A few years back, I found myself amazed and appalled by feminist lawprof Ann Bartow’s ability to find a spin that turned almost anything into a sexist icon, whether for good or evil. I imagined she spent her days looking under rocks to find things to be outraged about, and wondered what she would do if the day ever came when she couldn’t come up with an outrage that passed the laugh test.

At Huff Post, such a post surfaced.

“Black Twitter” said it once, but let’s say it again: It is not cool for white women to wear black hairstyles. It is not cute. It is not flattering.

When white women wear black hairstyles, it’s a slap in the face to black women.

Black men are being gunned down in the street by police at shocking rates. Sandra Bland ended up dead in a jail cell. And the pressing question is “she stole my hairstyle”?

The gripe is “cultural appropriation,” and it has to be a real thing because the New York Times Room for Debate covered it just last week.  The question posted was:

When white artists have been highly celebrated for performing musical styles that originate in black communities, it has been criticized as cultural appropriation. Other groups, too, feel they have been culturally exploited.

What’s the line between appreciative imitation and exploitation? Do critics ignore the benefits of cultural sharing?

Among the responses was one by Jennifer Pozner, the executive director of Women in Media & News, who wrote:

What was my oddest highlight after two decades as a journalist, author, and advocate? Easy: Being asked this year to pose in lingerie for a national advertising campaign … because “feminism.”

What does this has to do with cultural appropriation? See what I mean about finding one’s personal outrage under every rock? It’s a total non-sequitur, but there is no shame whatsoever in her seizing upon a slot in a debate over celebrities stealing musical styles to complain about her personal feminist beef.  But the really important question is what was her hair style.  Hint: who cares?

White women are able to wear black hairstyles without the stigma of actually being black.

So, finally, no. No. When Black women straighten our hair, or dye it blonde, we’re not “appropriating white hairstyles” — it is not the same thing. The word you are looking for is assimilation. White hair is the norm. It is the default. It is the societal ideal. There are many reasons why black women today wear their hair either natural or straightened, but for the most part, the practice of straightening black hair came from a real necessity to conform and survive, and to better emulate societal beauty standards that oppress women of all races — standards that just happen to be based around white beauty.

Want to know what oppresses women of all races? Writing articles that demonstrate insipid slavery to fashion.  While women may fight over who is allowed to wear which hairstyle, men wonder who’s playing in the game today and whether there will be bacon to eat.

Of course, women don’t wear their hair to be attractive to men, because that would be catering to the patriarchy.  They do so for themselves, or so the correct answer goes.  So do what you want.  If it’s for you, make yourself happy. And if it’s for you, why are you women griping about other women’s hairstyles? If it’s not that “the bitch stole my look,” then why do you care?  Or, your whole narrative about hair, shoes and nails is a lie, and you’re really trying to impress others even though you deny it at every turn.

Whatever. Guys still don’t care.  What we do care about, however, is that there are real things happening in the world that reflect racism, and it has nothing to do with your hair or musical style.  It has to do with bullets striking human flesh.  It has to do with people going about their lives and ending up in jail cells for no good reason.

And while these issues are a worthy subject for discussion because they involve actual harm and pain, you spend time on such inane issues as who is entitled to do their hair up in cornrows?   Instead of listening to songs telling you how you’re “perfect from the bottom to the top,” then watching 20 advertisements every day trying to convince you which mascara will give you the London Look, or closing with “you’re worth it” because they know you’re saying to yourself, “I’m not worth it,” why not go down a different path?  What about the truthful one, where you admit that your concerns are insufferably shallow and self-serving?

Nobody gives a damn whether your hair is white or black.  Well, you do, because you’re obsessed with your appearance, even though you claim you couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks, but you are. All the other women are obsessed with their own appearance and only look at you to compare themselves.  Oh, quick, there’s a commercial on the TV about women’s plumbing leaks.  Pay attention or you might not know what diapers to wear with that hairstyle.

In a coffin, no one cares what your hair looks like.  No cop has ever stopped a black woman and said, “I’m going to give you a warning this time because your hair looks so lovely.”  And while we all remember the arm around Eric Garner’s neck, no one ponders his choice of hairstyle as he lay on the ground, saying “I can’t breathe.”

If you want to complain about racism, then complain about real things, real problems, like the killing of blacks in grossly disproportionate numbers.  Or the imprisonment of blacks when whites walk free. There is no shortage of reasons to raise racism in America.  But hairstyles?  Get a friggin’ life.

You complain about being dismissed by others, by whites and males, who don’t hear your lived experiences.  If this is what you’re complaining about,  then the reason isn’t racism but because your complaints are trivial and puny.  That your hair matters enough to take up even a moment of your life for complaint tells me that there is nothing serious about racism anymore.  But I know that’s not true.

Now, if this was about men who can grow a perfectly fine head of hair but shave it instead to be fashionable, culturally appropriating the sorrows of the follicly-impaired, that would be completely different.  That’s just cruel.

H/T Patrick Maupin