Sia slammed for wearing box braids in North West Christmas duet

Shannon Power

By Shannon Power

Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter

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Sia made a surprise appearance at the Kardashian Christmas family party, but people were distracted by her choice of hairstyle for the event.

The Australian singer performed a duet with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's oldest child, North, nine.

The pair stood in a giant box to sing Sia's 2017 Christmas single, "Snowman" and were filmed by Khloé Kardashian who posted the footage to her Instagram stories.

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While West dressed in a chic silver suit, Sia opted for a puffy white skirt and oversized top.

sia in a screenshot

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She wore her blonde her in long box braids which were topped by a headband of white flowers.

Critics quickly rushed to Twitter to slam Sia's hair and called her out for cultural appropriation.

"Take them braids out snowflake," commented one fan.

Another added: "Why sia had box braids at that Christmas party?"

And a third wrote: "sia hits the new low every single day."

Box braids "are an integral part of Black culture—past, present and future," according to Essence magazine.

They emerged as a functional hair style for enslaved Black women because "in a system [in which they] were just trying to stay alive, there wasn't time to make intricate styles," Lori L. Tharps, an associate professor at Temple University and co-author of Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America told Essence.

Cultural appropriation refers to the practice of adopting elements of another culture or identity, especially if that group is marginalized and the person adopting the culture is not.

Sia, who also performed at a 2019 party hosted by Kourtney Kardashian, is no stranger to criticism from marginalized groups.

Her depiction of autism in her film Music attracted much controversy, including a Change.org petition calling for the Golden Globes to rescind its two nominations of the film.

It was nominated for a Golden Globe for best musical of comedy, with Sia's long-time collaborator Maddie Ziegler playing Music, a non-verbal young woman on the autistic spectrum, who comes under the guardianship of her recovering addict half-sister Zu (Kate Hudson.)

But Ziegler herself is not autistic and people said someone with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) should have played the role.

Sia also came under fire for stereotypical tropes about autistic people, including a scene where Music is restrained, an act that many autism advocates speak out against.

She later apologized for her choices saying she had "listened to the wrong people" and her "research was clearly not thorough enough, not wide enough." Sia then wrote a warning would be added to the movie's introduction and that the restraint scenes would be removed.

But the singer also lashed out at the criticism, writing on Twitter: "I cast thirteen neuroatypical people, three trans folk, and not as f****** prostitutes or drug addicts but as doctors, nurses and singers. F****** sad nobody's even seen the dang movie. My heart has always been in the right place."

Then in response to an autistic actor who slammed her, Sia wrote, "maybe you're just a bad actor."

The Twitter user had written: "Several autistic actors, myself included, responded to these tweets. We all said we could have acted in it on short notice. These excuses are just that—excuses. The fact of the matter is zero effort was made to include anyone who is actually autistic."

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