okay hi this may sound super ignorant, but i dont understand the big deal w stephanie having bantu knots and dreadlocks, ik that they originate from the african culture, and thus can be seen as cultural appropriation, but it's not in anyway degrading the african culture/community nor does it have any degratory meaning (like the n word). and i think they just did it for aesthetic reasons rather than pretending to be black

No. Cultural appropriation is ALWAYS wrong. Your intention doesn’t matter when it comes to racism, only the end result. If I was playing with a friend and accidently pushed them in the street where they get hit by a bus and die, will my intention bring them back? Absolutely not. So regardless of intent something like cultural appropriation ALWAYS has a negative affect and thus makes it a racist action. So yes it IS degrading the african culture. Culture is not an aesthetic for people to just use as a prop.

Black culture has had many,many things appropriated (which basically means stolen) to the point where it isn’t even recognized as their own any more. they have been almost completely erased from things that they created in the first place. So it is harmful. Especially when black people who wear bantu knots and cornrows will get suspended from school or work for “not looking professional/looking ghetto and unkempt” or called thugs and gangsters and be racially profiled for it ,but when a nonblack person ,or more specifically, a white person does it it becomes “trendy” or “aesthetic”.