'Hunger Games' Actress Amandla Stenberg Calls Kylie Jenner's Cornrows Cultural Appropriation
Kylie Jenner captioned this post, “I woke up like disss.” (Photo: @kyliejenner/Instagram)
Kylie Jenner’s beauty routine is controversial. First it was her lips, and now it’s the 17-year-old’s hair that’s courting critics. On Saturday, Jenner posted a mirror selfie wearing baggy gray Nike sweatpants and a crop top showing off her bare torso with her hair pulled back in about 10 separate French braids. But while the photo has amassed 1.2 million likes, it has also sparked a racially charged debate regarding the style.
Evidence. (Photo: @theshaderoominc/Instagram)
One such commenter accusing the reality star of cultural appropriation reportedly included Hunger Games actress Amandla Stenberg. “When u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism #whitegirlsdoitbetter,“ the 16-year-old wrote on the post, according to a screenshot. Jenner responded, “Mad if I don’t, Mad if I do…. Go hang w Jaden or something,” referencing the actress’s relationship with Jaden Smith, who she took as her date to prom.
Stenberg, who may or may not just have a vendetta against Jenner, has been very vocal about the debated topic. In a video titled “Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows,” the mixed-race (her father is Danish; her mother is African-American) teenager explained, “Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high-fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.” On Sunday, she added to her previous points in a note shared on Tumblr that there’s a double standard in society where white women are praised for altering their bodies — plumping their lips, tanning their skin — yet black women who naturally embody these traits are shamed for them.
“words by me.” (Photo: @amandlastenberg/Tumblr)
But while Stenberg zeroed in on Jenner, this also isn’t an isolated incident. When half of Kendall Jenner’s head was done in mini plaits, Marie Claire wrote on Twitter that she brought “bold braids to a new epic level.” This declaration incited a trending hashtag, #EpicBraidLevels, with many expressing their frustration with the poor word choice. “Can we talk about @marieclaire crediting the Kardashians for everything ‘WE’ have been doing for ages,” @xoBeautyWilson tweeted. Pia Glenn added, “If only @marieclaire called any of the millions of brown and black girls rocking braids these terms with regularity.”
Teen Vogue was also recently under fire for an essay written by the magazine’s biracial beauty and health director Elaine Welteroth about her trip to Rwanda and returning to the U.S. with Senegalese twists. The feature was accompanied with a photo not of Welteroth but of model Phillipa Steele. While Steele is mixed race — Welteroth compared her to Zendaya — many readers were disappointed in the choice, calling her too light skinned. In an article that was intended to debunk “harmful stereotypes linked to ethnic hairstyles,” it instead seemed to perpetuate the problem and cause even more confusion.
While race-specific beauty is obviously contentious, let’s give Kylie a little more credit. First off, she’s 17 — cut her some slack. Second, she wears wigs often, and had been wearing an ice blue one for a few days. Braids under wigs is a tactic used by many to keep the actual head hair secure underneath. Thirdly, Jenner isn’t the only white girl to style her hair as such, yet she’s now been made a target. One of Stenberg’s many points is that when pop stars and icons adopt black culture as a way of being edgy, it diminishes these traits to attention-grabbing stunts as opposed to identity-defining characteristics. But does Kylie really need any more attention than she already has?
“Private show on release day,” Miley Cyrus captioned the above selfie. (Photo: @mileycyrus/Instagram)
Interestingly enough, on the same day Kylie posted her cornrow selfie, Miley Cyrus posted to Instagram a photo of herself with her hair similarly done, and yet her comments section hasn’t erupted in a furious debate. Additionally, Amanda Seyfried recently had her hair done in multiple plaits for a red carpet event and received no such condemnations. Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, Kesha, and others have all tried out the style at one point or another. When Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake braided their hair for long periods of time in the early ‘00s they weren’t charged with being racist and disrespectful to black culture, they were just punch lines.
Justin Bieber even came to Kylie’s defense:
Stenberg added that “discussions are healthy, ignorance is not” — and she certainly has started one.
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