Braids Are Cultural Theft —Unless You Understand This First

If You Treat Braids Like Accessories, You Erase the Hands That Wove Them

Apr 20, 2025

In a time when diversity is under siege, when cultural memory is erased and repackaged for profit, braiding becomes an act of resistance.

Braids are not a hairstyle.
Braids are survival.
Braids are rebellion.
Braids are memory stitched into the living body.

"To braid hair is to weave together the strength of the past with the dreams of the future." — Unknown

Long before colonizers, cameras, or fashion trends, braids carried identity, prayer, hope. They marked warriors heading into battle. They honored children stepping into adulthood. They wove together grief, strength, healing, magic, and the unbreakable thread of ancestry.

To braid is to speak a language older than borders, older than kingdoms, older than the very idea of ownership.

"Our ancestors speak through our hands when we braid. Each knot, a word; each twist, a prayer." — Traditional Saying

When you braid today, you aren’t just weaving hair.
You are weaving intention.
You are practicing knot magic, one of the oldest and most powerful arts known to humanity.

Each strand becomes a prayer.
Each crossing becomes a binding of energy.
Each knot becomes an anchor against the chaos of a world that would rather tear us apart.

"In the act of braiding, we remember: we are many strands, but one fabric." — African Proverb

Braiding is connection.
Braiding is hope.
Braiding is a visible, tangible way to signal to one another:
We are still here. We are still weaving. We are immutable.

If you do not know the braids of your ancestors, it is time to seek them out.
Research. Listen. Ask.

Find the ways your people once braided their prayers into hair and ceremony. Find the symbols, the meanings, the reasons. Understand the difference between honoring and stealing.

When you braid (even a simple twist of strands) do it as an act of reverence, not a costume.

Braids are not trends.
Braids are testimonies.
Wearing them without connection, without knowledge, without reverence, is wearing someone else's survival story like an accessory, without ever carrying the burden they bore to create it.

But when you braid with honor?
You step into the river of resilience that spans continents and generations.
You carry your own prayer into the future.
You remind the world: we are stronger when woven together.

"Braids are the bridges between who we have been and who we are becoming." — Indigenous Wisdom

Let every braid you wear be:

A love letter to your ancestors.
A shield for those fighting to be seen.
A living thread tying you to earth, to spirit, to each other.

We are the loom.
We are the thread.
We are the living memory.
And we will not be untwined.

We are Rooted Rebels ushering in the ancient ways for revolutionary transformation.

In Root & Ritual,

Ayana

In the comments, I invite you to share:
A memory, a story, or a tradition about braiding from your family, your culture, your ancestors.
What does braiding mean to you?

Let's weave our stories together.