Dreads or dreadlocks are a style of separated coils of matted hair that have been incorporated in history since the Ancient Egyptians. The wearers would often dread their hair because of its coarse texture to keep their locks contained and neat. Over the course of history, it seemed as if the only wearers of the dread-style were people of color, as it was their hair texture that best suited the style. That was until the reggae movement of the 1970s, when dreadlocks hit the mainstream.
Kylie Jenner rocked dreads in a recent Instagram.
With artists like Bob Marley exploding on the music scene, many Americans jumped on the Rastafarian Movement and began to incorporate the proverbs of Rasta into their lives. This meant building a greater connection with nature and the Afrocentric culture, whether that be through dreading one’s hair or using cannabis as a spiritual sacrament. While the individual doctrines of Rastafarianism may not be as prominent today, it is clear that dreadlocks have found a home in many hippie havens.
Nolwenn Renault
Take my home state of Vermont: the birthplace of Phish, Ben & Jerry’s, and several dozen-hippie communes. Vermont has long been attributed to the hippie-bohemian lifestyle and the dread culture among pre-dominantly Caucasian Vermonters is alive and well. Take Nolwenn Renault, of Burlington, a French-born student, who has truly adapted the style of dreadlocks into her life. “I’ve always loved locks, I grew up seeing ravers in France with long locks, and I always admired them. I started letting my hair knot up naturally in high school, but it didn’t work out, largely because my hair was very fine and I didn’t know what I was doing,” says Renault. The principle of design and execution of dreadlocks relies on the consistency of one’s hair texture, which is why people of color with genetically coarser hair have an easier time dreading their hair. Those who are born with coarse hair find that their hair dreads naturally, yet many people of color prefer a more manicured style of locks. But it is possible for Caucasian people to achieve dreadlocks, either through extensions or through a method of back combing and knotting of the hair.
“I used to spend so much time worrying about my hair, spending money to go and get it cut, dying it, and bleaching it. Locks force you to move away from that, you can only use non-residue soaps so no fancy-girl shampoos and no conditioning products or hair creams. The first months of them can be a little rough, but once they’ve aged, they require barely any maintenance. I wake up in the morning, tie ‘em up, and I’m good to go. No bad hair days and I know what to expect,” says Renault. Like radical hair coloring, locking hair requires a great deal of dedication especially during the first few months of wear. The style of dreading hair can be achieved in a number of ways, either from adapting your own sort of technique from research or by getting your hair dreaded professionally in a salon that specializes in the style. One of the biggest misconceptions about having dreads is that all people just let them form natural and over time they become the neat and symmetrical coils that we are familiar to in society. Although some may choose to go this route, dreading is actually a process much like coloring that requires some patience.
“Whether you let you hair knot up naturally or use a different method like crochet, twist and rip, back comb, or interlock, it’s going to be frizzy and kind of a mess at first. It’s good to leave desires of perfection behind in general, because the perfect locks are unattainable. You should also expect anything that goes with not fitting ‘the mold’: constant questioning, stereotypes of poor hygiene, and people wanting to touch them all the time,” says Renault. For some, only having their natural hair as part of their dreadlocks may not be optimal, especially if their hair is on the thin side or is short in length.
Maci Wallace
Many people who dread their hair rely on extensions; because the process of separating and back combing hair makes your hair appear shorter than it is due to the techniques of matting and knotting the hair. By adding dread extensions, people of all races are able to achieve a long and full head of locks in a much shorter frame of time. The wearer just has to accept that they either have to shell out some cash for human hair or be ok with a cheaper synthetic blend. Not to mention, extensions can be taken out of the hair more easily, to provide more versatility.
Kindra Lundie
But what about the apparent controversy over people with Caucasian hair dreading their locks? Debate has swirled around the web, on whether white people with dreads are culturally appropriating African-American ethnicity. Cultural appropriation is known as the adoption of aspects of one culture by that of another culture, examples being the white culture sporting dreadlocks, people getting Chinese character tattoos, or young adults wearing Native American dress as a fashion statement. Cultural appropriation is vapid in America, as our culture tends to define itself as the ‘melting pot’ of many different origins. And while most of us don’t even realize that so much of our lives is made up of elements of civilizations that don’t run in our blood, it is arguable whether it is right to appropriate different cultures. The Caucasian community ‘borrowing’ features from the African-American community is immense in modern America, from white rap artists, to twerking rooting back to Africa. Although dreading hair might not be comparable to the very offensive appropriation of Blackface, many within the black community feel that dreadlocks are just another way that white culture is ‘stealing’ the values of African ethnicity and profiting on them.
“I can understand both sides of the issue,” says Liz Tillman, a senior marketing major at Hofstra University. “If the issue is that white people appropriate black culture because they dread their hair, the same thing can be argued of black people who get weaves to look like they have straight hair. The difference between these cultures ‘borrowing’ an element from the other is that black dreads have religious undertones for some people. In my mind it would be the same as a white person wearing a berka because they think it ‘looks cool’, and they don’t understand the religious undertone of it. That being the case I don’t think people should stop wearing the hairstyle if they like it, hey, it may even look good on them, but I think it’s more important for them to respect the cultural aspect of what they are doing,” says Tillman.
It may be difficult to come to a consensus on whether or not it is acceptable for the white community to borrow dreaded hair, but in the end it comes down to the fact that hair has been used for centuries as a mark of self-expression. And if you are happy with the style and understand its origins, what should hold you back from wearing your hair how you see fit? I say, go for it.