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Stop asking to touch his hair

Jeanine Flier,
Tujunga, CA.

I am a mother of 3 multiracial children. They all have different types of hair. My oldest son has a very curly large beautiful Afro . My middle child as wavy thick hair similar to mine. My youngest child has large black curls. My oldest child is the ONLY ONE WHO WHITE PEOPLE CONSISTENTLY COME UP TO AND SSK IF THEY CAN TOUCH HIS HAIR. WHY?? It is racist and belittling and they don’t even realize they are doing it. Recently he starred in a production of the crucible. Even though there were two judges my child was the only judge that has to cover his hair with a wig. An example of white privilege these people never give a thought of how offensive their actions are. My child is not an animal to be petted, and his Afro is not something to be erased as you are trying to do with his identity.

Still want to touch your hair

Brenda Becker,
Brooklyn, NY.

I grew up in a white Queens neighborhood where neighbors worried that “they” would “get in,” and the cool girls had straight sheets of hair. I was delighted to meet and make black friends at my all-girls Catholic high school. It was the 70s, and even as I struggled with my mop of kinky frizz, several black friends caused a sensation by getting naturals. We white girls were thrilled with them…and petted them, and stuck pens in them, and patted them–I cringe in retrospect, but no one seemed to think it was horrible, just more of our teen-girl nonsense, although I now wonder at our friends’ patient forbearance. In college, I cut my own short and strode around ladies’ rooms with an Afro pick, feeling ridiculously “in solidarity” with kinky heads everywhere. I have never been able to lose my fascination with the beauty and variety of black hair (especially now with so many gorgeous braided styles), and it’s been painful to read how offensive black women (and men, I’m sure) find our dumb questions, hair-touching etc. I finally understood a bit better when one beautiful friend explained, “Our hair is our sacred crown.” Sacred…that I can understand. So, no more hair-touching, or even questions; I’m now even worried about giving compliments, lest they somehow sound patronizing. But I’ll always be a “recovering hair-toucher.” If you have awesome hair…yes, this fuzzy-topped white gal is wanting to touch it, talk about it, love it. Wanting to be your curly sister. There…my pathetic confession is made!

“May I please touch his hair?”

can I touch your hairRyan Harrell,
Holland, MI.

Our adoptive son, Tagg, clearly is not a biological member of our family. In his two years with us we have encountered the entire range of reactions from loving acceptance to ignorant comments to outright disgust and disdain. But through it all, the fact is that we represent the new reality of the hodgepodge of racial and familial identities that is the United States. And the most common reaction we get, whether at church, in line at the grocery store, or at a playground makes us laugh and enjoy the humor in EVERYTHING: “May I please touch his hair?”

#hollandnewtech

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