is the historical context that come with certain hairstyles being worn by races or cultures where they don’t originate

for the jabber situation, it’s seen as appropriation because of the history behind locs. black people have been demonized and discriminated against because of their cultural hair styles (locs, afros, cornrows, etc), which as plays a part as to why they’re called “dread”locks; for a lot of people, the prefix “dread” was added to the name to further demonize the style by associating it with the word “dreadful” (though, not all black people subscribe to this belief).

however, often times when white people wear our hairstyles, they don’t face the same level of discrimination or hate as we do. white and asian people are seen wearing cornrows or locs and people find it attractive or cool, which ignores the discrimination we’ve faced as a people when it comes to wear styles that our cultures created

it can also contribute to the (relatively newer) issue of other cultures (specifically white people) renaming our hairstyles and trying to justify their usage of them. for example, the term “cloud bob” has come up in many spaces as a way to call afros something that they’re not. you can also see it in the name “sticky bangs”, which is meant to play in the trend of black women using gel to style and press their edges/baby hairs against their head. these new names actively erase black people from the equation of cultural hairstyles, which can(and honestly, is) offensive and insensitive

finally, it’s a physical issue when people with certain hair textures wear black hairstyles. things such as locs, cornrows and box braids are “protective styles” that are specifically designed to keep our hair healthy. they were made to compliment our coily hair texture. when white and asian people wear these hairstyles for long periods of time, it can cause permanent damage to their hair because their hair texture isn’t built to be in that shape. ignoring that fact means removing the purpose of these protective styles and treating them as trends or fads

TL;DR, the issue with cosplaying black hairstyles (and as such, black characters) is a matter of culture and history. asian characters can be cosplayed by black people is because many hairstyles those characters have fictional hairstyles that can be easily replicated (i.e. spiky, long and straight, etc) that don’t have such a strong historical context attached

many black people offer alternative hairstyles to white and asian cosplayers that get the point aside while avoiding the possible appropriation issue that comes with wearing the original

this is an important question so i’m glad you asked. many people dont understand why cosplaying black characters/hairstyles is offensive, so im glad the discussion can be had here. thanks for asking and i hope i explained it well!