Hi! Recently I was on social media doing whatever and I came across this post about this Asian guy doing a girls braids. He doesn’t title the video “box braids” or anything of the like, but it says something like “hippie lifestyle” Anyways I went to the comments, probably my first mistake, and looked at a couple of post. Immediately the first few post are like “here come black people (or African Americans) in their feelings” or people labeling us victims, for expressing our thoughts over a hairstyle created by us. I don’t really have an issue about other people wearing box-braids, but like many black commenters on that post a lot of black people would appreciate if the style was labeled correctly. However, I guess that’s not an easy ask. Because over those simple comments, literally hundreds of people are dragging those commenters. People from the actual continent of Africa, calling African Americans “too sensitive” and that “they don’t claim us” (ouch, like wtf we are literally the diaspora and basically family by lineage). This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen this. When we come in defense of our culture and intellectual property we are immediately dog-piled on. None of the comments mentioned requests for the guy to stop doing the hair styles, only to name it properly. When it comes to other ethnicities creations, I can see the world being largely respectful, but when it comes to African American…y’all I’m so tired of the hate. I’m so tired of the visceral hostility. Why do we have to compromise our feelings or our thoughts on a look we created and popularized. Asian people are not holier than thou, there have been plenty of Black people who have experienced racism from Asian and vice versa. But something always tells me that, another groups feelings will always be more important. Regardless of our much damage our community has taken. Anyways, I didn’t really want anything. I would love to know you thoughts, but please try to keep it kind. I know social media isn’t the place to find love and belonging, but for someone who was raised up on it—it’s kind of hard. I did delete Instagram, at least for now because of how negatively it made me feel so early in the morning. But I need to know that our feelings and our plight against racism, cuz that’s really all this is, isn’t just a shout into the void. (Sorry for the rant, spelling and grammar mistakes)