Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
Don't see anything in search about it being derogatory.
Only reference is - that some people feel that there's a negative connotation and association with fear or dread, but here we are about to go into the area of cultural relations and meanings and maybe even a cultural appropriation and mis-appropriation.
P.S. What is it with everyone being a special snowflake and over-sensitive just about anything and everything? Politcorrectness and all that stuff just goes a bit too far nowadays... /smh
I worked with Maoli (guy was wearing short dreads) in Bay Area, and with Haitian American in Orlando (regular dreads), and with a guy going full-lenght Bob Marley (back in California).
None of them had any problems with calling it dreads and dreadlocks.
As long as dreads/locs are clean - I don't see anything gross there.
P.S. I just call it as it is - give me one example/link where it is said that it's derogatory/slander, just one.
So far - nothing found, not in real life, not on internet.
Anyway, I did a search with the keywords 'dreadlock etymology,' and this is the most relevant links that came up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlocks
https://www.britannica.com/topic/dreadlocks
If wikipedia and encyclopedia britannica are to be believed, the the hairstyle was found all over the world. Wikipedia says the minoans were the earliest european civilization to display the style in their frescoes. Britannica says it was the hindus, with the storm god rudra being described as wearing the hairstyle.
Britannica even shares the following quote:
"As modern literature and culture scholar Bertram Ashe wrote in Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles (2015), “Germanic tribes, the Vikings, the Pacific Islanders, the Aztecs, early Christians, the Baye Fall of Senegal—the question isn’t who has worn dreadlocks. A better question is who hasn’t worn dreadlocks at one time or another?”"
Bob Marley and his song 'Natty Dread' popularized dreadlocks/dreads/locks/locs, in turn inspiring the black community to claim ownership of the hairstyle as a message of rebellion, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism. No surprise then that any non-black person sporting dreadlocks/dreads/locks/locs (especially whites) is accused of cultural appropriation.
Switching over to 'dreadlock slur' and this is what I found:
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/dreads-tiktok-debate-racist-history/
if the article is to be believed then, dreadlocks are matted and unkempt while locs are groomed so they appear neater. if true, then dreadlocks/dreads are visually distinct from locks/locs.
Thank you.
I couldn't find that last one, but that's on me (maybe because I exclude Tiktok, because - really?).
But again - it's jsut one article, and based on one "lecture" of one teacher (and who said that teachers always right? lol) that went viral (or did it? 3 years later - and nobody really remembers).
And what's more: if you (general "you" here) to read whole article - the original source of information is questionable; that tiktok is still very, very controversial, and doesn't take into account whole culture of that hairstyle and (as you pointed above) long history of humans in general.
My POV on hairs and hairstyles in general - it's a personal choice, you (again - general "you") can wear it any way you want as long as it doesn't make it unpleasant and uncomfortable for others. If it's greasy and unkempt and smelly (and I don't mean Indians using special oils for their hair) - then it doesn't matter what you call it, it's not a hairstyle - it's you having a poor hygiene. But it doesn't mean that if it's clean and healthy that you can't call it "dreads" (cultural appropriation issues aside), or that dreads have to be inherently gross, or that somehow that name all of a sudden became "bad".
In general (again, as I said in my first post) - I understand that some words become taboo because they originally were used as slurs/derogatory/diminishing. But in those cases - most (if not all) of the time people those words were used against of stand up for themselves, and it's widespread (not just one teacher somewhere on tiktok).
And I'm all for respect and equality and rights.
But we have to draw the line somewhere. Some of those claims that pops up lately are jsut... silly, without any background to them, jsut because someone somewhere decided that they don't like it personally... And it goes both ways, with extremes of "pronouns are stupid and bad and shouldn't be used aside from historically established norm" on one side - and "I don't want to pick gender on the form, I identify as a toaster!" on the other.
Sorry, I think I went a bit off topic here...
P.S. Both my boys wear long hair, and from the start (their pre-teen years) and even now (they are adults already) I was on their side against all conservative relatives - and some teachers too. Boys shouldn't grow their hair out? Bite my leg at the top! It's washed and combed, and tied in chemistry/biology labs and sports - that's all that matters.