>Rastas did not invent, nor were
>they the first to wear
>their hair in so-called "Dred"
>locks. Check your history
>and you will see locks
>all over Africa, India, Asia
>etc. throughout history for both
>fashion and religious reasons.
>Rastafarians have brought locks more
>into the spotlight, but they
>do not own the rights
>to them.

good point. You are right they did not invent them, just popularized them in this part of the world. And I don't think Rastas would claim the exclusive rights to locks, that would be unlike them. Our Caribbean Students Association at school had an interesting discussion on locks and rastafari this fall, and interestingly the few rastas we have were not at all opposed to others dreading their hair, but some non-Rastas insisted that it was disrespectful of what rasta stands for and amounted to appropriation (especially when non-blacks locked their hair).

One thing that is unfortunate is that in the media and popular culture it seems that locks have gotten a bad reputation, that we associate them with criminality. This reflects poorly on rastafarians, as the most prevalent group who wear locks, and are sometimes perceived to be violent criminals. There was this incident in St. Lucia earlier this year where some men with locks terrorized a church and killed two people, and when the subject came up with a teacher of mine I had to do a lot of explaining that Rastas are non-violent and that these were probably not rastas who attacked the church. I would guess that most people associate a lot of stereotypes with Rastas but have not read much about them or reasoned with them first.

Mesnjah

I could go on and on the full has never been told ~ Buju Banton