In Defense of Amandla Stenberg's Cultural Appropriation Comment on Kylie Jenner's Cornrow Instagram Pic

On Saturday, Kylie Jenner shared her new set of freshly braided cornrows to Instagram and ended up eliciting over 150,000 comments and over one million likes. One of these comments was from Amandla Stenberg, aka Rue, aka a beautiful queen blessed with patience and wisdom beyond her years, who spoke up against what she considered to be cultural appropriation on Kylie's part. Amandla commented, "when u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism." Kylie responded to Amandla with a snarky dismissal, saying, "Mad if I don't, Mad if I do.... Go hang w Jaden or something."

In a few days, the media had spun this exchange into a full blown feud between Amandla and Kylie over Jaden Smith. It all feels very stereotypically "teen girl," with the insta-fights and argument over a boy—but what much of the internet and news channels have missed is the actual point.

Amandla stepped up to the plate and called out one of her peers for offensive and harmful behavior. That's difficult to do when you're an average 16-year-old dealing with average teenager problems, but it takes on a next-level quality when the person you're calling out has a net worth of $5 million and attention from all sides at all times.

In light of Amandla's history (remember when people didn't want her to play Rue because she's black?), it's awesome that she's trying to educate as many people as she can about racism. Her activism has opened her up to much more scrutiny than that experienced by any of her fellow teen stars, but she's stuck to her guns and continues to be brave and to voice her opinions despite the blowback.

Kylie's hair style may not seem like a big deal, but as Amandla explains in the following video, cornrows are a distinctly black way of keeping hair neat, and the consequences of "borrowing" parts of black culture without acknowledging that culture results in appropriation and a greater web of racism. Kylie has shown that she's interested in the look and style of black culture pretty consistently, but her heavy participation also warrants her speaking up and assuming some responsibility in speaking out about social issues that affect the black community.

We all know that racism isn't remotely cool. However, there are plenty of widely accepted behaviors that grew out of and are enforced by systematic racism that are much more difficult to pinpoint and identify. One of those behaviors is cultural appropriation, an action defined as a dominant group adopting/exploiting the culture of a less privileged group. It's offensive because it ignores the history of cultures and reduces them to a specific look or trend that is completely dissociated from its greater context. Appropriation isn't always tied to racism, but it's often conflated, because in the US, the privileged group includes white Americans and the less privileged group includes racial minorities. In this case, appropriation is even more harmful because "trends" such as bindis, head scarves, feathered headdresses, and cornrows, which are viewed by some as cools ways to upgrade Coachella outfits, are the same outward signs of culture that lead to minorities experiencing racism, whether it's as small as teasing from peers or as large as a hate crime.

Props to you, Amandla. It's tough having to deal with haters and backlash for your ideals, but your passion is inspiring and is fostering progressive discussion in a way that helps spread a message of respect and justice.

We're firmly in Amandla's camp on this issue, but we know there's plenty to discuss! How do you feel about her comment to Kylie, and Kylie's response?