Adele set out to celebrate a cultural festival honoring Caribbean and Black heritage that had been forced online by the coronavirus pandemic. But critics accused the English singer of cultural appropriation when she posted a photo of herself in bantu knots, a traditional African hairstyle, and a Jamaican flag bikini.
“Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival, my beloved London,” the British pop star, 32, wrote alongside her photo, referring to the annual festival that normally draws two million people to Kensington.
But for the internet, the “X” of the Jamaican flag marked the wrong spot.
Twitter posts and memes abounded, most of them condemning her use of a traditional African hairstyle and for putting the Jamaican flag across her breasts.
While her style choice netted some support by those who saw it as appreciation rather than appropriation, most of the commenters saw the move as disrespectful, at least on this side of the Atlantic. A number of supporting tweets appeared to come from the U.K., where she is from.
The double standard inherent in donning traditionally African and Caribbean symbols and hairstyles smacked of privilege in and of itself, some commenters noted.
“Black women are discriminated against for wearing cultural hairstyles like bantu knots and locs but white people are not, that’s not fair and that’s why people are pissed off,” wrote one commentator, according to People.
“If 2020 couldn’t get anymore bizarre, Adele is giving us Bantu knots and cultural appropriation that nobody asked for,” tweeted journalist Ernest Owens. “This officially marks all of the top white women in pop as problematic.”
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