Should white people have dreadlocks?

People with dreadlocks are judged by others

Question: Should white people have dreadlocks?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, white people should not have dreadlocks
Argument‹4 of 4: People with dreadlocks are judged by others

White people who have dreadlocks often get unsought hate from others.

The argument

This argument makes a practical case rather than a moral one: whatever the rights and wrongs of the cultural question, wearing dreadlocks exposes a person to hostility, and white people who adopt the style are volunteering for it. The hostility comes from two directions at once. The first is general. Dreadlocks are stereotyped as unhygienic and unprofessional whatever the race of the person wearing them, so everyone with the hairstyle becomes a target for hostile comment. Many white people with dreadlocks have heard rude comments from others about their hair, and the assumptions attach to the style rather than to the individual, which means they cannot be corrected by any particular person's behaviour. The second is specific to white wearers and concerns the accusation of appropriation. At San Francisco State University a black student yelled at a white student over his dreadlocks, telling him he should not wear them because they belong to her culture; he replied that the culture the style came from does not matter. The confrontation illustrates what the white wearer is taking on. The disagreement is not one he can settle. Against that stands the experience of the people whose culture is at issue. A black writer has described how her own dreadlocks made her feel unsafe, because strangers approached her to buy drugs and called her hair dirty. Her account raises the question of whether white people with the style go through the same unpleasant things she does — a question the argument raises and leaves open. Given that the style brings unwanted opinions from every direction, the conclusion drawn is the simple one: it is better for white people not to have dreadlocks, so that the possibility does not arise.

Premises

[P1]People with dreadlocks face judgment and rude comments, stereotyped as unhygienic or unprofessional. [P2] For white people the hairstyle adds the further conflict of accusations of cultural appropriation, as in the San Francisco State confrontation. [P3] Avoiding dreadlocks spares white people this unwanted hostility and conflict. [C] Therefore, because people with dreadlocks are subjected to unwanted opinions, white people should not have them.

Counter-arguments

People should be prevented from attacking others for having dreadlocks instead of forbidding the hairstyle. Everyone has the freedom to express themselves so people should be more accepting of unusual hair. In the present day, it is unacceptable to still continue to be discriminatory against dreadlocks.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] People should refrain from commenting on others' hairstyles.