Everybody of course is free to do whatever they want with their hair. Honestly I think it's more honest to make a fashion statement with dreads than it is to believe that one is somehow physically representing Rasta. Since Rasta is a black-based movement, how can that be appropriate?

Now this is coming from somebody who had dreads for years and years, so I am not trying to condemn anybody, just sharing my experience.

I thought that having dreads would be a move of sacrifice, that I was signaling my willingness to be condemned in the eyes of the world for my beliefs, and expressing my solidarity with the sufferers of this earth. What actually happened is that I called a lot of attention to my outward self to compensate for insecurities, and that I became instantly 'cool' in a lot of quarters, and that the straightest of straight people would literally stop me on the street to tell me how much they 'loved' my hair! They were not in the least interested in why. In many places, black people face ostracism for this decision. As for me, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't just shake off my white privilege with some outward gesture. The hunger for justice has to be expressed through actions.

Trimming was the sacrifice. It was hard facing me and facing the world unfiltered by the persona of 'cool Rasta chick' I had created. I feel it was my initiation to adulthood and real responsibility for myself and my world. I no longer identify as 'Rasta' except in its deepest most ancient sense of being a humble initiate, though I don't consider myself humble enough by far.

It would not be right to have anyone assume I came to this by myself. It was the loving correction of conscious black people that awakened me to these things, and I am forever grateful.