I could not agree more – and eloquently put. It is total madness. You could get the crazy situation where a very light-skinned black person with African American parentage is slated for having dreads. Or it could lead to Rastafarians of African heritage being slated for having dreads because dreads originated in India (which I think is the case). Madness. People should be free to take up any cultural aspects that interest them.
Actually I can see where this "cultural appropriation" concern comes from, as when cultural aspects of people who have been oppressed are used by people in the "dominant" culture without them noticing or taking on board the actual oppression of those people, it is very frustrating. But rather than trying to prevent these cultural aspects being used, which is utterly ridiculous in my opinion, it should instead be used to open dialogue and discussion.
For example, my hair. When I was growing up as a mixed race person in Scotland, I used to sometimes get racist abuse (thankfully things have changed). It was usually when my hair was looking particularly wild and more "Afro". Yet at that time it was the fashion for people to have perms - ie, white people were having their hair made to look more Afro, and some of those people were the ones giving me racist abuse! Yet from a wider perspective, that was a time when different cultures were actually mixing more and learning more about each other - that is the bigger picture.
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