Excellent post at Womanist Musings. Here’s a sample, but do read the whole:
Natural hair equals revolutionary because it says I do not covet whiteness. It says I have decolonized my mind and no longer seek to embrace the qualities of my oppressor. It flies in the face of beauty traditions that seek to create black women as unfeminine and thereby undesirable. My natural hair is one of the truest expressions of the ways in which I love myself because I have made the conscious choice to say that I am beautiful, without artifice or device. It further states that I will not be judged by the yardstick of white womanhood. My beauty is a gift from my foremothers who knew on a more instinctual level than we know today, that ‘woman’ is as beautiful as she believes herself to be.
Today I have the confidence to loudly proclaim no you may not touch my hair. I am not an animal at a petting zoo. I will not be your path to the exotic.
There’s some interesting discussion in the comments. For example, Margaret wrote:
While I don’t want to disagree with your comments in any way (which I think are right on) I do want to lend some support for touching hair and sharing information as a way of expanding people’s minds who are honestly curious and just don’t know better.
As a white woman, and former Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, West Africa, I’ve had lots of people ask me similar questions about my really straight long blond hair (how does it grow so long? how often do you wash it?), and ask to touch it (and touch my skin too).
And Maureen responded:
Margaret – there’s a huge difference emotionally between being actually foreign in a foreign country and being treated like an exotic stranger (especially when it’s for a limited amount of time before you go back home)and getting the same treatment in your home country for your whole life.
(The comments also have a balance problem created by an overabundance of well-intentioned white people chiming in their own hair (or tattoo?) stories.)
Responded here.
I take it you didn’t follow the last link in my post, Rachel. :-)
Today I have the confidence to loudly proclaim no you may not touch my hair. I am not an animal at a petting zoo. I will not be your path to the exotic.
As she has every right to do. I’d be uncomfortable myself if people I worked with (or whatever) wanted to touch my hair.
But recognize that it is what it is. There’s a whole lot of people who have never personally seen a black woman with natural hair, or if they’ve seen one they’ve not known one to the point that they could walk up to her and ask her such a question. Such a woman is being treated as unusual because she is unusual in many contexts.
I can’t see myself asking a black man with natural hair “Can I touch it?”, but due to the different roles that hair and hair care play with men vs. women I can see where a white woman might do so. Whether a black woman looks at it as “sharing information as a way of expanding people’s mind” or “being treated like an exotic stranger … in your home country” seems to be equally valid personal choices – I don’t think either one is “right” or “wrong”.
I would think that the reaction would also be a function of the relationship between the two people. I can see the latter reaction being automatic towards someone you’re sitting next to on the bus. But if it’s the person that’s been working at the desk next to yours for the last 3 years asking, you might, depending on how that relationship is, consider the former reaction as more appropriate.
…*is actually gaping at how hard Ron doesn’t get it*
I can’t imagine asking anyone who was not a close friend or relative if I could touch her hair — except maybe at the end of a long discussion of hair care, hair types, etc., which I can’t imagine myself having with anyone, close friend or not, as I’m just not that into hair. But even if I were… it wouldn’t occur to me to do it.
Yeah, Lu, but you know what? There are a lot of people out there who would do that. It doesn’t surprise me. I certainly don’t blame this woman for feeling the way she does in such cases.
No, I don’t either. I was coming from trying to imagine a circumstance where I would ask a coworker or casual friend such an intrusive question, and I couldn’t. No more would I ask to touch a pregnant woman’s belly (again, unless she were a close friend or relative, and I would never do it without asking), or if the blond child of dark-haired parents was adopted, or… there’s a whole category of questions that I find so mind-bendingly rude that I can’t get my head around anyone’s actually asking them. Maybe I’m showing my age.
The only time I ever did anything like that was when a 6′ tall co-worker of mine walked in one day and introduced her mother to me. Mom was about 5′ 6″. I asked her a little later, “Uh, how tall is your dad?” Turns out he was 6′ 6″, so she kind of split the difference. But I’d been working with her for 3 years at that point and she smiled when she answered.
Keep digging, Ron.