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bodies, Chally's gonna take away your chocolate, everyday oppression, hair, how frustrating, social attitudes
Hi there, white people who like to touch my hair,
I know, I know, my hair is pretty fabulous. Groups of hairdressers gather around and look at it in almost tearful wonder. I strongly suspect that it consumes small objects, and there’s a whispered tale that it grants wishes. I know you spent many a 1980s afternoon trying to achieve the same effect in vain, but it is impossible to replicate the magic. That’s most unfortunate for you. However, this does not give you the right to touch my hair.
Perhaps it would help to think of my hair as a shiny bauble. Shiny things are pretty, it is true. One is gripped by the urge to touch the shiny, to possess the shiny for oneself. If you are at the stage of development where you must reach out and touch the shiny, I do not mind it if you touch my hair! If you are not a very tiny child, however, I suspect that in other situations you do not touch shiny things when you are presented with them. Funny, then, that you have better self-restraint when it comes to not touching inanimate objects than you do when it comes to touching my hair. I am – I know it’s hard to believe, but stay with me – not myself an object. I am, in fact, more worthy of respect than one.
For, you see, my hair might be an object of the shiny to you. It is, however, a part of my body. It is not like a piece of clothing that I put on everyday – not that you’d be likely to reach out and feel my clothes. It is actually attached to my head. Much in the way that I don’t walk up to you and grab your knees without permission, I would like if you gave my hair the same respect. It is just as bizarre for someone to come up to me and grab me by the hair as it would be if someone grabbed me by the kneecaps. (Well, at this stage, I’ve got such an ingrained negative reaction to having my hair touched that having my knees grabbed might be less unpleasant.) This is why I stay there in shock and smile nervously rather than berate you. Because it’s just too weird to react in time to yell, and, if someone has that little respect for my body already, I get kind of scared about what else they might do if I complain.
I’m not a dog for you to pat. I’m not even a silky piece of fabric. If you run your fingers through my hair, it gets messed up. It doesn’t spring back into its former shape. Even if it did, that doesn’t give you the right to play with it, much like I don’t pull at your lips or earlobes. Running fingers through my hair is the kind of thing I like to keep for people I’m on intimate terms with, or my hairdresser, who tend to ask permission first. Assuming these intimacies robs me of my boundaries.
I don’t like it from friends, so I especially don’t like it from strangers. Particularly if those strangers haven’t introduced themselves first. And I really, really can’t stand it if you grab my hair from behind. The worst, however, on top of all that, is when male strangers do it. Because that kind of entitlement to women’s bodies, the total lack of awareness of the power dynamics at play, is terrifying.
The most infuriating part is that it’s just plain racist. Having a physical feature that says “not white” doesn’t give you the right to gawk at me like a zoo animal (my eyes are down here, people), much less touch me. You shouldn’t feel entitled to ask where I got it, or comment on how wild it is, or poke at me like I’m an exotic foreigner in a nineteenth century London exhibit. I’m not an example of elsewhere. I’m a human being. In theory, I should have bodily autonomy.
I shouldn’t have to cover it up or straighten it to escape your clutches. I’m proud of my hair, and I should be able to walk down the street without associating it with flinching. You’re not my hairdresser, my family member, my very close friend, or my lover, so kindly leave me quite alone.
With absolute sincerity,
Chally
People do that? Seriously? I’m very sorry that you have to endure that!
Sure, I’d sometimes like to touch the hair of someone (especially if it’s either shiny or fluffy -don’t judge me, I) but like you said, I’m not a child and *know* that it’s verrrry inappropriate. I hope you’ll find the courage to tell the person off the next time that happens, because they might go away thinking it’s totally ok to do that (although of course I understand it’s hard to say something about it, I bet I’d be flabbergasted if someone did that to me, it’s just so rude.)
Thanks, Cluisanna. I wrote this in the wake of someone reaching out to feel my hair twice the other day, but I felt I couldn’t object because of the delicate social situation. Now I feel frustrated and powerless. Courage, soon!
It’s incredible what we put up with just because we have been taught we should never embarrass ourselves, and that speaking up about rudeness is embarrassing! I know it’s easy to say that and hard to do, but the key is, I think, to realize it’s the rude person that should be embarrassed.
Right! Why should one give up one’s power over oneself for fear of causing discomfort to someone else?
But don’t you know? As a woman you have no power over yourself! You are there to please and entertain other people, especially with your exotic (*shudders*) hair! /sarcasm
I bet it comes down to that. I can’t imagine someone walking up to a man to touch his hair with the same “normality” (sorry, can’t think of a better word).
And then there is also that weird entitlement that white people have, that it’s ok to comment on things we classify as not normal (i.e. not like what we know) as being unnormal. I try to avoid that and be conscious about it, but it’s so ingrained in our culture that my phenotype is the standard, normal way humans look :-/ I’m sorry about that. (Okay, that was kind of random, sorry. I just feel really bad because I can’t walk up to those people and tell them to stop that rude and racist behaviour.) (I guess I fulfill that stereotype that white people have to make every discussion about race about themselves. Darn.)
Normality… comfort, maybe? Assumption that they’re in the right? I get what you mean.
That’s not random: I think it’s a very good point. Also, I don’t think you’re making it about yourself, I think it’s important to turn the lens back on whiteness and look at how these behaviours happen.
Yes, I think it’s important to make clear, again and again, that it is in no way your responsibility if people discriminate against you (I don’t know if that’s the common definition, but imho it means treating someone different because of assumptions you make based on certain features, often race) – after all, you are not by default “unnormal”; the concept of normality is man-made, or to put it different, white man-made.
I wear my hair in high spikes, by choice of course. and sometimes put glitter/ coloured spray in it for fun. In my work with young kids they often note my hair, and I let them touch it and sometimes tell them I was descended from some spiky animal, or that I was electrocuted. Despite my pride in my hair and the fun I have with it, I CANNOT STAND having anyone touch it who I have not invited to do so. Why does being different make something public domain?
Hi Nance, good to see you!
That’s really the crux of it.
I am so sorry about the invasion of your personal space. And think of the number of pregnant women who get their bellies patted and stroked by strangers. These women are not even doing anything particularly different and still part of them is moved into the public domain. Degrading. Infuriating. Humiliating. And a number of similar words I am too angry to think of just now.
Which really plays into supposed public ownership of pregnant bodies more generally, doesn’t it? “What, you can’t have an abortion, it’s your social duty…!” I guess non-white bodies are also supposed to perform certain functions, that can never be reciprocated, for general social pleasure.
You’re not the first non-white person I’ve heard talking about this, and I doubt you’ll be the last, and every time it makes me angry on your behalf. I’ve been there – though I’m white, I have been pregnant (everyone and his dog grabs your belly, some even after being told in no uncertain terms to keep their grubby mitts off), and I have visible tattoos that people reach out and stroke because they “want to see if tattoos feel different to normal skin”.
I once had a woman in a nightclub stroke my back skin (I was wearing a corset) and when I turned around to ask what the hell she was doing, she said that my skin was “so beautiful [she] just had to see if it felt as nice as it looked!”. I was so gobsmacked by it that I pretended I felt complimented, but afterwards I was really angry.
On the other hand, I had a lovely older woman of about eighty come into my shop (I volunteer in a charity shop) a few months ago and one of the first things she said was how beautiful my tattoos were, especially the sailor-style swallows I have just under my clavicles. She asked, very politely, if she could feel them as she had never touched tattooed skin. Ordinarily I would say no, but she was so genuine and thoughtful about it that I let her, and she gently touched me and then withdrew so I wasn’t being fondled. ;) She thanked me and went on her way, and I felt very pleased that someone had, for once, asked me politely and in a way that I felt like I could easily say no, if I wanted to.
Wow, what an essay I’ve written. Sorry to talk about me, me, me! I’m sorry that you still experience this in 2011, when really we should have got past the whole “exotic” thing, the “people are objects I am entitled to grab” thing.
Cheers, Anji. Sailor-style swallows = beautiful.
Hi Chally,
This is an awesome post! I don’t really have anything to add that hasn’t been said by people who’ve commented already. I get this too but not so often if I brush mine out. Mostly I have people who try and touch my face and then look surprised when I jerk away they then explain that “it’s just because I have such a lovely complexion”. Gah, I should write a companion post! xx
Flots
Oh, ew. Face touching should be even more obviously a no-no than hair touching. Thanks, and I look forward to any post you might write!
Obviously, touching people without consent is bad. But what about asking? I often ask to touch white people’s hair, when it’s tempting and shiny, but the very thought of asking a person (I read as) of color makes me feel like the most racist racist who ever racisted. Am I overshooting, or would asking cause discomfort and bad power dynamics?
I think it depends on the person, really, and the kind of history hair like theirs has in their context. I’d definitely be on close terms with them first, where physical ways of expressing affection were a thing with you two. At the end of the day, the person’s comfort definitely overrides anyone else’s curiosity, so maybe think about whether you’re wanting to touch because it’s part of your delight in the person, or because you’re seeing it as a disembodied piece of the shiny.
I shave my head at times, and when I do I get a ridiculous number of people coming and stroking my scalp. It is not ok. It is very very not ok.
Yay!@you for writing this letter!
Oh dear, and thank you.
Hey Chally, im sorry to hear your space gets invaded like that.
Its awkward, but I have the inverse experience all the time, yet due to the racial hierarchy of hair types and colours, im not entitled to argue the same point.
Im a Greek/Arab Australian, with olive/white skin and long, light coloured straight hair, and ive spent plenty of time living and working in exclusively black communities, around southern Africa and Haiti, as a nurse, as well as just stayin with Xhosa friends in South Africa regularly, And my hair ALLLWAYS gets played with without my permission. i understand the whole exotic thing, and it doesnt irritate me,
But i find it awkward that because mine is apparently the hair all human women are supposed to aspire to owning, ie; I have “hair privilege”,
if i WAS bothered by the touching, i wouldnt feel entitled to argue that it was inappropriate.
Hahaa, Imagine a liberal “white lady” out in rural KwaZulu-Natal cracking the shits and getting mad when her hair was touched, hahha not bloody likely…
i guess the history of how the “other” or exotic person came to be amongst the dominant community plays into it alot too.
I would also guess that part of not liking your hair fucked with by white people, apart from the disrespected of being touched without permission, comes from the oppressive notions that your hair is testament to your racial inferiority and other bullshit ideas still in heavy motion today..
Do you get just as mad when black people touch yr hair uninvited?
I think what im trying to say, is that its not so simply “racist” to me, i think its natural for people to be curious about hair textures theyre unfamiliar with. there are a bunch of issues intersecting and getting mottled here…
*nod* Definitely a lot of issues at play, from the racial makeup of particular contexts, to bodily autonomy… for me, it’s about all that stuff I mentioned in the post, even if it’s mostly about hair as testiment to racial inferiority, etc, for me. I wouldn’t be as mad if a black person touched my hair uninvited in Australia, because of the different dynamics at play, yeah. I have a sort of similar experience as you do with my light skin; I get stroked a lot by people in my/related ethnic groups because it’s “sooooo pretty,” and it creeps me out no end because the valuation of lightness is so messed up. And it’s always an awkward space to know what to do as someone in a position of relative… well, not privilege exactly, but something.
Lovely post, Chally.
When we lived in Iraq my mother was young with very very long blonde hair and she used to have to wear her hair tied up under a scarf to leave the house and walk through town because of everybody constantly touching her hair.
Awesome post Chally. Your hair is awesome, but that doesn’t give people the right to touch it willy-nilly. I wish they had bodily autonomy is important and such classes instead of R.E. in first grade.
Also:
“I know, I know, my hair is pretty fabulous. Groups of hairdressers gather around and look at it in almost tearful wonder. I strongly suspect that it consumes small objects, and there’s a whispered tale that it grants wishes.”
Trufax!
Wears away at one, doesn’t it, blue?
See, Eden, I loved R.E.! In high school, we had “personal development” classes alongside them, which might have been a useful place to learn about life skills and bodily autonomy and such, but they were instead a bit of a joke. And my hair is truly a wonder.
I’m so sorry that you have to go through all that, Chally.
Most people, I think, begin to learn about boundaries and not to be all touchy-feely except with good friends, partners, etc, by the time they’re, like, three or something. So it amazes me that people start acting like toddlers and just go grabbing at someone’s hair, clothes, skin, etc, because they feel entitled.
It wasn’t all that long ago that I once grabbed another white woman’s ponytail and *pulled on it* without her permission. We knew each other well and were quite friendly; yet she was quite upset – reasonably so – when I did that. And I was in my late 40′s at the time!
Since then, I’ve had people grab my hair, especially after I dyed it bright colors, and I’ve had people try to feel up my piercings. My being trans and having cis people feel up my hair adds to the creepiness. My having had my cis *departmental supervisor* feel up my hair in front of other people was all kinds of creepy. Having been on the other end of hair-feeling-up got it through my head that it’s really a kind of assault, and when a man does that to someone who’s not a man, it’s a kind of sexual assault.
So for a white person to go grab the hair (or skin, or knees) of a person of color is, I think, doubly an assault – not only is the white person violating the other person’s bodily integrity and waltzing all over their boundaries, but they’re doing it from a place of racism (or in my case, from a place of cissexism), and that’s all kinds of suck.
I think in part the doing it in front of other people is supposed to legitimise it? In addition to, say, reaching out slowly and one’s not saying no being regarded as consent? (“Oh, if it bothered you, I would have assumed you would have stopped me as I reached out.”) Assault, disrespect of bodily autonomy, is seen as something done behind closed doors. So doing it in public is a way of making it all seem totally normal.
This is exactly why I wear my hair up in public, since I have been letting it grow out. (I am also both autistic and coming from a culture where you just don’t touch other people like that without permission–if anything, especially their hair.) Not just pulled back or braided, but totally up. I don’t get the impression that random people on the street in London are as likely to get all touch-feely with it*–because long, curly hair is just so hideously exotic they can’t help themselves, or something like that–but I still do it preemptively, remembering too well the last time I wore it long. The creepy entitlement astounds. The most trouble I had before was with strange men, mostly from other cultural backgrounds–though, yeah, not all :(–and the added dynamics there are even creepier.
Not suggesting that people should have to keep their hair out of the way of rude pawing. Rather the reverse.
___
* Besides not getting physical boundaries violated as often (general shoviness on the street and assorted xenophobic reactions are another matter), there doesn’t seem to be anything like the same coding of “you must at least be ‘mixed’”, “ethnic” hair as versions in at least some former colonies. (Interesting to read some of your experience with coding in Australia, BTW.) Mine has still astounded hairdressers here, though. :-|
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Huggers. Damn, I do hate huggers. I am so politically and spiritually incorrect.
What does that have to do with it, Angie?
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