Teen Gothic

I've never been controversial on Reddit but this is a touchy subject for some people and that might happen today so😭 ps talking about race isn't political.

Ok let's start with I love the goth subculture it means alot to me I feel at home and comfortable something no other thing has sparked in me. Though as a black goth I do get uncomfortable with the racism/racial ignorance at times. I see people get locs and call them dreads when there's a long history behind this cultural hairstyle.

Some short history: Black people's hair was seen as disgusting and cut off by slave owners to dehumanize us because our hair meant a lot to us. So we twisted out hair into locs and began to rebel. The racist called our hair "dreadful" that's where you get dreadlocks from.

It feels disrespectful when people try to mimic our hair and it's in general harmful since we are still being discriminated against based off our hair. Plus non black people can't locs their hair naturally. Especially not centuries ago what other cultures may have had were hair they never washed held together by the oils puss dirty etc untwisted or maintained. That's completely different from locs

Here's some arguments ik will come up because I get the same thing every time "Vikings" : Viking Belts where found and according to historians they had combs so no they didn't have locs and two Viking is an occupation not a culture

"It's just hair" no it's culture and a culture that's holding up a lot of black people especially with how much we are put through

"It's been in the goth community" because the goth community and the alternative movement did not in fact start in 1980s Britain but was started by black people with hoodoo and their darker music and way of dressing "I put a spell on you" is the oldest alternative song I know and the movement has grown and gone through stages to get to what we have right now so ofc it was different back then if you wanna argue that.

And finally this isn't an attack so don't take it like one please peaceful discussions and open minds to hearing a black goth's side to the community as someone who recently entered last year