Dear Kardashian-Jenners, let’s talk about hair.

I aint mad, I just got a few things to say.

So I woke up today to a lot of my nappy sisters in an outrage, and after scrolling through Facebook and other social media outlets, I realised that this was going to be something similar to the Kylie Jenner debates. Again.

My first reaction to Khloe’s picture was “Did she at least call them Bantu Knots or did she pull a Mane Addicts?”. So when I saw she actually managed to call them Bantu Knots instead of “twisted mini buns” a small amount of relief overcame me. As I was scrolling through the comments, I noticed a lot of people criticising black women being offended by this, saying that this isn’t cultural appropriation and that we were just contributing to the angry black woman stereotype.

Now this is when I get mad. First of all, it would be damn nice to not have the group of people most known for cultural apprpriation tell us, a race that has been appropriated so many times, that something isnt appropriation. Secondly, if you could just take a minute and listen to why we are angry I am pretty sure you would sit yourself down and rethink. You see, we are not angry because Khloe is white and is wearing Bantu knots (at least I’m not), we’re angry because its the fact that Khloe is white that makes this hairstyle suddenly nice.

Black teenagers have been banned from wearing similar hairstyles, black U.S. soldiers have been banned from wearing their hair in a certain way, and numerous black celebraties have been ctritisized for wearing their hair naturally. So excuse me if when, yet again, a part of our identity that we are told is unprofessional and ugly is positively received on a white person, we get a little bit mad.

It’s incredibly frustrating to see our young girls being sent home because her natural hair “is too poofy” and then have a magazine that taught how to turn straight hair into an afro make it okay. It’s frustrating that when big lips became a thing, Kylie Jenner was the inspiration, even though black women have been told again and again that theirs look like monkey lips. It’s frustrating to be told that there is a new hairstyle inspired by Kylie, only to find out that they’re talking about cornrows which we’ve been wearing for years. It seems that every year, another part of black culture is ripped away and made into a new trend, ignoring the history and suffering behind it.

There is a fine line between cultural appropriation and appreciation, the difference between the two simply being credit given where it belongs. I beleive that cultural exchange is beautiful, but not when the original culture is ignored and forgotten along the way. We will keep on fighting until the white girl wearing a sari, henna, and an afro can tell us exactly where they came from, and what the cultural meaning behind them is.

So next time you want to want to be a “Bantu babe” Khloe, go ahead, but I would appreciate if you would throw in some acknowledgment our way.

PS: If you are still confused, refer to this