Despite its importance to our culture, loud jewelry is still deemed unnecessary and unappealing to others outside of it. Why is it that people can’t digest that jewelry is more than what meets the eye, to the Black community?
Compared to the history of jewelry in Black culture, the term “iced out” is new. Today rappers use the term when referring to flashy and costly jewelry but why and how is it relevant to our culture? Along with the term “iced out” the demonization of jewelry within the Black community is also new.
Again, compared to its history, displays of bold and flashy jewelry have just recently started to be referred to as ghetto, a waste of money, or poor fashion. Jewels and their display of wealth date back far longer than where they stand now. We could start in the 90s where gold name plates in the form of earrings and necklaces were vital coming of age gifts to little Black girls.
Herringbone chains were steppingstones to manhood for little Black boys, and piles of gold rings piled on the fingers of Black women, or we could start all the way back at the reign of Mansa Musa, one of richest Black men known to date who was known for his heaps of gold. Why is jewelry so relevant to us and our history? And why or when did it start being seen as less classy or distasteful?
For years jewelry and “gaudy” displays of wealth have been a form of expression for not only Black people but for everyone. Queens and Kings from Europe all the way to Africa have been wearing jewelry as symbols of success for centuries so why is it a problem for us now? The hate surrounding jewelry within Black communities can be explained in one word: racism.
Even though our people have been wearing jewelry for as long as we have, the interruption within our rich history known as slavery made it so we couldn’t purchase or wear it as we please. During these times we couldn’t afford, nor could we wear fine jewelry because it wasn’t meant for us. Eventually, when we were allowed to start purchasing and buying jewelry, there was always a chance of it being stolen or someone who was offended that a Black person could afford nice things and they couldn’t, harass us about it.
It was a way for Black people to enhance ourselves and present us in a way where we weren’t really allowed to before and that made and still makes people upset. However, what people outside of our race don’t know is what jewelry means to us. Besides complementing our outfits and making us look nice, it’s far more important to us than what can be seen on the surface. For the most part jewelry allows expression.
When pandora bracelets were popular I used to beg my mom for one. She had one, my older sisters had one and on my 13th birthday she gifted me a bracelet. She called it a coming-of-age gift and insisted that I add a charm for any “monumental” moment in my life after that.
That bracelet meant so much to me simply because of the meaning my mom gave it. Seeing it from the outside one would assume I was just happy to get an expensive piece of jewelry, but it was the meaning that came with it that made it special. Like me, the same goes for most of the jewelry belonging to celebrities that people call “trashy”.
To most rappers their pieces represent different stages in their lives and different achievements. Their jewelry screams success and that’s what people don’t like about it.
Seeing Black people in situations where they can afford such luxury makes people uncomfortable and unwilling to face the fact that Black people are just as able to include luxuries into their lives just as much as anyone else. Any remark that describes bold jewelry or any jewelry for that matter on Black people as “distasteful” “unnecessary” “ghetto” etc., insinuates and feeds into the idea that we were simply not supposed to be able to have it.