The Fashion Police Hub-bub

     Fashion Police is a television show that critiques fashion--brutally, sometimes.
     Recently, one of its stars, Giuliana Rancic, came under fire for comments about 18-year old Zendaya Coleman's hair.
     The kid chose to wear a "dreadlock" hairstyle to the Oscars. Rancic said, "She has such a small frame that I think this hair really overwhelms her. I feel like, I dunno, like she smells like patchouli oil... or weed."
     Okay...
     Ever since then, anytime I go to MSN or Yahoo or any social website, I've seen Giuliana Rancic being vilified as an insensitive racist, a bigot, or the Grand Dragon of the Hollywood KKK and even though I don't care about the show, fashion, Giuliana Rancic, or Zendaya Coleman (whom I've never even heard of before), I going to call "bullshit" on all these accusations of racism.
     The kid's hairstyle was a fashion just like her dress, her shoes, and her jewelry. For anyone to infer that her hair was natural because she happens to be bi-racial is absolutely ridiculous. Her hair was done by a hair stylist; her real hair is straighter than mine. And for the sake of edification, I did a little research on hair. That's right. Since I'm losing mine, I figured it couldn't hurt.
     Caucasian, Asian, and Congoloid hair will ALL become "dreadlocks" given enough time and lack of attention. Dreadlocks (true dreadlocks) originated because of unwashed hair (it's now known as the neglect, organic, or freeform method). 
     I don't know why it bothering Black folks so much, but White folks and Asian folks can have dreadlocks, too--naturally. 
     And the comment about the "weed" was obviously a joke (albeit not a funny one) referring to the Rastafari's use of marijuana as a sacrament (and Rastas maintain dreadlocks as required by Leviticus 21:5). Again, Rastafari is not the sole property of the Congoloid race--you don't have to be Black to be a Rasta. Patchouli oil, strangely enough, was used predominantly by white hippies in the 60's and early 70's as a perfume so if you see something racist in that, you're really reaching.
     What Giuliana Rancic did was bundle dreadlocks, hippies, and weed together into a wisecrack and hurt the feelings of an immature little kid who happens to be bi-racial. And the world went berserk.
     But it's fashion, nothing more and nothing less. It damned sure wasn't racist and if we, as a society, continue to scream "racism" where there is none, then the word is going to lose any power it ever had and it'll degenerate into just another put-down that means nothing. 
     We need to save that word for when it's needed.