A note about power and appropriation (2016–08–25):

The reason it doesn’t work the other way around (POC straightening their hair or etc) is because of the history of POC being forced to assimilate and then white people taking black culture and claiming it as their own. As always, it is about power and the history of power, and it is not really about any individual.

Ultimately, we each have to make our own decisions about these things, and since no group is a monolith (e.g. not every POC believes that a particular thing is appropriative), there is no definitive answer about what you should do and we have to accept that and be willing to hear criticism when someone does disagree. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make the change that that person suggests, but I do think that hearing them out is a good idea.

An example from my own life: I myself have been accused of appropriation with regard to my love of hip hop and rap music. I hear it, try to take it in as much as possible and consider the arguments, but I still ultimately reject the idea that my enjoyment of- and claiming of- rap music is something that I should change. I may face criticism for that, but I have to be big enough and honest enough with myself to own my position.

At the heart of this, I think, is that we (white people) are really not used to hearing these criticisms and so we get super sensitive about it and take it personally. It’s time to toughen up a little and realize that we are becoming less and less the center of the cultural universe and that that shift will entail critiques that we have to make decisions about.

(And if you’re feeling bad about having to adapt, then please remember that- generally speaking- you won’t be denied a job for not adapting, you won’t be murdered by the police for not adapting, you won’t lose an apartment for not adapting, and you can totally get away with not teaching your kids to adapt. Rest assured: white supremacy is still firmly in place and you will still benefit from it.)

I am the Founder and Creative Director of Other Lives, a peer-led trauma survivors’ network and advocacy organization. For more about our work, please visit otherlives.org. You can support our mission at patreon.com/otherlives.

I am currently publishing some of my old writing that was originally written for Facebook, and I have created my own publication on Medium for that purpose: https://medium.com/untitled-draft