Is black woman with dyed blonde hair cultural appropriation?

I recently wrote, here at MdeMulher, an article talking about the blackface practiced by Daniela Mercury and Anitta during Carnival. I spoke about whiteness, miscegenation, and received many comments about the text. Many people understood that the use of curly wigs in carnival costumes by non-black people, who try to pass themselves off as black using blackface, would not be a problem, since black women like Rihanna and Beyoncé have straight and blonde hair.

This claim is a false symmetry – which can often be a form of unconscious racism. When we understand blackface as just the act of painting the face/body black to represent someone black, we are wrong. Practice is that and more than that. In the 19th century, in the USA, white actors not only painted their faces, but also redrawn their lips to reaffirm the idea that “blacks are pouty”. The roles were comical and bordering on the ridiculous, always with a racist view of the aesthetic traits of some black subjects🇧🇷

Not only did these figures occupy the stages, but prevented black people from actually being able to have this space🇧🇷 It was such a common practice that it became a genre of American theater at the time. Blackface is ridicule and exclusion of black people – there is no other meaning for this practice.

Until today, unfortunately, blackface is used as an alternative to interpret a black person without having to give visibility to someone really black. Or it is used at parties as a “funny costume”. In Brazil, one of the most symbolic characters of this type of racism is the so-called “Nega Maluca”.

On TV, the use and naturalization of this racist manifestation is common. Marco Nanini used blackface in the soap opera “Eta Mundo Bom”, in 2016. Author Walcyr Carrasco said that this would be another one of the disguises used by the character Pancrácio. But no one “disguises” in white🇧🇷 White is the norm, the correct one. Black is exotic, different, out of the ordinary.

In 19th century Europe, black people were exhibited in spectacles. The case of the “Venus of Hottentot” Saartjie Baartman, of the Khoisan people, the oldest human ethnic group, established in the southern part of Africa, became famous. She was enslaved and exposed, first in London, then in Paris. Attached to a chain, she walked on all fours during the shows.

After her death, Saartijie was dissected, and both the skeleton and the cast of her body were publicly displayed at the Museum of Man in Paris until 1985. Science used her as an example to show how abnormal was the black woman’s bodyusing the European male body as a model of normality.

Until the 1930s, in Germany, black men and women were still exhibited in human zoos. Some of the people exposed are still alive and can tell in first person what they lived through. Theodor Wonja wrote about this in the book “Being German and Black”:

“They would try to sniff me to check if I was real and would speak to me in basic German or communicate using signs.”

We start from a dehumanizing premise in relation to bodies and subjects. Blackface can never be seen as homage. And there are, yes, equivalents to blackface in other groups. There is talk of “redface” when it comes to original (indigenous) peoples, of “yellowface” for racist interpretations and erasure of Asians, “brownface” when representation racism refers to stereotypes of Latinos, South Asians and Middle Eastern peoples .

There is a range of known examples of these racist representations: In Brazil, the redface was made by Cláudio Heinrich in “Uga Uga”, when he played the Indian Tatuapu, and by actress Deborah Secco in the miniseries “Caramuru”, both productions of Rede Globo.

With regard to yellowface, the use of techniques to draw the eyes of a Western actor and the reinforcement of the behavior of what would be an Asian were the premises that gave life to Mr Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. ”.

To end the examples, when we talk about brownface we should remember the soap opera “Caminho das Índias”, which romanticized reality and made Brazilians believe in the Indian who has the face of actor Caio Blat. In fact, India is one of the countries that is struggling against a wave of whitening on the part of the population through creams and other aesthetic techniques.

The telenovela “Caminho das Índias” and also “Sol Nascente” and mainly miniseries like José do Egypt use and abuse what we know as “whitewashing” when the narrative and non-white characters become white in representations: Gandhi turns white, Egyptians turn white, Jesus is represented as white with blue eyes and Tom Cruise can play a samurai.

The result of this? Historical erasure and racism. It’s not just a representation. The meaning of each blackface, yellowface or whitewashing is that of maintenance of oppression and invisibility of these peoples being maintained🇧🇷

After colonization and the fetish with an exotic look, comes denial, the understanding that everything belonging to non-whites is inferior and ugly🇧🇷 It is in this process that our aesthetics and the other ethnic identities mentioned here are placed outside the curve.

That’s why some Asians try to lighten their skin or have eye surgery. Just as some blacks understand hair straightening not as a choice, but as a need to fit in with the aesthetics perceived as white. Deep down, non-white people are imposed upon – and this is very different from cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is a structural and systemic phenomenon. It cannot be understood or problematized from a particular, individual point of view. However, the consequences of this process are always at a collective level, in the structure: favoring the process of marginalization of these socially invisible and unconsciously oppressed groups or peoples.

In some cases, cultural appropriation goes beyond disrespecting foreign cultures, made invisible in the face of the imposition of European and North American culture, and becomes profitable. Isabel Marant, a French stylist, used in the summer 2015 collection an embroidery made by the Mexican community Sant-Maria Tlahuitoltepec, in the province of Oaxaca. This embroidery has been done for 600 years and is a symbol of the identity of this community.🇧🇷

Isabel Marant’s brand appropriated the embroidery, producing it on a large scale, and started selling the piece it identified as “tribal” for the equivalent of R$ 1,000. The original piece, made by women in the community, cost approximately R$65. The profits acquired by the stylist and her brand didn’t even come close to the community.

It is evident that not all people who bought such parts knew this. However, indirectly, they favored the neglect and theft of the culture of an already invisible people, victims of a terrible process of colonization. For these people, as well as in all Latin American communities, maintaining its identity is more than aesthetic: it is a form of resistance.

When talking about cultural appropriation, we are questioning a branch of the “structural racism tree”, which affects many peoples who are criticized, persecuted and massacred for their non-white identity. Behind many cultures that have been appropriated over the centuries, there is a history of imperialism, colonialism and genocide.🇧🇷

Many people who are unaware of all these facts believe that the reactions of non-white groups are radical and aggressive. but cCompared to the structural violence faced for centuries, how radical and aggressive are these responses?

When we criticize stereotypes in the representation of black people and cultural appropriation, we are talking about racism. Arms of this structure that may not kill – as imperialism, civil wars and genocide did. But that strengthen the subordination of these individuals who are always the other, the error, the non-norm.

Dying curly hair blonde or straightening it is not cultural appropriation: it is, most of the time, the attempt to fit the norm of an aesthetic that is imposed for all, but it is only based on a small and select group. Natural blondes are a very small part of the Brazilian adult population. AND being blond – as opposed to being black – is not an ethnic identity: it’s just a physical characteristic.