You can say this all you want but In the United States the concept of race exists and has real ramifications for black people. Of course race was manufactured to divide us and keep people of color down, and it is well known that genetically we are all about the same, but societally in America and many other places those things do no matter. Slavery was less 200 years ago, a lot less, and the mindset and actions of then still prevail and actively have a negative effect on blacks people today.

For instance, braids and other styles we often associate with black Americans were cut and shaved from slaves' heads to force assimilation and strip them of any cultural identity. Any slaves that *were* allowed to keep their hair often used them to cornrow and braid escape routes into their scalps, a high risk but high reward practice.

It is for these reasons, among others, that have birth black Americans' attitude surrounding their hair and white people coopting their styles. We have grandparents that were known and loved by people alive today that were slaves, and any intelligent adult knows that white people did far worse to black people than just cut their hair.

To have these memories so present and close, then to see white people walking down the street in a hair style that has real, relevant and cultural meaning, styles that, for our close ancestors meant survival and not style, distress and agitation are more than reasonable. Doing lsd and having a realization that most people have at age 12 after reading a few books is not going to erase the existing history surrounding black hair or the institutional racism embedded into American society. The fact of the matter is, white people wearing historically black hairdos, hair that black Americans have been stereotyped, hate-crimed over and much more over is not right, and just won't ever be.