Your hairstyle is racist!!

[Joe Guy]

other than various cornrow styles originating in Africa

That's a rather significant "other than". It's like saying, "it's not a style that can be identified with the struggles of people of African origin, except for the fact that it originated in Africa."

That's really a stretch there, Scooter. The style originated in Africa, so it could be called an African hairstyle, but likening it to a Struggling Black American Slave hairstyle is as silly as saying Black Americans are guilty of African culture appropriation.

And once again we have a thread where a bunch of old white guys ridicule and dismiss what black people have to say, without making the slightest attempt to understand them.

If I hadn't attempted to understand the topic of this thread, I wouldn't have commented.

[Joe Guy]

If I wear my hair in a ponytail, will I be attacked by ponies?

I think that is Joe's mane point.

And any man who wears a ponytail and has long ears doesn't realize he is making an ass of himself.

[Big RR]

It's the same attitude that leads some to hold weddings or other celebrations in plantation houses, thinking they lend grandeur to the occasion, while completely disregarding that they are partying on the graveyard of the slaves who were worked to death there.

So I presume you would have the same objection to any dinner or reception at the White House given the history of using salves there?

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press ... hite-house

[Bicycle Bill]

It's the same attitude that leads some to hold weddings or other celebrations in plantation houses, thinking they lend grandeur to the occasion, while completely disregarding that they are partying on the graveyard of the slaves who were worked to death there.

So I presume you would have the same objection to any dinner or reception at the White House given the history of using salves there?

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press ... hite-house

But why stop there?  The pyramids and much of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architecture were built with the labor of slaves — tear 'em down!  Ditto the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Meso-American temples and pyramids, and for all I know, even the temples of Angkor Wat.

In fact, if push were to come down to shove, I doubt that you could find much of anything more than 300 years old that wasn't constructed through the efforts of slaves, prisoners, or other oppressed peoples.  So break out the bulldozers, the dynamite, and the wrecking balls, and level them all!!!

Can you hear just how silly that sounds?

-"BB"-

[rubato]

adopting them for superficial reasons and without consideration of their appropriateness?

superficial? It is a hairstyle, it is superficial by all definitions.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Every culture brings it's art, music, cuisine, dance, architecture, customs ,religions, and fashions to the international stage where they become the common inheritance for all to benefit from. For all to celebrate, admire, and even adapt or blend with other things.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

But why stop there?  The pyramids and much of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architecture were built with the labor of slaves — tear 'em down!  Ditto the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Meso-American temples and pyramids, and for all I know, even the temples of Angkor Wat.

In fact, if push were to come down to shove, I doubt that you could find much of anything more than 300 years old that wasn't constructed through the efforts of slaves, prisoners, or other oppressed peoples.  So break out the bulldozers, the dynamite, and the wrecking balls, and level them all!!!

Can you hear just how silly that sounds?

Care to point to where anyone is suggesting tearing anything down?



















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Didn't think so.

[Bicycle Bill]

But why stop there?  The pyramids and much of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architecture were built with the labor of slaves — tear 'em down!  Ditto the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Meso-American temples and pyramids, and for all I know, even the temples of Angkor Wat.

In fact, if push were to come down to shove, I doubt that you could find much of anything more than 300 years old that wasn't constructed through the efforts of slaves, prisoners, or other oppressed peoples.  So break out the bulldozers, the dynamite, and the wrecking balls, and level them all!!!

Can you hear just how silly that sounds?

Care to point to where anyone is suggesting tearing anything down?
Didn't think so.

I was employing rhetoric, not necessarily facts. But while i can't directly link to any articles or quotes calling for the tearing down of places like Monticello or Mount Vernon or the White House or the Capitol, there has been much written and said about their connection to slavery and why they maybe shouldn't be held up to such high honor.  There have also been numerous calls for the removal of the huge bas-relief on Stone Mountain, GA; and I dare say that there are a large number of Native Americans who would be willing to push the plunger that blasts the busts on Mount Rushmore into so much rubble at the base of Six Grandfathers Mountain (a rough translation of Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, one of the original Lakota names for the site).

And elsewhere, in Britain, a statue of Edward Colston — whose only offense was that he was a slave trader in an era when such things were legal, sanctioned, and condoned — was toppled from its place and thrown unceremoniously into Bristol harbor.

And of course, the Taliban DID destroy the Bamiyan Buddha statues and tried their damnedest to erase other pre-Muslim artifacts and evidence from the territories in which they gained power; and of course ISIS/ISIL has been responsible for a great deal of damage and destruction in the remnants of the ancient city of Palmyra, among others.  And have you forgotten how the Third Reich embarked on a systematic destruction of Jewish people and their culture in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the other areas that fell under their control?

Maybe America and the rising "cancel culture" is just not quite to that point .... yet.

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

I was employing rhetoric, not necessarily anything remotely resembling facts.

FTFY

[Bicycle Bill]

I was employing rhetoric, not necessarily anything remotely resembling facts.

FTFY

But can you dispute anything I said in the rest of that paragraph?  Here's a reference to the Stone Mountain bit — https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/georgia ... d=71670849 — and (should I decide it's worth my while to expend the time and energy) I could probably find other articles from reputable news sources in support of my other statements.

So to paraphrase Johnny Cochran's famous line at the O.J. Simpson trial, "If the facts fit, you can't say shit."

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

Stone Mountain is a monument to traitors that should never have been built to begin with. Ditto any of the other Confederate monuments. None of that points to anything that was said in this discussion, least of all your demented meanderings into the crimes of the Taliban.

[Scooter]

It's the same attitude that leads some to hold weddings or other celebrations in plantation houses, thinking they lend grandeur to the occasion, while completely disregarding that they are partying on the graveyard of the slaves who were worked to death there.

So I presume you would have the same objection to any dinner or reception at the White House given the history of using salves there?

I think there is a substantive difference between conducting some of the proper functions of government business in a government building in which slave labour was once used, and fashioning party venues out of plantations, the foundation and raison d'être of the slave economy, where revelers are literally dancing amidst the graves of generations of slaves.

[Big RR]

Sure there are differences; but when one considers that there are (and have been) balls and dances and dinners at the White House (and it is probably one of the most, if not the most, celebrated house in the US), there a similarities as well. Having a wedding or dance in a stately old mansion does not, IMHO, equate to embracing the plantation system or chattel slavery as it was practiced in the US. But if it honestly offends you, fine.

Back to the original post, I am not saying that people have no right to be offended by how someone chooses to wear their hair, I'm just saying that the person choosing to wear their hair in a way which offends someone is not bound to avoid that offense. Of course if it is done to be purposely offensive (like wearing blackface), it is indefensible, and as I have said many times etiquette tells us to avoid unnecessary offense, but it is up to each of us to determine what we will and will not do. When I wore my hair very long, I know it offended some (for whatever reason), but I still chose to wear it that way.

[Gob]

I am not saying that people have no right to be offended by how someone chooses to wear their hair,

But that phrase alone highlights the utter banality of the whole idea.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Historically, male hairstyling with cornrows can be traced as far back as the early 5th century BC within Ancient Greek sculpture and artwork, typically shown on warriors and heroes. Artwork and statues of different Middle Eastern and Mediterranean civilisations dating back to the 3rd and 4th century BC also suggest that such hairstyles were common amongst warrior cultures. More modern male depictions occur in the 19th century Ethiopia, where warriors and kings such as Tewodros II and Yohannes IV were depicted wearing cornrows.

[Jarlaxle]

Sure there are differences; but when one considers that there are (and have been) balls and dances and dinners at the White House (and it is probably one of the most, if not the most, celebrated house in the US), there a similarities as well. Having a wedding or dance in a stately old mansion does not, IMHO, equate to embracing the plantation system or chattel slavery as it was practiced in the US. But if it honestly offends you, fine.

Everything offends Scooter.

[Scooter]

Precious little offends me; I do enjoy laughing at those who show themselves to be assholes through their cluelessness. Present company included.

[Big RR]

Come on Jarl, I don't think I've ever seen Scooter offended (at least to the extent that his posting here revealed it).

[Joe Guy]

Offend: to cause dislike, anger, or vexation

Just thought I'd throw that out there for consideration...