I need to stop going on instagram
Recently I've been trying to get back on the Desi fyp on instagram since obviously tiktok is banned in India so most of them use insta at least the ones who live in India.
I've been on it for a while but I usually don't use Insta just occasionally pop up and got this beautiful song called 'amsham' by aksomaniac on my fyp. The song is lovely and I've been obsessed but while trying to find more about the music and the actresses in the music video I found myself going through a rabbithole.
So in the Amsham music video there was a woman wearing box braids. It took me a second to register it and after I (in naive optimism) thought 'OMGGGG ITS A BLINDIAN BADDIEEEE!!!' since AAPI month was last month and there was the whole weird wasian fest here in the states I felt joyful thinking that even if here in the states there was a lack of representation for mixed ethnic groups it was nice to see you know content from Asia featuring these ethnic groups especially a Blindian actress given you the prominent colorism in mainstream Indian media.
Sidetracking checking out aksomaniac's page I ended finding another artist named Sarah Black who I think make played a part in the music or just praised it? Wearing the same braids. She kinda looked ethnically ambiguous but in her bio she only stated she was Tamillian and I could find no indication of African roots. At first I thought maybe she was hiding it not wanting to get racist backlash but then I came to one of her videos seeing a comment that addressed her appropriating Black protective hairstyles and her reply saying it wasn't 'appropriating' it was 'appreciating' and my mind was blown.
I was genuinely so shocked because I didn't even know this was like a practice in India, I mean I know with the colorism and everything people were racist but this was a different level of ignorant.
After that I looked for the actual actress in the Amsham music video and same thing she said some bs about 'appreciating not appropriating' when one person called her out. Keep in mind there were only like one or two people I think maybe just one that commented on these posts because well these people didn't have a lot of followers? Well no I mean the actress had like 80k and Sarah had like 400k but they were probably mainly an Indian audience who couldn't give less of a flying fig about culture appropriation because they weren't raised in environments where accountability on a global level was probably emphasized.
Each creator had 3-4 posts with them wearing these Black hairstyles. These posts had a few comments praising the creator in general or complimenting the hairstyle with the rest just filled with random emojis. Sarah Black was arguably more popular given she's a singer and she's also had concerts. Also she's followed by some Indian actresses like Samantha Prabhu and another less well known one named fariah abdullah well I mean she has 1 million followers but she is still less mainstream compared to someone like Samantha who does films in different industries but has met and talked with prominent South Indian stars like Allu Arjun and was on Rana Daggubati's talkshow I think? I could see this cause I was following these actresses.
For Samantha I found she didn't like any post of Sarah's featuring her wearing these braids so I think maybe she might have just followed her for the music and didn't check the creator after clicking follow but Fariah did like some of these posts. Now granted the posts weren't about the hair more the music and sarah's general life but it still felt weird.
It also feels more disingenuous given Fariah has interacted with black people before sometime in 2024 she did some real where she was traveling for something and was interacting with people around the world and yes they did have box braids. Now I don't think she had an in depth conversation about cultural intricacies but you would think she knew some cultural sensitivity given she is kinda global (like she travels not that people internationally who aren't desi know her).
I had liked some of Fariah's filmography and had found this reel like way back and remembered it when seeing her like Sarah Black's posts so this was especially disappointing but of course I should've expected this I mean we don't know what celebrities do behind closed doors and when the industry is so openly misogynistic and colorist with little to no accountability put on actors and actresses in comparison to Hollywood where celebrities are constantly put on flame (for good reason might I add) it's easier for these Indian celebrities to get away with moral ambiguity.
Now some people might ask why I'm so pressed? Because you either believe that culture should be shared or that as long as they appreciate the culture that there's nothing wrong with this. While there is nothing wrong at first glance given that these people aren't mocking Black hairstyles they also aren't respecting it . . .
Let me explain.
These protective hairstyles have deep cultural significance as they linked African slaves back to their homes and were forced to shave this hair and was later deemed unruly or inappropriate in workplaces especially here in the US with laws banning Black men and women from wearing these hair styles. they couldn't even wear Afros and were forced to straighten it and 'fit in' with the Eurocentric standard.
Black people fought long and hard to have the right to wear and celebrate these hairstyles and are still fighting in some places. Cornrows were used as maps to helps slaves escape by mapping the route they had come from. And rice and other dry food were hidden in these protective braided hairstyles because slave owners would deny them food.
This historical context is tied intricately to these hairstyles that these creators simply don't acknowledge even if they say they are 'appreciating'. They make no posts celebrating Black History month, the struggles of these communities making posts about how grateful they were for these hairstyles and the people who created them because it helps protect their hair (Sarah said in one comment that the hairstyles helped her damage hair). And yes this is appropriation because they don't publicly acknowledge the origin of these hairstyles I had to look for this information from their posts cause literally no one was calling them out because they simply don't care.
Acknowledging this history is also very important when you recognize that despite India being such a diverse country there is a lot of colorism, racism, sexism and rampant homophobia with little to no legal protections.
My own mother told me not to go in the sun too long because my skin would 'darken'. And while she means well she didn't get these biases from nowhere, she got it from where she was raised. An issue that is still so prevalent given till this day we haven't had a single main dark skin Indian actress in any Indian industry (Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Mollywood etc.) And as we all know racism and colorism intersect and so there of course will be a lot of unaddressed racism similar to how there's a lot of unaddressed colorism.
So it looks bad when you are actively profitting off of hairstyles and cultures of people who are being discriminated against in your own country with no acknowledgement to where you stole these hairstyles from seeing it as a 'fashion statement' rather than an identity with deep history behind it.
Now i know these creators simply going to change their beliefs because frankly they aren't relavent enough and they probably will still choose to be ignorant but of course it's my fault for going on instagram.
I guess this post was just a rant about how racism goes unchecked in the desi community. It just really pisses me off especially when other NRI desis don't really address it when they see it and just shrug it off.
Anyways i will probably taking a break from Insta for my own peace of mind and get back to making In progress art pieces that will never reach the light of day.
I've been working on these ALT Queer POC characters (yes the big three) and am struggling on establishing a more concrete story because of the different mythologies I want to include without a clear enough understanding or amount of knowledge for these characters yet. Also I found out that ALT existed like a year ago and there's literally nothing on pinterest for reference for one of my characters (Surprise surprise he's indian) so it's kinda frustrating because I want to draw the characters but I have no idea what the characters are supposed to look like in terms of fashion and also I struggle with drawing clothes in general so that's a lovely bonus!