Our Dreadlocks are Revolutionary: Conventional Beauty Standards, Bodily Autonomy & Anarchy

  • 2026/03/28 07:00


From back cover:

“Here is the real test. Do you believe someone has a right to their own body? If you answered, “Yes, but…” then you don’t. There are no conditions, exceptions, or asterisks attached to someone’s rights. If you think someone has the right to their body, that means they have it regardless of your feelings on the subject. It’s not a right if it’s conditional to someone else’s emotions. Do we ban abortion because some Christians think it’s murder? I’m sure there’s a few out there who wail, and scream, and thrash in agony thinking about all those aborted fetuses. What if said wailers were black Christians? What if they said that abortion is racist because it’s white doctors killing unborn black children? What if they said you can’t be for black liberation and abortion? Would you take that seriously? Would that be enough to make you give up fighting for abortion? The whole pastiche of inarticulate sentiments passed off as “cultural appropriation” is absurd and silly as fuck. It cannot and should not be taken seriously…

Imagine how a trans woman with dreadlocks is treated by society and then has to navigate a community that no longer views them as compliant with the strict laws that govern it? Imagine this woman going from house to house while jobless and homeless and being told, “No, we won’t house you because of your hair.” We’re not talking about a genuine threat to people’s immediate physical safety. This isn’t someone who has committed sexual assault or is threatening their roommates at gun point. Yet ask yourself how many members of the community would just post “ew, YT dre*ds” or some other reddit one liner if they posted in a queer housing group begging for help? How is this cliquishness revolutionary?…

I’ve strayed in the past. I’ve caved in and cut my dreads twice and always regretted it. I keep coming back to the hairstyle because it is so integral to my identity, my core being. It’s who I am. We spend our childhoods being fed propaganda about how all the “bad” people in the world will use peer pressure to force you to smoke, drink, do drugs, walk home with a stranger. When we grow up and become politically and culturally aware, we see hypocrisy. The peer pressure from society tells us to follow the career path, invest in the stock market, vote for change, and follow the newest trends. Suddenly the community police are telling us (in the exact same propagandistic, hyper conformist, neoliberal tone they used to tell us smoking was bad) that our expression is all wrong, our bodies are up for debate, our lifestyles are subject to internet scrutiny, and if we don’t conform we’re the “bad people.”

Our Dreads Are Revolutionary pdf

Race is ‘Spooky’

  • 2025/03/28 06:53

From back cover:

“Race is an extremely important aspect of our contemporary world. It’s one of the first things you recognize in someone from as young as 3 months old and negative association begins before most enter preschool (Sullivan et al., 2021, p. 395). It alters our perceptions and opinions of each other. We check them off in boxes for applications of many kinds, but it has no biological basis. Race is an entirely social construct that many have tried and failed to base in biological science. Using Max Stirner’s (2009) words, race is a
spook….

…People see the clear, obvious, and negative effects of racism in society and want to combat that, but they also want to keep the concept of race that is so woven into the fabric of our society…

…Through my own experience, Ive had aspects of my racial identity questioned because they didn’t fit the stereotyped mold of what it means to be black…This is an issue where not only does the supposed top of the hierarchy reinforce these spooks, but so do people who occupy the lowest rungs.”

Race is Spooky pdf

Toward Terra Incognita: A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing

  • 2023/12/07 03:06

“I feel nationalism has escaped the grave long enough. With this text I seek to instigate and encourage an anti-authoritarian flame that once and for all sets fire to its anarcho-confused, stumbling corpse. I also encourage anarchists to question the notion of any said thing belonging exclusively to any said culture, to question the notion that every individual identifying with said culture claims to own it, and to question the authority of whoever it is making universal claims on behalf of others in the first place.

I say normalize dreadlocks across all racial categories; rebel against work – especially the type of work that seeks to conform us to beauty standards of marketing and production! I say dismantle white supremacy by making whiteness as insubordinate to colonial order as every black and brown youth who light up precincts like bonfires to freedom!

I propose an anarchy that moves beyond the politics of embracing assigned identity, toward de-territorializing one’s body and destroying identity-based occupation all together. At the intersection of anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian praxis is a nihilist critique of any and all cultural ownership of one’s body, becoming a dangerous space of terra incognita.”

Toward Terra Incognita_A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing pdf