hate-wizard:

Despite the fact that I just read a post that claimed I could not define what is and what isn’t racist, or cultural appropriation, because I am white, I am going to defend the use of body modification for as many cultures and peoples as I can.

So, the post claimed that white people wearing dreadlocks is cultural appropriation. Firstly, that should also include all POC who are not Rastafarian. Secondly, dreadlocks can be a natural state of the hair for all human beings. On that note, I will defend “artificial” dreadlocking (as opposed to the natural process, not the use of synthetic dreads).

So, on dreadlocks:

Dreadlocks are associated most closely with the Rastafari movement, but people from many groups in history before them have worn dreadlocks, including early Scottish clans, Sadhus of Nepal, India and the Sufi Rafaees, the Maori people of New Zealand, the Maasai of East Africa, and the Sufi malangs and fakirs of Pakistan.

That source also says that dreadlocks have been worn by those from East Africa and North Africa, Maasai men found in the regions of northern Tanzania and southern Kenya, ancient Egypt, followers of the Hindu deity Shiva, the Greeks, the Pacific Ocean peoples, the Naga people and several ascetic groups within various major religions, including the monks of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Nazirites of Judaism, Qalandari Sufi’s the Sadhus of Hinduism, and the Dervishes of Islam among others. James the Just (first Bishop of Jerusalem), Pre-Columbian Aztec priests, and followers of the Mouride movement.

Thus there are those in “white”/western cultural traditions, as well as most other cultures except those in Eastern Asia, who have worn dreadlocks as part of their culture. Thus, it must be said that it is not cultural appropriation for non-Rastafari to wear dreadlocks.

The earliest known example of body piercing is on a white male - Otzi the Ice Man had stretched ear lobes. Additionally, ear piercing has been present in Semitic cultures, Indian cultures, the Urok culture, the Tlingit, the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, various European cultures before the 4th Century CE and after the 16th Century CE.

Nose piercing has been present in Indian cultures, Middle Eastern cultures such as the Bedouin, the Berber peoples, the Beja peoples, the Australian Aborigines, the Aztecs, the Mayans, tribes in New Guinea, while the Inca practiced septum piercing, as did the Mayans and Aztecs.

Lip piercing and lip stretching were historically found in African and American tribal cultures, including the Tlingit, as well as the peoples of Papua New Guinea and Amazonia.   Aztecs and Mayans also wore labrets, the Dogon people, the Nuba of Ethiopia wore rings.  Lip stretching was found throughout Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and South America, and some of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest and Africa. 

Tongue piercing was practiced by the Aztec, Olmec and Mayan cultures, the Haida, Kwakiutl and Tlingit, as well as the Fakirs and Sufis of the Middle East.

The source also goes into genital, nipple, and navel piercings.

Thus, it must be said that it is not cultural appropriation for anyone to wear body piercings, although some were only seen in POC until the last century. That said, it would be cultural appropriation for many POC to also wear some of those piercings. It clearly is not cultural appropriation for white people to stretch their earlobes.

The earliest known example of tattoos is on a white male. Additionally, the tattooed Tarim Mummies were European/West Asian, and tattoos have also been found in Chinese cultures, the Philippines, Indonesia, Germanic, Celtic, and other Northern European peoples, the ancient Greeks and other Mediterranean cultures, Japan, the Middle East, Samoa, and Persia. Thus, it seems said that it is not cultural appropriation for almost all people to get tattoos.

Almost all cultures practiced some form of body modification or another at one point in time. It could be said that people are practicing cultural appropriation by getting a body modification that people they are descended from did not practice, however, that argument can apply to POC as well as whites.