In Nigerian society, a lady who has decided to lock her hair to solve the worry of\u00a0constantly weaving it is designated as "shaggy and harebrained". A man whose\u00a0livelihood depends on dubbing people's hair and locking his hair has been profiled\u00a0as a criminal who gets locked behind bars with no concrete offense.<\/p>\n
The above claim comes in as a result of people's perception of people who carry
\ndreads. These beliefs are enveloped by myths, either natural or artificial to the end\u00a0that some cultures such as the Yoruba and Igbo view it as an abomination.<\/p>\n
The Yoruba cosmic view of dreadlock is that it is a tousled style to depict\u00a0mysterious and dark powers to be eschewed. "Dada" as the Yorubas refer to people born with dreadlocks is a child feared more than respected, and several consultations are made to determine if the dreadlocks should be cut off or not.<\/p>\n
The Igbo society calls a child born with dreadlocks "Ogbange". Their worldview is\u00a0that '' Ogbange" is the reincarnation of some great men and women, jujuists, and\u00a0deities. This makes them live in isolation as their parents separate them from other\u00a0children. They are called possessed beings and the stigmatization, of course,
\naffects the child's psychology and self-perception.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of questions to ask but a few that stand out are based on why a\u00a0person born with dreads be treated forbidden or an adult who decides to explore\u00a0the trend be made to feel odd in the society.<\/p>\n
Another standpoint to explore deadlock stigmatization from is the biased opinion\u00a0of people based on societal status. A closer look at people's perception of deadlock\u00a0shows that the lower class suffers the bias the most.<\/p>\n
A rich man in dreads is perceived as stylish and in vogue while the middle-class\u00a0man is labeled a criminal and a person of low standards. Beauty, they say, is in the\u00a0eyes of the beholder. However, it is safe to say that societal status often influences\u00a0the conclusion of the beholder.<\/p>\n
The mentality of most people is that the elite is affluent enough to spend money on\u00a0themselves and can take care of their dreadlocks which makes them different from\u00a0the lowly.<\/p>\n
A glimpse into the entertainment world has it that music artists who have natural\u00a0dreadlocks and even artificial ones are seldom questioned by people, the reason\u00a0being that they are celebrities and famous hence, these myths and beliefs hardly\u00a0apply to them.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, people must understand and accept the fact that dreadlocks, whether\u00a0natural or artificial, aren't weapons or any form of mysterious thing that can cause\u00a0harm.<\/p>\n
The earlier we accept this truth, the earlier we can coexist peacefully and unite\u00a0towards other important societal touchpoints and progress as a nation.<\/p>\n
Abimbola Oluwapelumi Adedotun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dreadlocks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6314],"class_list":["post-11575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-dreadlocks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11579,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11575\/revisions\/11579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}