The ubiquitous Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance has finally gone too far.
I’ve made (relative) peace with the fact that a news alert hits my phone every time those fools make a left turn together. But this New York Times piece about the “Travis Kelce Cut” is a bridge that extends into the depths of Hell.
The human-interest piece explores (white) men around the country seeking the “Travis Kelce Cut” due to the massive popularity of the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and his megastar girlfriend. The topic is perfectly fine…except not once does writer Alyson Krueger mention in 800 words that Kelce’s haircut is very much a basic fade the likes of which thousands of Black barbers across the country administer to Black men (and white men) daily and have likely done so since before Kelce’s parents met.
The “Kelce Cut” has also gotten his celebrity barber, Patrick “Patty Cuts” Regan, a little slice of buzz: The New York Post profiled Regan and his $1,000 cuts that folks fly him across the country to administer. It’s through this piece we learned that a standard-issue fade is “taking barber shops by storm” and that Diddy pays this white dude the cost of a MacBook Air for a cut that five brothas within a five-mile radius of him would do well for a 20th of the price.
(This isn’t the first time the Post has been on the ass-end of Black hairstyle reporting, as it was in 2016 when it wrote that First Daughter Sasha Obama rocked “boxer braids” inspired by a trend established by UFC women fighters.)
Kelce’s desire to resemble Jon B. circa 1997 is no big deal. But reporting on his hairstyle like it’s an innovative trend whitewashes the fact that you can enter any Black city in America and throw a stone that would bounce off seven brothas with fades.
It’s just the latest example of whitewashing in reporting that’s occurred for decades.
Perhaps the earliest and most infamous example was that of model and actress Bo Derek, who became an instant sex symbol when she ran up the beach in a bathing suit rocking cornrows with beads in the 1979 romantic comedy “10.” Derek singlehandedly made cornrows a “craze” among non-Black women, and reporting at the time minimized the Black people who routinely rocked the style even back then.
Derek has been asked more than once to reconcile this whitewashing later in her career. But, appallingly, a Los Angeles Times writer from 2014 still gave Derek credit as the cornrows progenitor when writing about the “renewed trend” of white celebrities like Kristen Stewart and Rita Ora wearing them. A hairstylist is quoted in the story: “Cornrows are moving away from urban, hip-hop to more chic and edgy.” (Before you ask…yes, he is.)
Reporting aside, I’ve lost track of the number of times mainstream white celebrities have appropriated our work and aesthetic without giving proper credit. Miley Cyrus resembled your average early-30-something white pop artist during last night’s Grammys, but remember her ridiculous pigtails, poked-tongue and Black dancers phase a decade ago? When she moved past that and got back to being more Hannah Montana-esque, she shit on Hip-Hop culture on her way out the door.
There’s perhaps no greater transgressor of uncredited cultural appropriation than the Kardashian family, whose members have leveraged their “exotic” whiteness and affinity for Black male celebrities to convince their social media followers – whose combined count makes up more than 15 percent of the world’s population – that they started waves originally established by Black women.
Kim Kardashian went through her cornrow phase, called them “Bo Derek boxer braids” and had stringy-haired women everywhere blowing up their hairdressers. Khloe Kardashian and Kylie Jenner have both been accused of – and sued over — jacking the work of Black artists and designers multiple times.
Borrowing art and hairstyles non-native to your culture is not necessarily a bad thing (unless you’re white and blonde with locs – that never looks good). But not giving credit where it’s due when you have a sizable platform is a problem. Kelce could stem a lot of criticism by publicly acknowledging that there’s nothing innovative about his haircut, just as his boo Swift can, with a single tweet, eliminate any suggestion that she created “Swag Surfin.’”
As for these reporters, they’d be better served by, y’know, doing their jobs and removing the myopia of whiteness to tell the full story. Folks on the erstwhile Twitter are calling for Krueger’s job for that Times piece…that’s a bit much, but hopefully getting dragged to the moon and back for a few days will be a teachable moment for her and anyone else who’d dare erase our contributions.