As the Grant High School girls’ varsity soccer team prepared for the state playoffs in early November, the issue of cultural appropriation came up.
One of the players, who is a white senior, offered to the team that the annual tradition of getting cornrows in their hair for the playoffs might be offensive to African Americans. The other seniors on the team shot down the idea and ridiculed the player for going against the tradition.
Cornrows are a traditional African hairstyle of thick braids that are formed in tightly knit rows and in most cases are worn by people of African descent.
When I heard about what happened, I reached out to a couple of players on the team through group text and shared an article on cultural appropriation. I suggested they consider discontinuing the tradition.
I wasn’t sure if the players read the article, but their immediate response was defensive. They didn’t want to change things. This was their team, and they felt keeping up a tradition meant for bonding was important. They also said everyone on their team was racially conscious and had no malicious intent in getting the cornrows.
In our texting back and forth, two things became very clear: They wanted to do cornrows, and I didn’t want them to.
Soon enough, as often happens with social media, the conversation spread across Grant, especially within the senior class.
People started sending me screenshots of Instagram posts in solidarity with the soccer team tradition, questioning why this was an issue and why I was involved. I received several texts asking why I had a problem with cornrows.
It seemed that on social media, everyone had an opinion.
Social media certainly has its advantages when it comes to communication. In just moments, you can reach large numbers of people all over the world from the comfort of your couch.
But at the same time, it can offer a cloak of anonymity to those who have private accounts. Social media also emboldens people to post things they normally wouldn’t say in person.
In this situation, Grant seniors, including me, began posting to their private Instagram accounts and the Class of 2017 Facebook page.
It was clear that social media was hurting these conversations rather than furthering them. When you’re staring into a screen, you don’t feel or respond the same way that you do when you are interacting in person with someone. You don’t feel the same level of empathy and emotion, and it doesn’t actually require you to listen.
As we all know, race can be one of the most uncomfortable topics for some people to talk about. I thought that given what we’ve seen with Grant’s Race Forward events, this discussion with the girls’ soccer team would’ve gone over differently. One of the benefits of Race Forward is that whether or not you participate in sharing your own experiences, you are given the opportunity to listen to the perspectives of others.
A few days after the cornrows issue spread across the school, a group of my peers on the Student Equity Team and I met with a couple of the players on the soccer team to discuss things face-to-face. The next day was a Race Forward discussion.
Two days later, at Grant’s first playoff game, none of the players showed up wearing cornrows.
When I spoke to some of the players after the game about what changed their minds, they said the meeting was pivotal for them. They said they were able to really feel our emotions around the topic. The face-to-face discussions helped them understand the impact of their actions, something that had not happened previously over texts, Instagram or Facebook.
They also mentioned Race Forward, saying after the race talks they realized how many perspectives were out there that differed from their own.
This entire situation sprouted from the rejection of a challenge on a racially unconscious belief. But through the power of human interaction and empathy, beliefs and practices shifted in a different direction.
My own ideas have changed through this experience as well. I realize now that serious conversations like these should be held in person. Also, I have learned it isn’t helpful to assume the worst of people when entering a conversation in which you are trying to persuade someone.
I want to encourage others to have conversations about race in person. Don’t use social media to create an echo chamber for your own beliefs. And don’t wait for a Race Forward event to talk about the issue. I urge you to go out of your way to listen and try to understand perspectives that are different than your own.
It is from these conversations that we have the most to learn and the most to gain. ◆
