Dreadlocks: cultural appropriation debate has arrived in Germany
Much of the public discourse has focused less on the concerns raised by affected communities and more on defending the right of the majority to remain unaffected by those concerns
The recent debate in Germany around dreadlocks and cultural appropriation has once again revealed how unevenly questions of identity, power, and historical responsibility are understood and discussed. Much of the public discourse has focused less on the concerns raised by affected communities and more on defending the right of the majority to remain unaffected by those concerns.
At the centre of the controversy is not the hairstyle itself, but a deeper question: who gets to define what is harmful, and whose lived experiences are treated as authoritative in debates about culture, history, and identity?
Cultural appropriation is often misunderstood as a claim of ownership over cultural expressions. In reality, it is a critique of power asymmetries. Practices such as dreadlocks have existed in many cultures, but in the modern Western context they are closely tied to Black history, including enslavement, colonialism, racial discrimination, and social exclusion. For Black people, hairstyles have historically been politicised — used as markers of inferiority, deviance, or unprofessionalism — often with material consequences in education, employment, and public life.
When members of dominant groups adopt the same cultural markers without facing these consequences, the issue is not imitation, but unequal social cost. What is celebrated or aestheticised on one body may be stigmatised on another.
This is where perspective becomes crucial. Cisgender, heterosexual, white men in Germany — particularly those who have not personally experienced racialisation — often approach the debate from a position shaped by universality. Their social experience is frequently treated as neutral, objective, or representative of society as a whole. As a result, they may find it difficult to relate to why certain symbols or practices carry emotional or political weight for others.
This difficulty is not necessarily a moral failing; it is a structural limitation of lived experience. Lived realities shaped by racism, colonial legacies, or intergenerational trauma cannot be fully accessed through abstract reasoning alone. They require listening — not in the sense of passive tolerance, but in the willingness to accept that some forms of knowledge are experiential rather than theoretical.
Public debates in Germany, however, often remain dominated by voices that are least affected by the issue at hand. This dominance is reinforced by media structures, editorial cultures, and expert panels that continue to prioritise familiar perspectives. When those who raise concerns about cultural appropriation are then asked to repeatedly justify, explain, or defend their experiences, the burden of education once again falls on those already marginalised.
It is also worth noting that the call to “debate everything rationally” can itself function as a gatekeeping mechanism. Rationality is not value-neutral; it is shaped by whose emotions are considered legitimate and whose are dismissed as excessive or subjective. For communities whose histories include violence, erasure, and dispossession, emotional responses are not obstacles to understanding — they are part of the historical record.
A more constructive approach to the debate would involve acknowledging these asymmetries openly. This includes recognising that not every issue requires immediate commentary from those who are unaffected, and that sometimes the most responsible contribution is to make space rather than fill it.
If newsrooms struggle to find Black experts, writers, or commentators on these topics, this is not evidence of their absence, but of longstanding exclusion within media institutions. Addressing that gap requires structural change, not further questioning of the legitimacy of the concerns being raised.
Ultimately, discussions about cultural appropriation are not about policing personal expression. They are about understanding how history, power, and inequality continue to shape the present — and about accepting that those most affected by these dynamics are best positioned to articulate their meaning.