I was flicking through the local paper recently. Yes, flicking. I’m not interested in the MP’s latest photo opportunity at a non-event, or letters from Mrs Angry of Aylesbury who can’t string a coherent argument together, but the newspaper’s so desperate for copy they print it anyway, or a story about yet another damaged car thanks to yet another gigantic pothole, with Bucks Council trotting out it’s moronic response to everything: “We take these matters very seriously”.
So, flick, flick, flick …. Flick back again.
What The Flick? Surely not. Hair discrimination? This I gotta read, if only because my blood pressure was a tad low that morning and reading something daft to perk it up was much easier than going for a brisk walk.
The top-line summary read, “Understanding the concept of hair discrimination can help respect and value others as well as appreciate people for who they are.”
Nope. None the wiser. So I continued reading.
Apparently, “Hair discrimination has become an increasing issue in today’s society.” Really? I thought people were more concerned about Covid, Ukraine, Prince Andrew, and the weather. You know, stuff that really matters and is at least vaguely interesting. But I persevered.
A letter, we are told, was signed by an MP (not for much longer, one hopes), the Halo Collective (beats me) and Glamour Magazine (that beacon of inanity) calling for textured hair to become a protected feature. First question: what’s textured hair; or should I ask, whose hair isn’t textured? Second question: by protected feature, do they mean like Stonehenge, or the thick crusts on Cornish Pasties?
Couple of paragraphs further on, the penny began to untangle itself from my bed-hair in readiness for a short drop into my coffee mug. The signatories were hoping that the Equality and Human Rights Commission would develop education on various hairstyles and make afro-textured hair a protected characteristic. Another question: if someone has naturally straight-ish hair and suffers a disastrous perm, would that be protected?
Now engrossed in the article in the same way that some people are addicted to junk food or cheap porn, I learned that the use of offensive words to describe a person’s afro, or touching it without asking first, can be classed as hair discrimination.
So, at school when I was called Fuzzy Bear because of my uncontrollable frizz, that was discrimination? Gee if only I knew, I could have developed a victimhood mindset and spent my entire life searching out and inventing put-downs, insults, and blaming everyone else for everything that went wrong, from not getting that Saturday job my friend got (because she had a pretty blond bob) to not getting an ‘A’ in my Further Maths A-level.
Indeed, when I eventually found a good hairdresser, who cut and tamed my frizz into something soft and shapely, and my schoolmates couldn’t get over how silky it was and kept touching it, could I have claimed ‘unwanted sexual advances’ and got them all expelled? This victimhood thing is fun!
But that’s not the same, you see. I'm white with naturally frizzy hair. Not black with frizzy hair. (By the way, the article referred to “black” people so don’t start on my choice of language.) Some black people have reportedly lost out on work due to their afros. Kids have been disciplined at school. Have they? Had that actually happened then news of the incident would have pushed the MP and his non-event photo-op off the front page.
The paragraph that began, “Many black people face mounting pressure to wear their hair in a way that conforms to European standards of beauty and spend huge amounts to chemically straighten and maintain their hair,” made me think of ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ cliché; I’ve seen plenty of white people perm (intentionally) or colour or cornrow their hair to emulate their friends. Such imitation used to be known as the sincerest form of flattery. Now, it’s cultural appropriation by the privileged white.
The moral of the article was that black people shouldn’t feel compelled to change their natural hair to conform to European norms. I agree. Instead, they should embrace their afro-ness and wear it with pride and not be discriminated against. I agree with that as well. So why are we arguing?
Woops! The penny missed the coffee cup and dropped onto the table.
Do you remember the blog I wrote a little while ago entitled Marketeers vs Musketeers, when I described some Marketeer tricks such as persuading shoppers something is indispensable (like fabric softener) and that they have to just have to buy it? Well, I think this article could be one of those, because it went on to explain that to make it easier to keep afro afro, you need an “innovative new comb for afro hair”, “a simpler way for conditioning natural afro hair”, and “a textured hair academy”.
In other words, dream up a new discrimination, make a stand to protect and promote your heritage or life-choices, then market a product that can help in this regard.
Even fabric softener has higher moral standards.
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