I have lived in six countries and travelled in dozens more, so I find it funny that you could put a bunch of black, white, Asian, and Hispanic Americans in a room together, and even if all of their parents and grandparents had been born in the US, and even if none of them had a passport and/or had ever been outside the US, most Americans would view the group as admirably “diverse”. Sure, they’ll have diversity of test scores and household income averages etc., but if diversity really works as a benefit (as they claim) you have to wonder what kind of magic would occur if they put a group of Japanese, Haitians, Afghans and Bolivians in a room together.
I think Reason 2 is especially perceptive and trenchant.
Hair touching is indeed an oddly-specific kind of Geiger counter for measuring the fallout from multicultural encounters, but it's perhaps not entirely 'baseless', to use le mot du jour. I've been a touch-ee myself. When I was much younger (circa 1990) I made several trips to remote rural areas in China. On a couple of those occasions my hair was indeed touched in ways laden with interculturally-significant prurience. The twist: it was my body hair. I'm not remarkably hairy for a European-descended man, but I've got quite a bit of dark-blondish arm hair, which turned out to be of intense interest to slick-limbed Chinese who lacked previous real-world encounters with Ice People.
So, I'm a victim, and I'd like to write an essay for the NYT about it -- assuming they'll pay me, of course. They should add a surcharge, since my victimhood is superior, as it's arguably more intimate -- and therefore life changingly-hurtful -- to have one's body hair touched, rather than merely one's head hair. I'm waiting, with growing impatience, to hear from A G Sulzberger . . . .
This might be the wrong SubStack, but it seemed like Charlie Brown had no game, even if Peppermint Patty and Sally were all over him like white on rice.
Ralph L was correct; I did mean Marcie. FunFact: Peppermint Patty and Marcie do not appear in A Charlie Brown Christmas as the characters were not introduced until later.
I remember sitting behind some black kids in high school and noticing how things would get stuck in their fros, specks of lint mostly—but it would have never crossed my mind to want to touch them. I went to a very "diverse" HS in Queens, NY, and of course there were awkward cross-cultural moments, most of them just harmless or clueless or stupid (kids are stupid) but very rarely malevolent.
But then again that was before our Golden Age of White Guilt, where rich liberals pay top dollar for dark-skinned victims to show their scars and sing their tales of woe. Obama, Roxane Gay etc etc are just giving the white people what they want, some fresh black pain, which is the caviar of conspicuous compassion.
Women are more inclined to want to touch someone's hair. I've been asked by women to touch my hair, never by men (too creepy sounding). Not surprised Obama was asked by a girl.
Having a generic Irish face -- and straight dark-red hair (at least prior to about age 30) -- females never really wanted to touch my hair. But, they were often rather touchy/feely about other things.
Steve, I attended integrated schools in the South from the late 1960's through early 1980's. I rode a school bus with quite a few loud and angry blacks. I was on the first bus stop in the morning and the last stop of the afternoon. Each day on the afternoon ride home as the bus emptied, I always noticed that many of the windows had a large round grease spot. It took me a while to figure out that this grease spot came from the hair of black kids who were leaning their head against the window. It was gross, Steve. I didn't know a single White person who wanted to touch that nasty, nappy mess of hair on blacks. Enjoyed the article.
I worked and lived over decades in Africa and remember several occasions where the unique blonde hair of female colleagues attracted attention from children of local employees. I don't recall any of the blondes being offended, but that may be because my Colonizer mindset had destroyed my ability to recognize true human misery.
Colonization was just an abbreviation for bringing civilization and ending the Islamic slave trade by taking out the islamic Warlords that controlled africa.
Out of curiosity, how open was your household? Did you see her nude growing up? It's my observation that children have more privacy now than they did then.
"Since Obama, the horror of childhood hair-touching has become a massive Thing in op-eds by diverse writers who went to prestigious colleges."
The explanation for this being their aversion to rigorous thinking, consistent reasoning, and cautious judgment (an aversion shared by most of their teachers).
As everyone who can bear to look can see plain as day, the consequences are immense. But they're not interested in consequences. And now we're back to why they need to talk about hair-touching.
This fits into the need to "see myself" in literature, etc. Being the "only" black person subjects that person to the dreaded hair touching.
Of course, being the "only" subjects anyone to the "you're different from us" situation.
Guilty as charged, there was one black girl at summer camp back in 1970, and I bribed my pal with candy to touch her hair and tell me what it felt like. It looked like a Brilllo pad, so I wanted to know if it felt like one. Barb returned from her mission saying it was 'soft.' What's funny is, Barb knew the black girl -- they went to the same church -- but had never spoken to her.
It seems to me that it ought to be obvious that being "other" in a place would subject one to all manner of curiosities that, if these poor souls bothered to read -- many a person with the same skin color as everyone goes through -- and generally takes in stride. For whatever reason (still trying to figure this out), I am the "other" and I don't even know why.
When I lived in S. Korea, "lun daree!!" would be shouted from windows and from behind buildings. (Long legs!) An old Korean man grabbed a Canadian woman's breasts and went, "honk honk" and she, being rather imposing and masculine, picked that little f'r up and tossed him in the gutter. Another blond (dyke) friend being harassed on a bus in India did the same.
It's par for the course. Not the subject for an essay UNLESS THERE IS SOME FORM OF REDEMPTION.
When I was in Japan and found myself walking past hostess bars, I was always solicited to work by the door touts. They would hand me business cards printed in English, Russian and Polish offering me glorious opportunities. I'd just toss them away. I'd read "People Who Eat Darkness" by Richard Parry so I wasn't even remotely interested.
Since I often walked the same way, the touts got to know me and just say things like, "Irasshai, prease, come rady. Fun!" Once in a while, one would cup his hands and move them up and down in the universal gesture while saying oppai!, oppai!, meaning "boobs! boobs!" and laugh in a friendly fashion, flashing a gold tooth.
I'd just smile and keep moving.
Nobody ever grabbed at me in the street. But public transportation, jam packed as it usually was, was another matter. I often had to discard clothing because of the disgusting discharges I'd discover on my skirt or jeans. I wouldn't even bother washing them. So I bought a kei car and drove.
One time when I had to attend some affair at the New Sanno in uniform and later walked over to Arisugawa Park, I noticed that Japanese men would completely ignore me but Japanese girls came up to talk to me and asked a lot of questions. They were in disbelief when I told them what I did, so I invited them to come visit when Atsugi had its next open house. I didn't think they would but they did. I let them climb into my office, which they found interesting, but they went mad crazy for the pepperoni special and hot wings at Parcheezi's pizzeria. They'd never had hot wings before. Then they had to try the southwestern Stromboli and Italian sausage calzone. Nom! nom! nom!
Oh, right: while riding the Yamanote-sen once some guy began chewing on my hair. The car was so crowded I couldn't move away, so I just pulled my hair out of his mouth and stared at him until he got off at the next stop. When I got home, I shampooed my hair twice.
When my mother met my father's ship in Japan in '69, she was told after a frightening taxi ride that so many drivers were reckless because it was new and thus one of the few activities that wasn't (yet) covered by traditional rules of behavior, so they released their suppressed impulses. Perhaps public transport is another, in a literal sense.
To the extent this incidents actually happened, I suspect it was almost always in settings in which it's a nicer/private school where blacks are somewhat exotic, whereas for those who went to organically 'diverse' schools familiarity leads one not to do anything that might touch off a scrap. I am sure Ivy admissions offices are filled with people whose life experience is of the former rather than the latter type of experience so it seems far more interesting/oppressive than it really is.
All the same it's irritating to read about because it's part an parcel of a massive overestimation of what is owed to blacks in terms of cultural and political deference that one encounters all of the time.
Never in ten thousand lifetimes did I ever want to touch anyone else's hair, even the intoxicatingly gorgeous Irish girls I went to elementary school with. That came later.
Also, no one ever forgets when redheads give you attention.
In the summer of 2000 my daughter did a six week long missionary internship in New Guinea. She had long blonde hair, which garnered a lot of attention that was manifested in two ways:
1. In every village she visited children wanted to touch her hair.
2. The male leader of her group received numerous offers from villagers to purchase her for marriage. The other girls in her group were not blonde and did not attract nearly as many offers.
During a previous ministry trip to Virginia Beach she held numerous small black kids. In every picture I’ve seen of her from the trip, the black kids were holding her hair.
Maybe the hair touching is a thing but it goes both ways. Unlike the multitude of POC writers who go through life with a ten pound chip on their shoulder, looking to take offense at every perceived slight which they turn into micro aggressions, my daughter took the interest in her hair in a good natured manner.
I agree. My red-headed daughter worked at a daycare center where all the toddlers were non-white. They wanted to touch her hair and she had no objection to that; in fact, she found it charming.
I have lived in six countries and travelled in dozens more, so I find it funny that you could put a bunch of black, white, Asian, and Hispanic Americans in a room together, and even if all of their parents and grandparents had been born in the US, and even if none of them had a passport and/or had ever been outside the US, most Americans would view the group as admirably “diverse”. Sure, they’ll have diversity of test scores and household income averages etc., but if diversity really works as a benefit (as they claim) you have to wonder what kind of magic would occur if they put a group of Japanese, Haitians, Afghans and Bolivians in a room together.
"Having an anecdote about the other kids wanting to touch your hair is evidence that you went to the right type of school."
That must be it. And SCOTUS just approved it for admissions as an established adversity. You don't even have to indicate your race.
Great post, Steve.
I think Reason 2 is especially perceptive and trenchant.
Hair touching is indeed an oddly-specific kind of Geiger counter for measuring the fallout from multicultural encounters, but it's perhaps not entirely 'baseless', to use le mot du jour. I've been a touch-ee myself. When I was much younger (circa 1990) I made several trips to remote rural areas in China. On a couple of those occasions my hair was indeed touched in ways laden with interculturally-significant prurience. The twist: it was my body hair. I'm not remarkably hairy for a European-descended man, but I've got quite a bit of dark-blondish arm hair, which turned out to be of intense interest to slick-limbed Chinese who lacked previous real-world encounters with Ice People.
So, I'm a victim, and I'd like to write an essay for the NYT about it -- assuming they'll pay me, of course. They should add a surcharge, since my victimhood is superior, as it's arguably more intimate -- and therefore life changingly-hurtful -- to have one's body hair touched, rather than merely one's head hair. I'm waiting, with growing impatience, to hear from A G Sulzberger . . . .
I bet you could use that experience in your admissions essay and get into the Ivy League school of your choice. Possibly with a full scholarship.
Didn't read Obama's book, but did the redhead end up marrying a classmate named Charlie Brown?
This might be the wrong SubStack, but it seemed like Charlie Brown had no game, even if Peppermint Patty and Sally were all over him like white on rice.
Sally is Charlie Brown's sister. Charles Schulz was not that kind of guy . . . .
I think he meant Marcie. Sally was into Linus.
No, Marcie was into Peppermint Patty. It was the classic lesbian-tomboy-prematurely bald child, love triangle
Ralph L was correct; I did mean Marcie. FunFact: Peppermint Patty and Marcie do not appear in A Charlie Brown Christmas as the characters were not introduced until later.
Biden told a weird story about the black kids at the pool touching his leg hair. Which in retrospect he seemed to enjoy.
I remember sitting behind some black kids in high school and noticing how things would get stuck in their fros, specks of lint mostly—but it would have never crossed my mind to want to touch them. I went to a very "diverse" HS in Queens, NY, and of course there were awkward cross-cultural moments, most of them just harmless or clueless or stupid (kids are stupid) but very rarely malevolent.
But then again that was before our Golden Age of White Guilt, where rich liberals pay top dollar for dark-skinned victims to show their scars and sing their tales of woe. Obama, Roxane Gay etc etc are just giving the white people what they want, some fresh black pain, which is the caviar of conspicuous compassion.
Women are more inclined to want to touch someone's hair. I've been asked by women to touch my hair, never by men (too creepy sounding). Not surprised Obama was asked by a girl.
makes sense
Having a generic Irish face -- and straight dark-red hair (at least prior to about age 30) -- females never really wanted to touch my hair. But, they were often rather touchy/feely about other things.
"caviar of conspicuous consumption" is a dynamite turn of phrase!
"caviar of conspicuous [COMPASSION!]"
Thanks!!
even better, thanks!
Steve, I attended integrated schools in the South from the late 1960's through early 1980's. I rode a school bus with quite a few loud and angry blacks. I was on the first bus stop in the morning and the last stop of the afternoon. Each day on the afternoon ride home as the bus emptied, I always noticed that many of the windows had a large round grease spot. It took me a while to figure out that this grease spot came from the hair of black kids who were leaning their head against the window. It was gross, Steve. I didn't know a single White person who wanted to touch that nasty, nappy mess of hair on blacks. Enjoyed the article.
Jeri Curl! Used to notice this on the El in Chicago in the '70s.
I worked and lived over decades in Africa and remember several occasions where the unique blonde hair of female colleagues attracted attention from children of local employees. I don't recall any of the blondes being offended, but that may be because my Colonizer mindset had destroyed my ability to recognize true human misery.
True human misery would be if the colonizers left , that's when true human misery would occur.
Colonization was the best thing that ever happened to them
You're likely referring to what happened in these sh*t-hole countries when the "white man" left.
Yes...they went back to killing each other -- in droves.
Colonization was just an abbreviation for bringing civilization and ending the Islamic slave trade by taking out the islamic Warlords that controlled africa.
Projection in my experience. Blacks always wanted to touch my kid sister's platinum blonde hair. The girls really liked to braid it.
How much younger was she than you?
Just over a year
Out of curiosity, how open was your household? Did you see her nude growing up? It's my observation that children have more privacy now than they did then.
Inappropriate, Dude.
WTF????
Pedos, begone.
"Since Obama, the horror of childhood hair-touching has become a massive Thing in op-eds by diverse writers who went to prestigious colleges."
The explanation for this being their aversion to rigorous thinking, consistent reasoning, and cautious judgment (an aversion shared by most of their teachers).
As everyone who can bear to look can see plain as day, the consequences are immense. But they're not interested in consequences. And now we're back to why they need to talk about hair-touching.
Sidebar question:
Was it ever common or appropriate to refer to red-headed people as gingers?
I never heard the term "ginger" until I think the 1990s. When I first heard it I probably thought ginger ale, or ginger root, which aren't red at all.
It is the rare example of a British term displacing an American term.
It’s plausibly ascribed to the popularity of Harry Potter.
I didn’t know it was an insult.
"Southpark" was banned in Canada. Can't imagine why, so don't blame me.
This fits into the need to "see myself" in literature, etc. Being the "only" black person subjects that person to the dreaded hair touching.
Of course, being the "only" subjects anyone to the "you're different from us" situation.
Guilty as charged, there was one black girl at summer camp back in 1970, and I bribed my pal with candy to touch her hair and tell me what it felt like. It looked like a Brilllo pad, so I wanted to know if it felt like one. Barb returned from her mission saying it was 'soft.' What's funny is, Barb knew the black girl -- they went to the same church -- but had never spoken to her.
It seems to me that it ought to be obvious that being "other" in a place would subject one to all manner of curiosities that, if these poor souls bothered to read -- many a person with the same skin color as everyone goes through -- and generally takes in stride. For whatever reason (still trying to figure this out), I am the "other" and I don't even know why.
When I lived in S. Korea, "lun daree!!" would be shouted from windows and from behind buildings. (Long legs!) An old Korean man grabbed a Canadian woman's breasts and went, "honk honk" and she, being rather imposing and masculine, picked that little f'r up and tossed him in the gutter. Another blond (dyke) friend being harassed on a bus in India did the same.
It's par for the course. Not the subject for an essay UNLESS THERE IS SOME FORM OF REDEMPTION.
When I was in Japan and found myself walking past hostess bars, I was always solicited to work by the door touts. They would hand me business cards printed in English, Russian and Polish offering me glorious opportunities. I'd just toss them away. I'd read "People Who Eat Darkness" by Richard Parry so I wasn't even remotely interested.
Since I often walked the same way, the touts got to know me and just say things like, "Irasshai, prease, come rady. Fun!" Once in a while, one would cup his hands and move them up and down in the universal gesture while saying oppai!, oppai!, meaning "boobs! boobs!" and laugh in a friendly fashion, flashing a gold tooth.
I'd just smile and keep moving.
Nobody ever grabbed at me in the street. But public transportation, jam packed as it usually was, was another matter. I often had to discard clothing because of the disgusting discharges I'd discover on my skirt or jeans. I wouldn't even bother washing them. So I bought a kei car and drove.
One time when I had to attend some affair at the New Sanno in uniform and later walked over to Arisugawa Park, I noticed that Japanese men would completely ignore me but Japanese girls came up to talk to me and asked a lot of questions. They were in disbelief when I told them what I did, so I invited them to come visit when Atsugi had its next open house. I didn't think they would but they did. I let them climb into my office, which they found interesting, but they went mad crazy for the pepperoni special and hot wings at Parcheezi's pizzeria. They'd never had hot wings before. Then they had to try the southwestern Stromboli and Italian sausage calzone. Nom! nom! nom!
Oh, right: while riding the Yamanote-sen once some guy began chewing on my hair. The car was so crowded I couldn't move away, so I just pulled my hair out of his mouth and stared at him until he got off at the next stop. When I got home, I shampooed my hair twice.
When my mother met my father's ship in Japan in '69, she was told after a frightening taxi ride that so many drivers were reckless because it was new and thus one of the few activities that wasn't (yet) covered by traditional rules of behavior, so they released their suppressed impulses. Perhaps public transport is another, in a literal sense.
so glad to know the Valkyrie spirit was not yet dead.
To the extent this incidents actually happened, I suspect it was almost always in settings in which it's a nicer/private school where blacks are somewhat exotic, whereas for those who went to organically 'diverse' schools familiarity leads one not to do anything that might touch off a scrap. I am sure Ivy admissions offices are filled with people whose life experience is of the former rather than the latter type of experience so it seems far more interesting/oppressive than it really is.
All the same it's irritating to read about because it's part an parcel of a massive overestimation of what is owed to blacks in terms of cultural and political deference that one encounters all of the time.
Never in ten thousand lifetimes did I ever want to touch anyone else's hair, even the intoxicatingly gorgeous Irish girls I went to elementary school with. That came later.
Also, no one ever forgets when redheads give you attention.
Yeah, this "can I touch your hair thing" either never happened to completely flew over my head.
In the summer of 2000 my daughter did a six week long missionary internship in New Guinea. She had long blonde hair, which garnered a lot of attention that was manifested in two ways:
1. In every village she visited children wanted to touch her hair.
2. The male leader of her group received numerous offers from villagers to purchase her for marriage. The other girls in her group were not blonde and did not attract nearly as many offers.
During a previous ministry trip to Virginia Beach she held numerous small black kids. In every picture I’ve seen of her from the trip, the black kids were holding her hair.
Maybe the hair touching is a thing but it goes both ways. Unlike the multitude of POC writers who go through life with a ten pound chip on their shoulder, looking to take offense at every perceived slight which they turn into micro aggressions, my daughter took the interest in her hair in a good natured manner.
I agree. My red-headed daughter worked at a daycare center where all the toddlers were non-white. They wanted to touch her hair and she had no objection to that; in fact, she found it charming.
I say touch it if ya got it…