We’ve gone too far with claims of cultural appropriation

When I was 10, I had my curly hair cut short so that it stood up on end. It was cute, I now realise – but my schoolmates didn’t think so. They mercilessly called me names, among them “Electric Afro Woman”, “Zoe Froe” (a rhyme), and “Zofro”. I am now quite fond of the latter but, at the time, these were meant as insults, and even then I couldn’t help but wonder if my all-white classmates’ obsession with my “afro” wasn’t rather racist.

Flash forward to the present, a mad time in which showing too much appreciation for another culture or race is now seen to be almost as racist as name-calling. This offence is known as “cultural appropriation” – the emulation of a hallmark of a culture not your own (sushi, yoga, kimonos…) because you like or admire it.

The latest offence in this domain is American Vogue’s styling of model Kendall Jenner’s hair in a way critics took to be offensively reminiscent of an afro. The posting of the shoot on Instagram was met with outrage. Predictably, Vogue grovelled in reply,

‘Speaking as a Jew, I am always delighted to find people who like and admire us’

explaining on Tuesday that “the image is meant to be an update of the romantic Edwardian/Gibson Girl hair… and also the big hair of the Sixties and early Seventies”, adding that it had never meant to offend anyone.

I can just about see why it might be a bit annoying when a trait that has long been seen negatively because of racial prejudice is now being merrily imitated on the cover of Vogue. But a matter of grave political offence? Surely not. Yet PC warriors insist that there is little substantive difference between reviling something and admiring or even fetishising it.

I have zero time for this argument. Surely there is a world of difference between being very into something (an afro look, in this case) with being against it or nasty about it. The argument is often made in relation to Jews, where a keen interest or admiration in Jews or Jewish culture (philosemitism) is sometimes equated with dislike of Jews (anti-Semitism), the crime in both cases being to single Jews out as special.

Rubbish. Speaking as a Jew, I am always delighted to find people who like and admire us, because it’s so much better than the alternative (and also, I think, better and more interesting than total neutrality).

Sadly, though, the way things are going, this view will increasingly become the exception.