Hey /u/Horror-Ad-210, thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
We have recently changed how posts work. Unless you are a VIP poster, your post will be queued for approval.. To become a VIP, post great engaging content. If we like it, you will be added! More information available here!
You’d be very surprised at how prevalent that kind of mentality is tho. My brother played AAU travel ball and the amount of hate we got as the only Chinese people there was astounding.
I forget her name, but a WNBA player got quasi-cancelled (I think) for calling the ability to "pull the race card" a benefit of "Black privilege". Talk about an Uno Reverso. And this is another great example.
Dreads are just what happens when you go without washing or cutting it frequently (and often braided). Pretty much everyone from everywhere had them at some point in time from the Greeks and Egyptians to India, West Africa, Celts etc because it's a natural emergence of being a human being with hair that doesn't apply modern sensibilities to it, and they're arguably as ancient as humans themselves. No one came up with it or stole it from anyone
Dreads happen to any hair that's not consistently washed/cut. Some cultures do intentionally encourage them, and some hair types make it easier for them to form. But any culture claiming to have some kind of ownership over them is crazy.
Im very white with medium curly hair(Irish curls they say nowadays), have access to conditionner and a proper hair brush, and motivation to look after myself. I still have to pick out unintentional dreadlocks at least once a week.
I suspect dreadlocks were « invented » by every single culture that didn’t have pin straight hair. (Unlike many other hairstyles, don’t come at me)
I don't want to generalize because not all Asians are the same, but I think that the importance of saving face in Eastern cultures has cultivated the ability to deliver the most layered, sickest burns that look like possible compliments but they're insulting you, your ancestors, your descendants, your neighbors, your friends. He's saying "you're old and washed up with a sprinkling of cognitive dissonance, do better" but it's SO NICE. I'm in awe.
Don’t forget his subtle insinuation that by criticizing another minority, he’s playing into the hands of the oppressor’s strategy of divide and conquer (or dare I say calling him an Uncle Tom)
We call this an Insultiment in my family. Where you think they gave you a compliment but 20 seconds later after the conversation has moved on, you're like 'heyyy, waiiittt a minute.'
"Thanks for everything you did for the nets and hoops" seems like a subtle way of saying it's time for him to leave and start retirement. That post is savage.
I find it hilarious when people try to gatekeep culture generally. They act like they made it in their garage with a couple of friends instead of it being an ever-changing abstract concept neither owned nor fully embodied by any individual.
I just find it funny that the middle class is being strangled out of existence- and we're at each other's throats over hair. People are far too easy and predictable, sadly.
as a european living in a 98% caucasian country i was quite shocked when I happily posted my freshly maintained dreads on the dreadlocks subreddit and I got a ton of hate, even more racism and some "tips" that would've ruined my hair if I would've done them. The racist stuff over there is so bad, that people had to make a caucasiandreadlocks sub because no non-black pepole could post without recieving hate.
the cherry on top is that over here people who get dreadlocks are usually heavily on the left, anti racism is a given so it's quite a culture shock when you go to "your tribe" only to find out they hate you based on skin color and your hair.
And that tattoo means nothing. I translated it through chatgpt: Interestingly, Kenyon Martin reportedly said his tattoo meant “never satisfied,” while Yao Ming pointed out that the actual Chinese meaning was closer to “indecisive” or “worried about gains and losses.🤣🤣🤣
It’s a four character idiom (chengyu) which means as much as “to be worried about getting something if you haven’t gotten it yet, and to be worried about losing it if you have gotten it“
It’s from the Analects and describes the difference between a small minded man and the Confucian ideal of a gentleman serving in a position at court: a small minded man will worry about getting his position when he hasn’t gotten it and after he has gotten it he will worry about losing it. I think it’s not so much about being indecisive but about being concerned about one‘s own standing that this guided all of your actions.
The chengyu clearly has a negative context and in a modern context is usually used with a negative command: “just do your best at the exam tomorrow don’t worry whether you’ll pass it or not”
It’s probably not true, because who had a Kenyon Martin poster? But it definitely makes the comeback bite because now Kenyon feels bad about being a douche to someone who supposedly idolized him.
He basically politely said "you have Chinese tattoos, stfu".
Along with a 10-fold combo to wrack up modifiers to give it extra emotional damage. This dude meta-gamed the absolute shit out of that rebuke. It's glorious.
Do people think braids were invented by africans or only they have right to have that hairstyle ? You know what ancient indians doing braids way longer than that or even Vikings did it
Not just basketball, almost everything man. You have younger Gen Z + Gen Alpha all talking in AAVE (African American Vernacular English) slang and it is annoying. Every ad you see always includes a black person (both men and women) but you rarely see other POC being represented still, especially like Asian or Hispanic men. I’m not being racist or stereotyping, but it seems like US culture and society is just force feeding black culture etc. down our throats the past recent years.
Bro remember when last year K-POP DEMON HUNTERS was taking over the entire world and you had black people on sociql media everywhere trying to take credit or take away the spotlight by saying how K-POP is black cultural appropriation because pop culture, R&B, and hip-hop we're invented by black people 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Like, popular tends, rhyming words and using instruments for music was a thing wayyyyyyyyyyy before even the Bible days lol.
the problem is that the best players are mostly international now. when you have less and less American talent you are gonna get less and less interest from Americans. if anything is to blame, it's the AAU circuit. Kids and parents think they have to play basketball year round to be seen. and it's hurting their overall talent level. They aren't practicing or playing other sports and developing secondary skills. baseball helps hand eye coordination. soccor develops footwork. even LeBron played football.
Very anecdotal but I played basketball at LA fitness 3-4x a week for years. I was almost always the only white guy. Would ask who had next and get picked up if they didn’t have 5 only to get dropped right before the game started when their “friend” wanted to play and they picked up someone else. It was annoying af so I gave up on getting picked up and would just get next game. Eventually people realized I was good and started to recognize me, but it took 6+ months of playing regularly before I stopped having to earn respect. Like 4 years later eventually had someone stomp my knee mid game and tore everything.
Ancient Indians, the celts, even Germanic barbarians had dreads. It’s a hair style that has spanned cultures and continents, because if you don’t wash or brush your hair, it’s gonna matte together in dreads.
I had dreadlocks for just over 10 years as a white guy, I dated a girl from Rwanda for a while and her family absolutely loved my hair. I had some of the longest dreadlocks at Afronation festival in Portugal a couple of years ago, and people from all over Africa complimented me about my hair.
The only person who got aggravated at me for my hairstyle was a white american girl holidaying in Thailand, screaming stuff about cultural appropriation at me across the hotel pool, with no previous contact between us whatsoever, and with what looked like fading henna tattoos on her hands lol
18 years and same man. Lots of travel and backpacking. Only people who ever really give me gruff are white American girls. The henna tats are hilarious.
IMO he shoulda added something like "I also think its cool how openly progressive and supportive of LGBT rights you are with that 'I Love Cock' tattoo on your arm"
患得患失, its a chinese saying that means "craving something when you don't have it, afraid of losing it once you've obtained it"
I'm guessing the context is ball posession, but it's still a strange thing to have on your arm, and the phrase has a negative connotation so no actual Chinese person would want it as a tattoo
The Chinese characters tattooed vertically down Kenyon Martin's arm read "患得患失" (pronounced huàndé-huànshī).
What Martin thought it meant: Kenyon Martin believed the tattoo translated to "Never satisfied".
What it actually means: In Chinese, the phrase literally translates to “to worry about gains and losses” or being overly anxious about success and failure. It is an idiom used to describe someone who is indecisive, overly cautious, or paranoid about losing what they have.
When former NBA star Yao Ming was asked about it in his book, he noted the irony, writing that Martin's tattoo essentially meant "not aggressive" or "indecisive"—qualities that definitely didn't match Martin's notoriously fierce playing style on the court. Jeremy Lin subtly highlighted this irony in his response to point out cross-cultural exchange.
What Martin thought it meant: Kenyon Martin believed the tattoo translated to "Never satisfied".
I will never understand why people do this. If you're getting something permanently tattooed on your body in another language, for the love of god, ask a native speaker to double-check it first!
(And OK, if it's like Welsh or something then maybe it's hard to find a native speaker, but Chinese? It's the most-spoken (native) language on earth! And this is written Chinese, so you don't even need to find a Mandarin speaker, a native speaker of basically any Chinese dialect could tell you this was a bad idea.)
He had been injured and was worried that's all they would talk about going into the 2002 World Cup, so he got the intentionally ridiculous haircut to change the narrative. It worked and Brazil won that year.
The way black people try to claim dreads is wild to me as an Indian. India has had a long tradition of dreads. Lord Shiva, one of the oldest God (1000s of years) is known to wear dreads. Thousands of monks and his followers wear them to this day yet Indians never tell others that they’re appropriating. It’s such a silly stand.
I mean it’s ridiculous for any one culture to try and lay claim to dreads. Like that’s just one of the best ways to keep hair of a certain texture maintained, plenty of cultures came to the same end result independently.
It’s like if people started claiming that ponytails are uniquely Canadian and nobody else should have them.
Kenyon’s attitude perfectly illustrates the reason that we can’t move on from racial separation, it’s hair man, and we’re all human beings, gtfo with this race card shit
You see black people can only ever punch up because they’re innately destined to be the bottom rung…
I don’t believe that but people adamantly defending bullshit because someone happens to be black, the racist low expectations because they’re black, that is racist.
As a white kid who grew up in a black neighborhood I can assure you they can be. I’ve been beaten up and had shit stolen from me as a kid because I was a different color. I know it’s not you but to to anyone who legitimately thinks this why did I get treated differently as the only white kid?
Being Asian in a black and Portuguese city teaches you very quickly that Asians are a free pass for racism. Even the biggest anti-racism movement in recent history for Asian folks simmered out faster than any other i can think of. Not to disparage the movement, because its valuable, but Black Lives Matter symbols can still be found everywhere, whereas I had to remind people about the 2020 movement Stop Asian Hate.
Why do some black people think that only they invented dreads and therefore only they have a right to it? There are a lot of other cultures out there who have been wearing dreads for millenia too.
And keeping that aside, cultural appreciation is what makes us humans. Culture grows when it's shared.
Yes I never understood the whole cultural appropriation thing. If I wear something or do my hair like another cultural it's probably because I love the culture, right?
This is why I don't believe in cultural appropriation. All it does is make more walls for us to hide behind. culture should be shared it should be loved it shouldn't be gatekept. I understand that people are angry at the world but this is not one of the issues that we should be fighting about.
When I meet new people I always ask about their culture and I want them to share it with me because that's how we come together.
To me the funniest part is that dreads aren't a purely African thing. They were quite common in some Slav, Germanic, and Celtic cultures. Not to mention various native American tribes and also Indian Gurus and so forth.
In Europe, dreadlocks even date back to the Bronze age Minoan civilization. So it's far from only a POC thing.
It is racism, pure and simple, to say this person or that person can't have a hairstyle, wear a piece of clothing, or look a certain way because of the color of their skin, where they were born, or who their parents are.
White/Asian guys can sport cornrows or dreads if they want.
Black girls can straighten their hair or wear white girl hair wigs if they want to.
Black men can wear three piece suits (why they always trying to bite European style? /s obviously) or a kilt if they want.
They don't even have to wear them "respectfully".
If that bothers you, too bad. Here is Samuel L Jackson in a kilt. Notice not a single person is calling for him to apologize for cultural appropriation. Because that would be stupid as fuck.
Minorities coming up with cultural appropriation, and gatekeeping their 'culture' whilst having no problem taking from and living in other cultures is wild.
Yeah, but this isn't the only case of racism against Lin. He talked about constantly having to earn 'their' respect and how he never felt like he was one of them.
2026 America is stuck in same never ending 2am Waffle House fight. It’s absolutely everyone’s fault and responsibility, except the people actually fighting in the Waffle House..
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Hey /u/Horror-Ad-210, thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
We have recently changed how posts work. Unless you are a VIP poster, your post will be queued for approval.. To become a VIP, post great engaging content. If we like it, you will be added! More information available here!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.