother’s TV), the wheelchair people themselves have started lashing out at the jokesters. We are in a time, to give a fresh analogy, when even the “spazzes” themselves, not just their saviors, are complaining when a music artist uses the term “spaz out” merely in a non-abelist context. The gravy train is just too irresistible. It is too irresistible even for tears of “I didn’t mean it like that” to get in the way. Everyone has their price.
Why bring this up? Well, there has definitely been an uptick in the case of black people harassing white people for wearing dreads. If it is an exaggeration to say that this belongs to a long tradition of black people adopting white behaviors and values, it is only a slight exaggeration. That blacks, like wheelchair users, would be enticed to engage in the savior policing themselves makes good sense. After all, black people are depicted (honored) in our society as the cripples of all cripples—a designation that is disgusting not only because it is false as well as humiliating and hobbling enough to become self-fulfilling, but especially because it is audaciously pushed in the name of “antiracism” and even “black power.” What a joke! What a sad joke that will bring you to tears if you really think about it. Each time my fury ebbs, that is what I am left with: tears. But anyway—yes, more and more black people are “following suit.” To be more precise I should say: more and more black college students and black internet terrors. (Do not be so relieved by this qualification, however. Just as powerful opiates reached from urban alleys into the suburban homes it destroys today, the enticement of the gravy train, the free cookies, is reaching everyday black people too.)
It is important to have empathy. There is a pragmatic reason, especially for people like me. Although I think and hope my emotions are tamer today, I have gone years on the verge of stabbing any evangelist who approached simply to tell me “Christ is your savior.” I come from a community of violence and I am still maladjusted at forty. Out of all my futures, prison for violence has continued to present itself to my mind’s eye in high-resolution technicolor. Writing is one of the few things keeping me on the outside. I can only imagine, then, how I might react if somebody was literally preventing me from walking, from moving, on some bullshit about “you’re appropriating black culture.” So when I say “it is important to have empathy,” I am speaking to people like me especially. I am trying to defuse you. Because my first thought, pinned against the wall by a person asking if anyone has scissors to cut away “these violent reminders” of my “colonial whiteness,” is punching a push dagger into a bitch’s throat. I cannot be the only one. Violent people like us really need to remember the humanity of these people.
So yes, empathy is practical. It can calm you and it can calm the accoster, its de-escalating perfume seeping through the pores of your body language. Empathy is also deserved independent of any pragmatic considerations. Everyone has a story, as the saying goes. But the reasons get more specific. Think about it. These are college kids insecure about their own belonging to blackness. On the one hand, they find themselves privileged as fuck, swiping their college meal cards. And yet, on the other hand, they have internalized a message (a message coming from all angles in our society) as to what authentic blackness is. It is a message that has deep roots in the primitivist depiction of blacks: hypersexual and hyperviolent. And it is a message that has been reinforced—brought to self-fulfilling animation—by certain factors even after the achievement of civil rights: war on drugs, welfare reform, and a countercultural dropout attitude of “Fuck the man.” It is a message that has been reinforced to such an extent that, just like the word “nigger,” it has been welcomed into black culture (starting from the late sixties) as a twisted point of pride. And so we get that implicit message that to be an authentic black man is to be aggressive in the bed and in the streets (or, in the extreme: a drug-dealing killer with no time for that nerdy white shit) and that to be an authentic black woman is to be a loud and rude “bad bitch” (or, in the extreme: a ratchet-ass hoe also with no time for that nerdy white shit). That message spreads with such fury now given all the pandering efforts of mainstream society to signal alliance to black people, efforts that have reached such toxic extremes of clumsy overcompensation that it is common to hear it said that we cannot really blame blacks for robbing (given “all that they have been through and continue to go through”), and that it is racist to expect black kids to adopt “white skills” in math and “white values” of punctuality.
So yes, the accoster—a black college student—is grappling with insecurity. She has an inner sense of being an imposter and she compensates by harassing the white kid. A further ground for empathy is that the larger institution (the college, and the whole country for the most part) enables and even encourages the behavior. There are various ways to compensate for being an imposter. It need not involve bullying white people. But when you have institutional backing in a world where social media allows the words of long-dead fighters for black rights to ring more loudly than they did sixty years ago, bullying white people is too enticing.
Humans, it should also be remembered, are as a rule cowardly little gremlins. However radical people insist a certain practice is (insist so that, as is so often the case, they can feel radical themselves in endorsing it and thereby shield their eyes from their own cowardice), we know that if that practice is represented in a positive light all over Disney productions (whether, a lesbian kiss in Star Wars or a protest against the growing oppression of black people at the white hands of a white-supremacist US in The Proud Family), it is not really radical (since Disney’s goal is maximizing profits). We know, in other words, that it is not really any more radical than that practice being endorsed by all the mainstream political candidates (since their goal is to get the most votes, which explains why they make the opportunistic switch to being, say, pro gay marriage only after the tides of the country change).
What are we to make, then, of the uptick in this bullying (which coincidentally we see endorsed in Disney productions and by political candidates, albeit in tamer forms like issuing trigger warnings and apologies for any complicity in white appropriations from vulnerable populations)? Simply put: such bullying is not really radical, however much it masquerades as such. It is fake radical. It is as radical as openly deriding Jews, say, in Medieval Europe (between the 11th and 14th centuries) or in Nazi Germany. It is downright fashionable to mock white people. It is one of those things it is easy to turn to (like the weather), the safe—no, saintly-feeling—joke to crack, at bars when the conversation is not going well and things are getting awkward. There is so much that could be said here (things I have said in rich detail elsewhere), but the most superficial introspection of the heart will reveal that it is true. “White” itself is a slur. People freely say (on TV, all over), “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna listen to what some white person has to say” (scoffing emphasis, yes, on the “white”). You would be a moral monster to say, however, “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna listen to what some black person has to say.”
So the confrontation—it is part of a sheepish fad. Sheepish fads are hard for people to resist. Peer pressure has always been humanity’s Achilles heel. Can you truly fault someone for caving under such immense pressure? If all that were not enough grounds for empathy, who can really resist the temptation to bully in itself? You think you are above it. But you are deluded. We are mean little critters. Have humility enough to recognize how chimp-like we are beyond just the abstract recognition of all the DNA we share with chimps. We literally get off on hurting people. Social media enabled a thermonuclear release of forces older than humans—forces that we always have to be on guard against; forces that society in general and enlightenment values in particular—yes, the very values repeatedly mocked as “too white” by the antiracist religion in question—have been our main strategies to help keep in check. We often cannot help ourselves. We see someone down and we want to throw in at least a kick or two or three—our faces, if you zoom in, all with that universal lip bite of cruelty. Look at yourself in the mirror.
The temptation to bully is potent enough. But imagine that your society allows you to feel morally superior and also a sense of belonging (a team spirit) precisely through carrying out the bullying. This is antisemite and Jew all over again—a pathetic cretin sheep move as old as time. Ask yourself: if put in the shoes of a bystander, would you have the moral courage, the security of self, to call out the black student here for her bullying bullshit? Might you even be that black student, accosting the white kid with dreads in order to prove your blackness and thereby feel that warm blanket of communal belonging while also getting to enjoy the status of a radical hero without really doing any radical work? The sugar temptation is too great. It is like your skin is a Ring of Gyges. Those blacks who can resist bullying white people are those rare heterosexual males who would resist using that ring of power for a go at Beyoncé’s pussy.
But let us get back to the hallway scene. You are a white kid with dreads and one of the these insecure black bullies, a female, blocks you from passing—yes, under the pretense of “defending black people from white rape.” Let us even imagine she has only white friends or, even worse, a white parent. That would be grounds for major imposter insecurity in our white-ain’t-right historical moment, our moment where whites more and more know at least one thing (despite James Baldwin’s remark from a different time now viral in our own): that they would prefer to be black here. Her aggression is through the roof, then. She is literally holding your collar and trying to pin you against the wall, calling her black-victim call for someone to come with scissors so she can really solidify her identity.
Now instead of stabbing the bitch with your push dagger (see bladehq.com for many options, even ones that will get past metal detectors), consider the more diplomatic route of dishing out some white apologetics first—all the while, especially if you are like me, remaining hypervigilant about letting your empathy levels drop to dehumanizing extremes. Yes, you do have to prioritize your safety. That might mean you will have to use at least some mace or call for help. Do not be naïve, though. None of this likely will go well. Call for help and you will be just another “white person weaponizing security forces against black bodies.” And if you mace her, it will be “a hate crime by a confused white boy who, unsatisfied with cultural theft, resorted to outright violence.”
Read the situation, though. I do not want to get too off track, but I will say this. If she is really all up in your face and a bit out of breath and glistening with sweat and yet still holding you in place, it is not a stretch to say that she is into you sexually (whether she knows it or not). So if you are smooth and defusing (“I see where you’re coming from” and “I admire your bravery here. Can I buy you a coffee so we can talk further?”), there might be a silver lining. But be warned. People are so so so cliché: leaves of one tree, different in the details mainly. Let me not beat around the bush. The way she is acting, you can expect her to be all about that race play in the bedroom. Another old story: the preacher rails and rails against homosexuals, protests against them and throws things at them in the street—and, well, it is never too much of a surprise when we find out he has an addiction to crystal meth and male prostitutes.
What does this mean in the case at hand? In the very least it means she is going to want to hear that hard-r “nigger” in the bedroom. Even though she is one in the public sphere to condemn someone like you for even mentioning the word while reading a black author out loud, in this intimate context she is going to want it used on her. Indeed, the more seconds of your capture in the hallway go by and the more likely she will want the whole nine yards of gross exaggeration of the master-slave dynamic—and I say “gross exaggeration” so that we never forget, however politically incorrect it is to mention, the tender moments of baby-making sensuality that took place between master and slave. If only to know this person better and thereby open ourselves up to more empathy, here are the one-sided bedroom sounds a mic might pick up.
Paid more for my pots and pans than I did for you, monkey bitch. You ain’t shit. Say it! Tell me you ain’t shit. You ain’t nothing more than all that shit slime on my dick. Look at that filth. Clean that shit off with them nigger lips. Yeah. And if I make a little mulatto nigglet bitch with this monkey pussy, tell me I ain’t gonna fuck that one too. Right in front of her nigger mama. Fuck you both. You ain’t nothing. Like fucking a hole in a board. You a piece of wood, bitch. And I own it. And I’m puttin’ it to work. Mmmm. Bitch needs to eat, right? Well, she needs to work. Work it, bitch. All the way. Work it. Yeah. Yeah. Oooh, I can’t believe I’m dumping this white goodness in a monkey bitch.”
You get the idea. College girls “be cray,” as they say. I have had to walk away from some disturbing things in my day. Once—twist my arm, yeah, maybe twice—is enough for me. How are we going to shop at Ikea the next day like everything is cool? That is wild even for a compartmentalizer like myself.
Let me recalibrate. Smooshed up against the wall (the accoster asking all the people filming if they have any scissors), I want you to consider drawing from your arsenal of white apologetics as a first course of action. Below you will find several talking points. You will notice that not much stress is placed on drawing a distinction between, on the one hand, adopting practices from another culture in order to mock that culture and, on the other hand, adopting practices from another culture in a respectful way and even to honor that culture. That distinction can be somewhat relevant, yes. However, we are not in such a scenario here: this antiracist accoster clearly cares nothing about intent. And even if the dreads were meant to mock, that is not sufficient for restricting the practice anyway. Mockery is a useful tool to call out and provoke change (think satire), and so restricting it sets a dangerous precedent that could be used to stifle important humanitarian work (as well as stifling an outlet, as in my case, for fury that might otherwise express itself in physical carnage). It seems reasonable to me, furthermore, that an individual should be free to express viewpoints. For even in a noocracy (perhaps the most preferable form of government), surely there will be other ways to prevent damage from toxic expressions than restricting them outright.
The following compilation unfolds in no particular order of rank. As a big believer in and defender of the importance of diversity (real diversity), I do lean into the second entry. And as a big believer in and defender of the view that nothing is ultimately up to any human, entry seventeen is probably my personal favorite.
1. Moral-Epistemological Angle.—You might challenge the accoster’s authority: “Who are you to speak for an entire culture? (*And if it is simply that you can because you are black, then what about the numerous black people who accept and even applaud my hairstyle?”)
This line of questioning can hit hard because it spotlights their sense of grandiosity. It hits especially hard considering the antiracist type we are dealing with here. This is the sort of girl who will deem it an egregious display of “the white-supremacist assumption that black people are monolithic” for a professor to call upon a black student to hear the “black perspective.” So professors are not allowed to ask students for the black perspective (admittedly, most often a ridiculous and cringey question) and yet, just because she is black, she can speak for the whole of black culture here on this matter?
Of course, you need to remember that calling out an antiracist for being contradictory does not have the power it would have in a healthy society. First, we stand—more like hunch—in a post-truth historical moment where feelings are guides to reality and where insisting on truth is actually a dominance posture of white supremacy. Second, antiracists will often say that since the treatment of black bodies by white supremacists was so contradictory (effusive love one minute and then lashings the next minute) it is expected that the rebellion against whiteness would be contradictory as well.
* I do not recommend invoking other black people who support your style. And despite what you might think, it will probably only make matters worse to say that other black people have helped you lock your hair with their own advice and beeswax fingers. Such a move has already been marked off by the religion as something that only a white supremacist says. It is akin to saying “Well, my black friends allow me to use the word ‘nigga.’” Moreover, they already describe whiteness as a contagious disease that blacks too can catch. So at least in the rhetoric of the moment they can always resort to saying that these black people who approve of your hairstyle are infected with the same whiteness that has black cops shoot black men.
My reason against invoking the support of other blacks, however, is not merely that it is bound to backfire. The more important reason is that it is humiliating and gives up too much ground. Whether or not a black person has helped you is entirely irrelevant. The same goes for whether or not a black person sanctions your use of the word “nigga.” Do not stoop to that bullshit. That only plays into their oppressive game, inadvertently supporting their wicked foundation. Never seek validation from a black person to be who you are.
2. Pragmatic Angle.—You could appeal to the palpable benefits of cultural exchange. “Don’t you see the hygienic value—let alone the purpose affording joy, akin to showing someone a great film or song for the first time—in cross-cultural pollination?”
Frailty and torpor often follow isolation, as we know when we do not expose our immune systems to contagion. People cutting themselves off from other cultures only results in inbred decadence, which is why diversity is so important: it is the key measure to ensuring good health, to ensuring vitality. European civilization has achieved its unprecedented greatness—richness—precisely because it was unprecedentedly open to foreign influences. Just as Europeans stand out for taking a severe stand against the slavery practices ubiquitous in annals of human history, they also stand out for celebrating (appreciating and integrating) various foreign styles and practices—two feats that should not be underestimated given how prone to treat others as slaves and to wall ourselves off in opposition to other groups humans are.
In theory, yes: this move hits especially hard because the antiracist type we are dealing with usually is all about “diversity.” Like “equity,” “diversity” is one of their repeated mantras, after all. A note of caution is warranted, however. These antiracists have a warped and watered-down notion of diversity. By “watered down” I mean that they are talking about skin-deep diversity. The more black people you add to a room the more diversity you are adding—yes, even if these black people are mental and spiritual clones. These antiracists describe notions like “diversity in character” and “intellectual diversity” and “viewpoint diversity” just as they describe notions like “truth”: as white-supremacist notions under the cover of euphemism. Now, by “warped” I mean that they would call a room “diverse” even—well, especially—if it were entirely black. You will not win the debate. You can only plant a seed, and hopefully get away.
3. Ownership Angle.—Make clear to the accoster that no culture can rightfully claim to own any practice as property, let alone as property that others are forbidden to use. “Are you really going to say that eating with my hands (as natural to humans as the tendency for human hair to lock), translates to forbidden robbery of another culture’s—say, Trinidadian culture’s—proprietary practice?”
This angle has a lot to recommend it. It would seem barbaric if we stopped Japanese people from ever wearing business suits and ties on the grounds that such a practice is the property of Western culture. Even that practice, which is not natural for all humans in the way that dreads and eating with hands are, is free for all to use.
Stressing the notion of property when making the point could be especially strategic. After all, in antiracist circles the notion of property is sometimes considered a white supremacist construct—a value of whiteness (like punctuality and individuality and scientific reasoning and free speech). Just as some in the deaf community would have us temper our praise of those who invented cochlear implants because it reinforced the ableist order where hearing is preferable to not hearing, some would even have us temper our praise of the first black homeowners after slavery because in valuing private property they were perpetuating a white-supremacist paradigm in the same sort of way that a black person does when she straightens her hair or bleaches her skin.
Be prepared for the typical antiracist to snake out of this, though. One of the main moves to expect is the special pleading we see in so many other sectors: black people are an exception to the rule. Black people have been so mistreated, and black people continue to be punished so severely at present by the boot of white supremacy, that they are allowed or forgiven—and sometimes even praised (think: Italians praising mobsters)—to do desperate things to save themselves. “Just as we don’t blame a drowning person for pushing the rescuer under water,” so the accoster might say, “we don’t blame a black person for having property and protecting that property.” This absolves them out of the charge that they are perpetuating whiteness by having property, and it also allows them to say that they can freely appropriate from white culture and other cultures (think: Bruce Leroy). It is particularly white people, since they have such an upper hand, who must refrain from using any of the practices from other cultures. They have already stolen enough. That is the idea.
4. Diverse-Usage Angle.—Inform the accoster that dreadlocks have been found in various cultures around the world: Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, Vikings (among many other since hair naturally locks). “If multiple cultures have independently adopted a hairstyle, can it be accurate to label it as proprietary to just one?”
This is compelling angle. It builds nicely off of the previous one. It is plain overreach to say that blacks have a special claim on any practice, let alone one with historical roots in various cultures.
Expect pushback, though. The accoster might say that dreadlocks carry a distinct significance within black culture, especially considering the discrimination black individuals face for sporting them. She might contend that, as privileged colonizers, it is not right for white people to adopt elements significant to a culture that their whiteness impels them to oppress—yes, even if that element is something that belongs to their own heritage.
It would be foolhardy to get into the weeds with her here. You might be tempted to point out that “Unlike, say, in 1980 or perhaps even 2000, dreadlocks are not just accepted in mainstream culture but considered an aspirational style as hip as tattoos. Indeed, we frequently get the message driven down our throats that ‘Dread heads do it the best.’” This approach is foolhardy because, ultimately, she will just turn the tables on you. “Precisely because it’s desirable, white people will crawl out of the woodwork like sugar-crazed roaches to appropriate it—just like they always do. White people need to let black people have something for once. They already got all the power. They need to check their whiteness.”
5. Master angle.—Perhaps with an exasperated air of “if you must know” or “you’re lucky I’m even bothering to give you an explanation,” confess to the accoster that you are of Viking stock. “Are you really saying that I’m not allowed to wear the style of my own ancestors because you’re triggered or because you are under the wild misconception that it is merely a black hairstyle?”
This is the master angle because it defeats the antiracist on the antiracist’s own terms, using their own logic. Even if a culture could claim to own a practice (a ridiculous notion that fuels so much existential-angst numbing fury), you still prevail.
Unfortunately, this angle might involve lying. To be sure, lying does seem warranted. It is powerful weapon to counteract the growth of this tumor. But it is understandable that some will have reservations about being dishonest. The bigger issue, however, is that the root problem never gets addressed. It is not a responsible response from a social-justice perspective in that case. You allow the disease to go unchallenged.
Expect them to parry with trump cards of their own anyway. We have already seen some above. On grounds that it is one of the worst things for a white person to upset a black person (given how terribly whites have treated them and continue to treat them), she could simply say, “Yeah, I do expect you to renounce your own heritage.” Given her stranglehold on the discourse, the privilege of being in power, these trump cards do not even have to make much sense. You could easily get the response, for example, that you are just using “white logic”—a powerful phase, akin to “whitesplaining,” that spells an immediate victory for the antiracist (at least on the rigged score cards). You could also hear that, because you are going against what a black person is saying, you are invalidating their truth—one of the most insidious practices of white supremacy.
In an ideal world where reason is the primary adjudicator, fine. But considering the real world (where logic is continually sidestepped), one cannot in good conscience dub this angle the “Master Angle.” How can you reason with a chimp? (No pun intended here. I am referring to the chimp-like behavior of all humans.)
6. Practicality Angle.—Point out that cultures have influenced each other for millennia in intricate ways, outside influences being one of the central drivers of cultural evolution. “If you really think all that organic mingling should stop, how will you go about ensuring that it stop? How will you tie down every grain of pollen so that no wind will carry it off to forbidden places? And considering the intricate interweaving of cultural influences (from food and fashion to language and art), how are you even going to complete the preliminary step before restricting flow—namely, draw lines around cultural elements (white for white culture, black for black culture, red for Native American culture, yellow for Asian culture, and so on)—when various cultures would have at least a partial claim on so many elements?”
This seems like a reasonable angle. But perhaps you already can guess how some of the responses might go.
There might be some emotional obfuscation: “It's not about drawing strict lines or stopping cultural exchange. It's about respecting the pain and history attached to certain cultural symbols. Can't you just respect that!? Why do you people have to steal everything!?" This might not seem too moving theoretically, but in our historical moment it carries great weight. Even universities kowtow to these tantrums: changing curricula to coddle vulnerable populations, excising facts so as not to invalidate their truths.
There might be an appeal to historical injustice and prevailing power imbalances. “Yes, cultures have always influenced each other. But white culture takes and takes from already vulnerable peoples. That’s like snatching the last coins in a homeless beggar’s money tin. For that reason, white people need to be restricted from the trade. They’re just too powerful to be equal participants. When marginalized cultures borrow from the dominant culture, it is about survival. And when cultures on equal footing borrow from one another, it is a happy situation of ‘cross pollination,’ as you say. But white culture, like a pale vampire, will suck the the”—hopefully she does not say ‘inferior’ (yikes)—“the marginalized culture until it is desiccated of any identity of its own.”
The practically point still applies here nevertheless. “How do you propose preventing white culture from engaging in the trade?” With much more people (especially virtue-signaling whites) celebrating the decline in the number of white babies being born and even understanding the desire to kill white babies; with it becoming so fashionable for whites to make teary vows on TikTok never to participate in bringing more white babies, more wicked heirs of ill-gotten privileges, into the world—we might gather at least what the “final solution” might be. But that final solution is itself difficult since whites constitute the well-armed majority population still, a fact it is easy to forget given the overrepresentation of black people in the media.
That said, just because something is impractical does not make it wrong. For example, it seems theoretically obvious to me that noocracy is the superior form of government. But there are always those pressing practicality questions as to how to implement it and how the wise leaders (the philosopher kings) are to be chosen. In the end, then, this angle does not address the furnace of the accoster’s fury.
7. Touché Angle.—Point out that the accoster probably uses various things traceable to white culture: eyeglasses, English, denim jeans, smart phones, meatloaf, Shakespeare, colonial architecture, Protestantism, and so on. “Are you really prepared to do away with your eyeglasses (originating in Italy in the 13th century) or your computing technology (traceable back to people like Alan Turing and John von Neumann)?”
This mirror approach is strong. Cultural exchange is a two-way street. There is a long history of what might be called “black culture” borrowing from other cultures, even white culture. One thinks of the black cowboy tradition starting in the American West and continued today in groups like the Compton Cowboys and the Federation of Black Cowboys. One thinks of the cockfighting that, although originating in Asia, was brought to the Americas by European colonizers. One thinks of the pigeon-keeping practice that has been adopted into a hobby among some urban blacks (most notably Mike Tyson). One thinks of Christianity, which has become integral to black culture. One thinks of the English language. Indeed, many of the aspects of Ebonics are influenced by Europeans: “Y’all” and “Fixing to” (finna) originate in Scots-Irish English; “Ain't" has its roots in British English of the 17th and 18th centuries; use of double negatives (“ain’t never”), popular in Old English, was likely influenced by contact with European immigrants speaking languages (like French, Spanish, and various Slavic languages) that use double negatives; “aks” instead of “ask” has roots in British English (and can be seen in the dialect of Chaucer’s characters in works like the Canterbury Tales); “phat” started out as white American 1960s slang it seems. One thinks of Soul Food and all the ways it has been influenced by Europeans: its use of pickling, thyme, boiled cabbage; its stews of collard greens and ham hocks. And one can go on and on: music (European music scales and instruments), fashion, architecture, political thought, literature, art, folklore.
But do not think that this really matters much. As I said above: black people have the institutional backing to say that they are the exception. Blacks deserve to take whatever they want from whites as redress for vicious discrimination that continues into the present. In the face of systemic disenfranchisement, what else can you expect black people to do when they were ripped from their African homes by whites—a “euphemism” for “captured by their own people and sold to whites” (although it is itself a euphemism to call that a euphemism)? While it might leave a bad taste in their mouths to see a Mexican person with dreadlocks, it is not as bad as seeing a white people with dreadlocks because whites are the oppressors. Blacks, on the other hand, get a pass in virtue of being the ultimate victims. In this case, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Wu Tang taking from Chinese culture (yes, even for the sake of making money). The reason why should be clear. Just like we go real easy on the mangy dog from a pound who was beaten all his life, whites need to do the same for black people (especially considering that they are the abusers).
The main problem with this strategy, though, is that—even if you score a point by making the antiracist look foolish—it further block us from seeing the truth that cultural products belong to all humans.
8. Intra-Cultural Angle.—Call out the antiracist accoster for appropriating from black cultures to which they do not belong. “Are you really okay with enjoying and making gumbo even though you’re from the northeast? Are you really okay with beating out Soca and Calypso sounds from the steel pan even though you have no ties to the Caribbean?”
To give one more example for clarification, imagine that you know the accoster was born the 1980s and is from the northeast. Let us also imagine that she liberally sprinkles her language with “hella” (a Westcoast term) instead of the northeaster equivalent: “mad.” You might claim that she is appropriating from west-coast black culture.
This is a decent follow up to angle number seven. Even if it is okay for blacks to steal from whites, what about when blacks steal from fellow blacks? Black people are deemed so vulnerable in our society that they are to be protected at all costs, especially from the cultural thievery of whites. That is her logic. But would not that also include protection from the cultural thievery of other blacks?
The problem is that she could always point out what the successes of Caribbean and Nigerian black families in the US would call into deep question: that the white oppression against black bodies does not discriminate against different types of blacks, in which case—because of their shared oppression—pollination across the various divides within black culture is all fine and good. There is nothing wrong with a northeastern black walking around with a Louisiana twang if he wants to. That is all love, all family. But there is something deeply wrong when a white person walks around with dreads. That is all hate, all exploitation.
Such a response (especially given the success in the US of those blacks who do not share the deleterious cultural attitudes typical of US blacks) might seem odd. But in order to avoid frustration you must remember—you must come to accept (which does not equate with surrender your will to fight against)—who holds the power in society at large and especially in these university settings. This fact must be kept in mind for all the angles we discuss.
9. Belonging-1 Angle.—Stand firm and convey that you grew up in a black family with all black friends and all black writing and art and so on. “Could you really be insinuating that cultural affiliation requires a certain look?”
Culture is not reducible to complexion. Jarring as it is especially to ignorant Americans, there are white and yellow skin people who belong to Jamaican culture just as much as black Jamaican—to give just one analogous example of how cultural affiliation could be seen as a matter of lived experience.
This angle, however, is fraught with difficulty (even if we assume it is not a dishonest ploy for self-preservation). You might expect the accoster to say something like: “I agree that cultural affiliation is about lived experience. However, a black appearance is essential to having the lived experience required to belong to black culture.”
You might consider pointing out that, according to this rejoinder, black people who could pass for white might not really count as belonging to black culture. You might even want to school them on the tradition in black literature, which we see a shining example of in Nella Larsen, of mocking—as an all-too-white way of thinking—the notion that racial affiliation has to do with phenotypic traits like skin color and nose size and body-fat distribution and skull shape and so on.
This might seem like a promising move (in effect, calling out the accoster for reasoning from “white assumptions”). But we all know that the accoster has trump cards. Merely going against what a black woman is saying in itself makes you wrong. You can have all the statistics or logic you want. It matters not. Power defeats reason.
But the accoster need not even go that far. After all, saying that I belong to black culture because I lived and breathed black culture could come off—or, just as importantly, could be said by the accoster to come off—like saying “I’m not racist because my best friend is black,” which is a rationale that—however reasonable it might be (and yes, check your indoctrination, it is reasonable)—is universally ridiculed. Your words, then, will have no efficacy against self-righteousness fury.
Especially if you are not lying, you might even consider going the route of quizzing the accoster’s cultural knowledge. “Give me a few bars from Lakim Shabazz. Who is Medgar Evers? What sexual act did Eldridge Cleaver use to gain, in his mind, racial liberation at a personal level? Name all the Wayans brothers. What instrument did Eric Dolphy and Wayne Shorter play? What does it mean to be “slain in the spirit”? Fill in the rest: Tommy the Hitman _______? Is something wrong with the TV set or the film when Troy goes to the suburbs in the film Crooklyn?” And so on.
The problem is that this angle, at least on the surface level, leaves the accoster as “deaf dumb and blind” to their antiracist ignorance (to use Five-Percenter speak) as they were before. Now I say, “at least on the surface level,” because these questions, especially if the accoster fails most of them, might sow seeds of introspection regarding what it means to be part of a culture.
10. Belonging-2 Angle.—Drop the bombshell: tell the accoster that you are black. “How are you gonna be telling a black man what hairstyle to have?”
From one perspective it might seem that this surprise curveball deserves to be called “The Master Angle.” The surprise revelation could leave her speechless, her sanctimonious tirade halted in its tracks. Watch closely for her reaction. Perhaps you will luck out and there will be at least an inkling of shame at having made a false assumption.
The problem is that, given the set up (namely, that you are a white person), this angle requires deception. Unlike with the real “Master Angle” above, such deception has no benefit except for protecting yourself. Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures when facing down self-righteous aggression. Why stay on the defensive when a single word can flip the script and put them on their heels? Sure, it is not the most principled approach, but neither is letting her vilify and threaten you based on her own prejudiced conceit. On the other hand, is it worth compromising your integrity to pacify someone else's misguided indignation?
Even in the best case scenario (where the accoster believes you instead of laughing in your face), you leave nothing challenged. That is the central problem. She goes on with her bullying ways, perhaps even emboldened in her practice of harassing white people. To avoid falling too easily into this temptation, I recommend you study examples of heroes throughout history who sacrificed their own wellbeing for the sake of mankind, who championed truth and justice even at great personal cost. A great example is Dietrich Bonhoeffer: a German theologian who openly criticized the Nazi regime even though that meant arrest and execution.
11. Significance Angle.—You might explain that there are deeply personal or even spiritual motivations for choosing to have dreadlocks. “Are you really prepared to say that no amount of personal reasons could ever justify my wearing dreads?”
Sharing personal stories can humanize you in her eyes and help bridge understanding. By providing context and deeper insight into your choices, you're inviting dialogue and challenging preconceived notions. This approach's strength lies in its potential to create a human connection, offering a touchpoint of commonality. That is what is good about this angle. Yada yada yada.
That said, the angle is weak. The accoster is prepared to say that no amount of personal reasons could ever justify your wearing dreads. Again, white people are privileged colonizers and so it is categorically unacceptable—no matter their motivations—for them to adopt hairstyles significant to a people that their whiteness impels them to oppress.
Besides, this move will read to the staunch antiracist the same way as “I didn’t intend to hurt any black person’s feelings by singing this song or by mentioning this statistic.” Now, you might be thinking: “Isn’t it crucial to differentiate between someone who adopts a style out of genuine appreciation versus someone who does it mockingly? Shouldn't intent be a significant factor when considering cultural appropriation?" That would be pretty naïve considering that this accoster—a typical adherent of the antiracist religion—clearly does not care about intent. Perhaps more importantly, it is naïve considering our historical moment in the US. Intent is often considered now another dog whistle like “truth” for right-wing bigotry—pretty much the auditory equivalent of white-power hand gestures.
12. Priority-Shift Angle.—Try rerouting the discussion to more urgent matters. You might say something like “Squabbling over hairstyles only diverts attention from more pressing issues like disparities in educational performance and mass-incarceration of black men. How can we both feel heard and respected in this space?"
By questioning how we can create an environment of mutual respect, you're acknowledging the sensitive nature of the topic and showing willingness to engage in a constructive dialogue. But do not be naïve. She has you against the wall. She wants your head on a platter, your mane sacrificed to her smug sanctimony. She will only feel heard and respected once you “kill yoself” (to use the vernacular) or shave the damn hair off. No doubt crying will at least be an acceptable consolition: she will feel that rush of power while also getting confirmation of one of the chief dogmas of her religion (that whites use tears to try to get sympathy and to try to center the conversation on their pain).
That said, this is a decent move. Well, it is decent as long as you do not compromise by saying something like “Squabbling over hairstyles might divert attention from more pressing issues like disparities in educational performance and mass-incarceration of black men and other manifestations of white-supremacist control over black people.” Although this tune will sound better to the antiracist, you are making the common all-too-easy assumption that is as false and harmful to black people as it is tired: blaming all black failure on an unreal white supremacy baked into the fabric of the country.
My original wording, on the contrary, can diffuse the situation while also allowing for the possibility (at least in fat-chance theory) of teachable moments. You might be able to get into, for instance, how corrosive attitudes common in black culture—like thinking that doing well in school and reading and studying math is a white thing, or romanticizing the black thug and the black harlot, or building their lives around racial grievance and extorting whites—carry some of the burden for the disparities mentioned in a society that loves black people (at a personal and an institutional level) as much as it loves white people (as we see with the success of those black people who come from cultural enclaves or just straight up other countries like Trinidad and Nigeria where family structures and early education and attitudes and values and norms are more conducive to success).
Will the seeds sprout? Doubtful when self-serving myths reign. But even facing righteous fury, truth matters. Stand unwavering, and sleep soundly.
13. Definition Angle.—You might ask what exactly constitutes cultural appropriation. “Is it merely adopting elements of another culture? Or is it doing so without understanding and respect?”
Sure, discussing the nuances can create clarity. However, and especially because you are the one now asking the questions, you run a big risk here of being charged in particular with using “white logic” or “white think” or “white hairsplitting.” You run the risk in general with trying to “control the narrative” in a discussion with a “black queen”—someone who always deserves the reigns, someone who always needs to have their feelings validated in a conversation with a white person. If the accoster does entertain the question, expect their answer to boil down to the former option.
They might pay lip service to that latter option, yes. But you must understand the crucial point: it is impossible for you as a white person ever to adopt a practice of black culture without being disrespectful. You fail to have the “lived experience.” The phrase “lived experience” is supposed to carry extra significance. It is supposed to carry a transcendent weight just like, in fact, the term “appropriation,” which is why as I keep on saying you cannot get your hopes up even with the best of these apologetical angles.
So hopes for an earnest exchange based on reason are slim. Entrenched dogma rejects nuance. The goal becomes planting seeds of introspection. Accept the unjust reality, but deny it further traction. Reason retains value, even in the face of righteous fury.
14. Seeking-Education Angle.—You might consider saying that you are sorry if you caused any offense and that, as a show of your sincerity, you would like to hear about any educational resources. “Are there any books or documentaries or workshops I can turn to for further understanding?”
If this merely amounts to expressing curiosity (as in “Please provide me with these resources to help me understand your perspective better”), then it could be a good move to defuse the situation and perhaps lead to deeper dialogue. That said, do not be naïve. By asking for resources, you hand over the baton to the accuser to play professor. It is easy to think that a person might appreciate the opportunity to school the uninformed. But look at the person you are dancing with. A bully always finds ways to turn the tables, to justify escalating their attack. “What? So now on top of the violence of your optics and appropriation, you saying its my responsibility to educate you!? Typical white behavior: treating me, a black queen, as just one of your pieces of chattel while you parade around with my culture.”
Even pushing these points aside, I must say: the angle in question does not sit well with me. And it really does not sit well with me—in fact, I find it extremely disgusting—if it amounts to the typical pussy white move: admitting that you are off-base for your hairstyle and then groveling for education. Yes, going to that pathetic extreme might save your life. But admitting wrongdoing validates her aggression and control. It only enables the bullying that is already too enabled by society as it is. I personally would go the knife route before folding. Life is bigger than you. Sometimes it is called for to be a heretic—yes, even if it means you must die. Once again, I recommend that you study historical heroes, especially ones who were willing to engage in violence for their self-sacrificing cause. John Brown, of course, if a pivotal example here.
15. Individuality Angle.—You could consider asking something like: “If we believe that every individual is unique and should be free to express themselves, wouldn't it be contradictory to then dictate someone's choices based on their racial or ethnic background?"
This sounds all well and good, especially given the “intended” spirit of the USA. Be cautious, however. You would think that an antiracist would be all about judging people on a case-by-case basis. But we are no longer in a historical moment where equality is the goal. Rather it is equity that is the goal. The antiracists we are dealing with are those, for example, who want to do away with blind auditions—yes, do away with them. They want to do away with them so we can guarantee more blacks are admitted to the orchestra, handpicking based on color instead of competence. Blind auditions were such a saving grace in an age of discrimination against blacks. It allowed musicians to be judged on what counts: their musical ability. But now we are in a time where it is deemed crucial to go even with the third-rate black over the first-rate white or Asian so as to make things equitable. Blind auditions, once beacons of fairness, are considered now violent impediments to the creation an equitable society.
The accoster is not going to want to hear any of that, of course. You say all that bullshit and she, and everyone around her, will voice that Pavlovian cry common among Cheeto-finger internet bullies: “nazi alert!” It should also be said that “individuality,” like “truth,” is considered in this historical moment a white-supremacist slogan. So this angle is likely to backfire on a “fascist bigot” such as yourself. No matter how logically you state your case, their brains boil with irrational dogma. So stand firmly in truth against mob fury.
16. Double-Standard Angle.—You might ask, “Why is it seen as theft when I integrate an element from a different culture into my life (yes, out of respect and admiration), but seen as imperialism when others adopt an element from western culture?"
You should know by this point that this is not going to be the “gotcha” move you might think it is. Remember, whites—whites are seen as the problem, the perennial pillagers of history. Whites are claimed by her religion to have the power and privilege. Indeed, they are supposedly controlled by a disease called “whiteness,” which manifests as voracious desire to colonize and enslave outsiders. Because white people are so privileged and so locust-like in their appetites to control, they have no right to take from black people. That is like punching down. And because white people are so world powerful, when outsiders adopt western practices we can suspect that there has been at least a bit of coercion involved. “They might like Disney movies and Coca-Cola in India, yeah. But the design is to make money. It is a power thing. They were coerced to some degree. Oh, they enjoy a Big Mac in Beijing? That’s western imperialism at play.” At least these are the sorts of things it is easy to imagine coming from accoster’s mouth.
17. Metaphysical Angle.—No culture is the buckstopping source of anything they can be said to have produced: anything done by any human is entirely a function of what was going on before any human was even around, which means that before there was any black culture everything that has played out in black culture was bound to play out exactly as it did. “Do you really think that black culture is the ultimate origin of itself? Indeed, don’t you see that, when you trace any aspect of black culture, its antecedents extend outside of black culture and ultimately go back to before there was black culture or any culture?”
Appealing to the fact that nothing is ultimately up to any human is intellectually the most powerful response: it addresses the core mistake on which the appropriation grievance rests and it is quite definitive. That said, it is only really moving if we are dealing minds who are interested in or who respect truth, which is typically not the case in these contexts. Expect this to be a tough sell, then.
Yes, there are powerful proofs for determinism, one of the main grounds for saying that nothing is ultimately up to any human. I am one of the scholars who has given such proofs, in fact. Formality aside, it is a very intuitively true notion anyway: the entirety of what is going on at any moment in time brings about the entirety of what is going on at the next moment in time. In other words, it is simply the past (all things considered and so considering the influence of anything timeless like God) that guarantees the future, such that there are no objectively random events (events that come from nothing) nor any self-caused events (events that cause themselves to exist either temporary or metaphysically prior to when they exist). Everything is a domino effect of prior causes.
Even if one appeals to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics to say that determinism is false, that would only bring in the extra element of objective randomness—events happening without a sufficient cause, events that come from nothing. The thing is, no amount of events popping up from nothing can make black culture or black people ultimately responsible for a certain practice we see in black culture. Throwing randomness in the mix contributes nothing to secure a human’s ultimate responsibility for their practices.
And for determinism-independent evidence for the claim that black culture fails to be the buckstopping source of anything it can be said to have produced, consider the following proof.
(1) If black culture is ultimately responsible for practice D, then it must have contributed to giving rise to D and it must be ultimately responsible for at least some portion of what it contributed—call that portion “X.”
(2) If black culture is ultimately responsible for X, then it must have contributed to giving rise to X and it must be ultimately responsible for at least some portion of what it contributed—call that portion “Y.”
(3) Since at no point is black culture self-caused (that is, since at no point did black culture give rise to itself like God), this chain will go on in an indefinite amount of steps until some point is reached before there was even that black culture (in which case black culture would clearly not be ultimately responsible for the portion of what it contributed in question at that point).
Therefore, black culture is not ultimately responsible for practice D—D being a function of factors entirely beyond what is ultimately up to black culture. (If need be to make the point, we can swap out “black culture” here for “black person.”)
In the end, Black culture, like all cultures, has evolved into being from prior conditions and has changed according to outside conditions—yes, including the influence of things outside of human culture altogether (dances like the Eagle Dance and the Zebra Dance to mimic animal behavior, hunting and fishing techniques copied from animals).
Of course, the major problem with this angle should be clear. How can you expect to reason with such a bully, especially on such intellectually complex matters of metaphysics? How more white, and thereby wrong, can you get here! It is like expecting a fish to flap up a tree. In the eyes of such a person, engaging in complex metaphysical discussions is just another manifestation of “white intellectual arrogance,” another shade of your “white privilege.”
18. End-Goal Angle.—Say to the person that you have their number: that you know that their end goal is to bully, pure and simple. “Since you neither want to trade your smartphone and eyeglasses for my locks nor want to even hear the story behind my having dreads, how can it be that you aren’t just bullying?”
The goal of calling out appropriation of black culture in the scenario at hand is neither to ensure mutual respect (in any normal sense of the term “respect”) nor to segregate cultures. It is to bully. It is a power trip. They do not want to segregate cultures because they are not going to give up all the white influences in their lives. And they do not want to ensure mutual respect because they do not care about the intent behind your hairstyle. Their idea of mutual respect is that you must do what they say and then they will stop harassing you and finally let you walk freely in the hallway: you bend to their will and, in return, they'll allow you the “privilege” of walking past them without a tirade.
Yes, they might insist that their idea of mutual respect is the correct one since “this is a white supremacist nation where whites have all the power and so it is only fair that whites are the only ones to budge in circumstances like this. They are the ones with the privilege and thereby the expectation to be the bigger person.” That is just a smokescreen, of course. Pretty much everyone (black and white alike) knows in their hearts that this is not a white supremacist nation where whites have all the power. The proof is in the pudding: it is in the palpable fear white people have (especially the fear of being called racist and all the institutionally-backed fallout that comes with such a label); it is in the mainstream messaging filled with mockery of white people and whiteness. And even if whites did have all the power, it still would be ridiculous to be able to dictate their hairstyle.
The accoster’s end goal is to control, dominate, intimidate, and even torture. It is a blind groping for power. Dictating hairstyle is straight from the playground bully playbook. Consider bringing up some of the remarks I made before this list, remarks about how they are struggling with feeling like fake blacks and they are overcompensating because of it. Tell them, show them, that you see through them.
Powerful