by Bruni Sonne
(This post is also available to read in German and French)
I am white[1], German, female and by and large quite privileged[2], in Germany – and even more so globally. I wore dreadlocks for six years, and very often clothes made from African fabrics. Now you can basically stop reading and immediately label me racist. My sin: Cultural Appropriation[3].
Or you can read on and get to know me as a person first.
I see that white people with dreadlocks can obviously hurt especially Black people in Germany / the global North. That was never my intention, and I am truly sorry that I have caused injury to some Black people by wearing dreadlocks. It is important for me to emphasise that with this blog post I do not want to relativise the hurt that white people with dreadlocks can cause to some Black people. Nor do I want to compare them with my own emotional vulnerability on the subject. Furthermore, I would like to underline that I do not want to deny that there is a negative form of cultural appropriation, especially (but not exclusively) in the context of capitalist exploitation. But can there not also be positive, appreciative, context-aware forms of appropriating aspects or symbols of other cultures?
I don’t want to presume to know where exactly one should draw the line, but I do want to point out that I perceive the world as more complex, with a spectrum between neo-colonial, racist, ignorant cultural appropriation and appreciative forms of appropriating aspects of other cultures, and that I wish I wasn’t rashly condemned across the board without people knowing me and my motives. So please excuse the fact that the rest of the text is pretty much centred around my personal story as an illustration. No, I don’t see myself as the centre of the world and there are thousands of more important problems than this story. That’s why it’s taken me years to write this text, I’ve been trying to play down the subject to myself for too long. But the fact is, it’s been on my mind for a long time, so maybe it’s time to give this perspective some space…
When I was 17, I got to know and love Tiken Jah Fakoly in my French class. He is still my favourite artist to this day. I polished up my French by translating so many of his French-language lyrics, got to know a (politicised) African perspective on the continent and discovered a shy love of singing along. But above all, I followed his call: ” Viens Voir, toi qui parle sans avoir, l’Afrique n’est pas ce qu’on te fait croire ” (in English: Come and see, you who speak without knowing that Africa is not what they want you to believe). After graduating from high school in a small, affluent, predominantly white town, I went to Senegal for six months. Today, I generally take a rather critical view of overseas voluntary service for various reasons. But I am still grateful for this first stay, which has shaped my life more than anything else. I am grateful for my ‘kharitu bu ben bakan’, my best friend and then host brother M., who later visited me several times in Germany. I am grateful for my host family, whom I have visited again and again since then. I am grateful for the handful of friendships that have somehow survived since then. Grateful that two years ago I became godmother to the first child of a good friend from that time. But above all, those six months changed my view of the world. Supposedly, I already had a strong sense of justice as a child and even at school I was interested in issues of justice; ethics was my favourite subject. However, back then I was in a completely depoliticised context. And so it was the glaring global inequality between the economically rich and poor that I became aware of in Senegal, not only in theory but also in a way that I felt, and which politicised me forever.
Even after nine stays in Senegal of varying duration and several years of relationships with Senegalese partners, I am still learning new things, including some that I experience as shortcomings in Germany. I am also grateful for the Senegalese lessons on patience and especially on sharing. I don’t want to say that particularly the latter was easy – growing up in a highly individualised and capitalist society is not something you can shed overnight. Even less do I want to say that the process of learning from Senegalese society (including sharing) is finished for me. Senegal has also changed my ideal of beauty: A greater appreciation of my curves as well as my leg and later armpit hair. This was coupled with the discovery of a new aesthetic for me that I observed all around me: African fabrics, wearing lots of jewellery (e.g. earrings, plus necklace, plus bracelets/bracelets, plus finger rings), braids, dreadlocks, more rarely afros and, last but not least, different shades of Black skin.
The culture of gift-giving started on my very first trip: colleagues, friends and sometimes merchants gave me Senegalese/(West) African clothing, fabrics and jewellery. When it came to saying goodbye, my host family gave me presents as well. I also bought fabrics and had them transformed by my now deceased friend and tailor M. (may his soul rest in peace), first into models of my imagination and later into clothing adapted to local fashion. I also received fabric from a women’s co-operative with the demand to have a ‘taille basse’ (top, floor-length skirt, possibly with a Senegalese headscarf) tailored for their celebration. Once there, it was somehow thrilling to see that all the women, including me, were wearing the same fabric in slightly different styles. Then a short shock, I briefly had the impression of seeing myself, but it was just another white woman with obviously the same outfit, a similar body shape and the same sunglasses. Of course, I knew that I was only a guest in this country, even after several months and my conversational wolof skills couldn’t hide that. But that I would stand out so much with my white skin in a crowd of Black people – I hadn’t thought of this before until this brief moment of shock, I had almost forgotten how white I am.[4]
I then had thin braids made for Tabaski, the ‘sacrifice fest’, my dreadlocks only followed a few years later. All of this was part of an approach to this newly discovered aesthetic, which for me is not detached, but part of culture and society. Of course, I am not pursuing the goal of becoming Black. I am white and will always be white. But I feel the need for a certain form of rapprochement, of integration (?) into Senegalese society. To this end, I continue to learn the main language wolof, ask my closest Senegalese acquaintances many questions and show my appreciation of the host country by, among other things, adapting my clothing and endeavouring to participate in the culture of gift-giving and practising the culture of hospitality (also in Germany). Of course, that’s not to say that I think everything about Senegalese culture is great without exception, but I don’t do that in Germany either. And whether I am a good student or perhaps only mediocre is for Senegalese people to judge.
The fact is, Senegal has changed me. Senegal has become a part of me. Of course, that doesn’t make me Senegalese, but I can’t imagine ever erasing Senegal from my life again. Neither the friendships nor certain aspects of the culture(s) nor the numerous lessons that Senegal has taught me over the past ten years.
But my first stay also raised many questions for me and in an attempt to answer them (e.g. where does the rampant global inequality come from?), I chose both my Bachelor’s and Master’s subject and in the process was able to engage with critiques of development cooperation, including post-development, as well as post-colonial perspectives, including on our economic system.
I will only hint at my next stays in West Africa, you probably won’t have time to read this blog entry until the day after tomorrow. So I have been to Senegal several times in different contexts (visits, travelling, internships, research) and also to a few other West African countries (Gambia, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger). However, Senegal remained the country of my heart. During the last 2 months of a 9-month stay in Benin a few years later, I interviewed people who self-identified as Rastas. At the time, I had already had dreadlocks for a few months and wanted to find out more about the background to this hairstyle, among other things. Of course, I also asked myself how Black Rastas would perceive me as a white person with dreadlocks. I never once experienced rejection (at least none was communicated to me). I myself never identified as Rasta, but communicated that I was curious to find out what it means to be Rasta and, when asked, that I sympathised with Rastafari. And yet, in the course of the interviews, my counterparts attributed to me a few times that I was Rasta in an inclusive way. I was very surprised by this, but I was pleased and felt welcome while never presuming to ascribe this complex (but quite heterogeneous) identity category to myself. During conversations, however, it also became clear that for some Beninese people, wearing dreadlocks is a question of style and aesthetics and does not necessarily have to be spiritually conditioned and/or linked to Rastafari. For others, it is very much spiritually linked to Rastafari or, for example, in the case of many but not all Senegalese and Gambians with dreadlocks, to the Bayefall and Yayefall, a Muslim, Sufi movement whose followers often wear dreadlocks.
When I’m in Germany, I have a lot of friends from all kinds of African diaspora countries around me, so anyone who has been to one of my parties has certainly got an impression of this. I also organise politically in various contexts with Africans in Germany, some of whom are refugees and some of whom are students, on topics such as the fight against neocolonialism and for freedom of movement. I regularly receive appreciation from many people about my person as well as compliments about my ‘Africanised’ appearance.
And boom, one day the debate about cultural appropriation came crashing down on me. And then it took another good moment (=several years) and many inner monologues before my dreadlocks fell – with the promise to myself that my clothes made from African fabrics and my jewellery would stay. The fear of losing myself was too great. Now that I had long since lost my heart to Senegal and Senegal had become a part of me.
In the perhaps two years before I reached for the scissors, some situations were not easy for me, situations in which I would otherwise have felt comfortable: Going to a postcolonial Germany-wide networking meeting (for fear of rejection, I remained shy, especially towards the BPOC[5] participants), moderating an event with a Black guest from Berlin Postkolonial (I asked in advance whether he would be comfortable being moderated by a white dreadlock wearer, which he said yes to my relief), going to a BPOC festival in my city (in between I had the dubious feeling of perceiving negative vibes and asked the Namibian friend accompanying me to the event to go out with me for a moment), walking in the anti-racist block of the Unteilbar demo in Berlin and reading out the speech of a Congolese fellow campaigner (I fled to the health block). So especially (politicised) situations with Black people I don’t know and of whom I don’t know at first glance how they feel about white dreadlock wearers, and depending on whether they are socialised in Germany (which doesn’t have to be immediately visible), I reckon with a higher potential for rejection – if, on the other hand, they are socialised on the African continent, I reckon with a low potential for rejection of my person (in each case at first glance).
Of course, it is quite possible that certain Black people on the other side did not find it easy to deal with my presence either, sometimes it might have been even more difficult. I certainly didn’t realise a lot of these moments, or sometimes I just got vibes that I couldn’t be sure had anything to do with my white dreadlocks. I rarely received any explicit negative feedback in those six years. There was one instance of collective criticism at a plenary session at a climate camp where a Black activist said she didn’t feel comfortable with all the white people with dreadlocks here. As a result, I tied a scarf around my hair for the rest of the days. Needless to say, I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable because of me. And yes, it’s ambivalent that I haven’t taken these consequences beyond that, as I couldn’t know for whom my presence was still a disturbance. Then individual feedback to me as part of an online academic conference. The Black German speaker said that she hadn’t been able to concentrate on my question because she had been wondering the whole time whether she was seeing correctly that I was really
white with dreadlocks and African clothing (implicitly she probably also meant: and that at a postcolonial, anti-racist conference). I was particularly taken by this experience and it certainly contributed to my final decision.
Such clearly negative reactions to white dreadlocks can, I think, be explained above all by the traces of European (including German) colonialism on the African continent. During the colonial era, African cultures, knowledge and aesthetics were systematically rejected and devalued by the European colonisers. In the course of the perversely so-called “civilising missions”, natural African hairstyles such as afros and dreadlocks also fell into disrepute and were to be “tamed”, i.e. smoothed or shortened. And it was only through such adjustments that people were able to move further up in the existing system (where they possibly hoped to exert a certain amount of influence). Black people with dreadlocks are also discriminated against in our system over here. The fact that the colonial era is anything but simply over seems to have reached the centre of society even in Germany, even if most people are certainly not aware of how far the road to decolonisation actually still is (I don’t want to exclude myself from this, of course).
At this point, I would like to thank the various African friends with whom I have spoken about the topic, sometimes casually, sometimes more intensively, and from whom I have experienced a lot of support for wearing my dreadlocks and clothing as well as irritation about the position of cultural appropriation towards white locks. Some of you later found it explicitly regrettable that the debate ultimately led me to reach for the scissors. And a particularly big thank you at this point to S. for being there for me as a friend and anti-racist POC person, especially in the last few months, when the decision had actually already been made but I still had to mentally prepare for it and there was a lot of emotional chaos inside me, and for lovingly and critically accompanying my emotional wrestling with myself at the same time.
Towards the end, I would like to share a little anecdote with you: A white comrade from my political network who regularly travels to Mali once told me that she was asked several times by Malian women in Mali to buy Malian clothes, or rather she was given fabric as a gift, but she had reservations about complying with the request – because of the debates about cultural appropriation she knew from Germany. I can’t imagine that all advocates of the accusation of cultural appropriation have as their goal that white people in the global South reject gifts of clothing, fabrics and jewellery? And if it is given to us as a gift, I would assume that it is also desired that we wear the gifts? And, of course, the gifts then travel to Germany with the suitcase. Are we then less allowed to carry them than on the African continent? Should we leave such beautiful things in the cupboard? Three years ago, a former flatmate of mine sorted out her entire set of clothes from her year in Ghana due to the debate about cultural appropriation, with the result that most of them are now hanging in my wardrobe… I have to admit that I have never worn a Senegalese ‘taille basse’ in Germany, except at a conference with our international partners and I wore the ‘taille basse’ that one of the Senegalese partner organisations had given me during my last visit. For the German context, however, I wear quite often in everyday life clothes made from African fabrics that are somewhat less “heavy” in terms of cut, as well as jewellery.
What now? Over the past few years, I have increasingly harboured the desire to move to Senegal. I hope to be able to realise this in the not too distant future. And I think one tiny little part of the reason is that I feel like I’m not really allowed to be myself here in Germany, at least not with my perceived Senegalese connection (including my wish to visualise it on my body) in an anti-racist, politicised environment – the very environment in which I actually feel/would like to feel politically at home. And to be honest, I have to admit that I would like to grow dreadlocks again in Senegal. I justify this to myself by saying that, in my experience, they could very well be perceived as an affront in Germany, but in Senegal and the other African countries I have travelled to, I have never felt this way in all these years. And even 3 years after combing out my dreadlocks, I still miss them regularly.
What am I actually trying to say with this text? – was a question from an editor. I think, at best, I’m hoping for a little bit more empathy with me the next time you see me, especially as a Black person who is critical of white dreadlock wearers, when I might be on home leave in Germany with my dreadlocks and my clothes made from African fabrics. And perhaps naively, I hope that one day this will no longer be the case, that this dilemma of hurt will divide us. I don’t know whether you think we need to live in a largely racism-free world first. I’m afraid that will take quite a long time, but let’s definitely work towards it anyway!
Okay, my editor would like a more political statement, and she’s right… Of course, the conclusion of my text should neither be ‘Make an exception with me’ nor ‘Make an exception with all those other white people who have established a “sufficiently deep” connection with another country. If so, then such a conclusion would firstly also have to apply to BPOC people who feel connected to other countries/cultures (or not quite, because the power asymmetries here are different, although often not hierarchy-free). And secondly, I don’t want to argue in favour of exceptions on the basis of emotional attachment, because that’s not something people can see and therefore leaves many practical questions unanswered. I have digressed far enough to illustrate with my own example that some of us white and also BPOC people, for certain (hopefully at least partially understandable) reasons, find it anything but easy to comply with the demands of the advocates of the cultural appropriation debate to consistently remove external signs of a certain nation/culture/region/etc. in the global South to which we feel connected and whose appreciation we would like to visualise. And if we could agree on this, I would already be pretty happy.
However, I then ask myself what I should do with the earrings that my Mexican colleague brings me from her holidays back home, with the two dresses that a befriended Somali couple brought me from Kenya, with the probably Indian skirt that a Beninese friend brought and gave me from the India section on a flea market in Benin during my time there, and so on. It would be much, much easier for me to do without the presents because I don’t feel any particular connection with these regions. But should I refuse the gifts because of that? Or should I politely accept them and then not wear them? That can’t be the point, can it?
Even if some of the dynamics surrounding the cultural appropriation debate seem absurd to me, I would like to remain humble enough not to proclaim “the truth”, but only my subjective perspective, which is ultimately more emotional than factual. I feel correspondingly vulnerable at the thought of publishing this text and have therefore chosen to remain anonymous.
However, it is completely out of question that we in Germany urgently need to work on ensuring that BPOC people who wear clothes or other outward signs from their own non-German or non-Central/Western European culture(s) or that of their parents/ancestors can do so without having to face racist stereotypes such as “backwardness”, a conservative mindset or prejudice that they cannot speak German. Even Black people with dreadlocks in Germany still have to fight, which is so unfair: my ex-boyfriend was often asked if he sold drugs, but he doesn’t consume neither marijuana, nor cigarettes, nor alcohol. Another friend was pressurised at work (an engineering office) to cut off his dreadlocks if he wanted to move up. And these are certainly not isolated cases. As well as cases that (not coincidentally) did not happen to me as a white dreadlock wearer. Unfortunately, racism (in small and large ways) is still very much widespread and there is still a lot for us to do as a society.
P.S. Somewhat relatable and at the same time completely different is the experience of the fictional novel character Saraswati in the book ‘Identitti’ by Mithu Sanyal, which I found to be very nourishing ‘brain food’ on questions like what race actually means, even though I probably walked out of the book with more questions than answers.
P.P.S. I really don’t know if this is relevant, but my first braids were made by my (by marriage), (East) African aunt for my birthday when I was about 11. I very much loved this present. I’ll never forget it, because in the corresponding class photo…right before the break, my friends helped me undo the braids…instead of boring spaghetti hair, I had super voluminous and frizzy hair. To my regret, however, it didn’t last longer than a few hours.
About the author
The author is a white, also otherwise quite privileged academic/doctoral student in the field of postcolonialism. In her blog post, she reflects on the question of whether cultural appropriation is negative per se, or whether there can also be appreciative forms of appropriation of cultural aspects that have so far been neglected by the debate. As the debate is often quite charged, she has decided to publish her text under a pseudonym.
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[1] I understand ‘white’, just like other categories such as ‘race‘, not as a biological category. Nevertheless, it is a powerful category, which in this case describes the privileged position that does not experience racism due to its whiteness.
[2] I am a white (cis) woman, ablebodied (without disability), without religion, rather heterosexual, from a middle-class German family and with two university degrees.
[3] If you are not (or only superficially) familiar with the cultural appropriation debate, I would recommend searching for the keyword on the internet and especially reading articles/podcasts, etc. by Black authors who take the opposite position in order to get a more comprehensive picture. This blog post in no way reflects the debate itself, but is rather a reaction to the prevailing position in the anti-racist milieu in the (German/European/US-American) debate that cultural appropriation by white people is consistently negative, arguing that it is always appropriative in a (neo)colonial manner and cannot be appreciative and aware of power asymmetries.
[4] Today I am aware that, conversely, this does not happen so quickly to Black people in the Global North, as the racist majority society constantly reminds them that they are supposedly different.
[5] BPOC stands for ‘Black and People and Colour’, which means all people who are not white. And yes mum, it also includes, for example, Asian-looking people in Germany, so it’s about more than just skin colour.