Hair Etiquette: You Can Look, But Don't Touch
2020 has started off with quite the bang - and not in a good way. There is a video that is currently circulating and gaining traction online of a young Black woman at work wearing her natural hair.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:
If you decide not to watch it, don’t worry - I’ll break it down for you:
In the video, the woman is surrounded by 3 white coworkers. One of her coworkers is touching her hair and making “ooh!” and “aah!” sounds about it, another one of her coworkers gestures at her hair whilst trying to seemingly understand it, and a third coworker stands farther back while asking almost incredulously, “You’ve never seen natural Black hair?” Some other things the coworkers say is, “It’s so weird!” and “So it grows like this?”
The reaction to this video has been varied. Some people say that they are surprised that she stood there and let them touch her hair and talk about it in such a manner and that she should have essentially gone off on her coworkers and put them in their place. Others say that she wasn’t in a position to be able to call out her coworkers for their actions, and so she did the only thing she could do in that situation.
This article is not to lambast the young woman for her actions in any way. It did, however, cause me to reflect on my own experiences regarding this kind of situation.
One experience that stands out to me occurred during my first year in law school. In my first semester, I decided that I would keep my hair in protective styles so that I could focus more on school. For the first few months, my hair was in single braids. When I went home during a short break, I switched my hairstyle to a crochet loose curl hairstyle. Upon my return, many of my classmates were astonished at the change. After my contracts class, 2 white classmates came up to me and - after gushing about how good I looked - proceeded to ask to touch and play with my curls. I actually remember standing there, frozen for half of a second, during which I played through scenarios of various reactions I could have. I could have yelled at them and told them about how rude it was to touch my hair. I could have told them how weird it was that they wanted to touch my hair in the first place. I even could have laughed off the question while politely refusing. Instead, I decided I wasn’t in the mood to have a conversation about hair etiquette, and so I simply smiled and agreed, and after they had touched and felt it, excused myself to go to the library and study.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
This is an experience that many - if not all - Black women (and men) have shared in some way, shape or form. It could be a protective style, it could be one’s natural hair, it could be a wig - people are somehow always itching to touch someone’s hair, especially if it is different from their own. Often, the people who are reaching out and touching someone’s hair are white people, although that is not always the case.
This type of situation has always been bizarre to me because I don’t think it is something that would even cross someone’s mind to do if it wasn’t concerning hair, especially to someone else who they aren’t extremely close to or if they weren’t given express permission. For example, if someone is wearing a cotton T-shirt, they wouldn’t go up to an acquaintance who is wearing a leather jacket and, while complimenting them, start stroking the leather jacket. Why? Society has deemed that to not be acceptable behavior. The person is intruding into the personal space of another without permission. And even if they do have permission, it is still viewed as odd because it is extremely uncommon - people don’t often stroke the clothing of those who they don’t have a very close relationship with simply because it is “different.”
Whether someone asks for permission or not, here’s the thing - it’s just rude. If someone doesn’t ask for permission, that’s more clearly rude because that person is intruding on the personal space of another without being granted permission. If someone does ask for permission, it’s not as clear but is still rude, although it is arguably better than not asking for permission at all. The very act of touching someone else’s hair brings to mind petting, which one does with pets and animals - obviously, not the best of correlations to be associated with. Asking for permission also puts the person being asked in a sometimes uncomfortable position, especially if they are not comfortable saying no.
Regardless, touching a Black person’s hair - or even asking to touch a Black person’s hair - is a clear microaggression. It often isn’t intentional, but microaggressions generally are not done purposefully. It uncomfortably puts into the spotlight something that the person is already aware of is different, especially considering the stigma concerning Black hair that is currently prevalent in society. Being in a professional setting and having this happen can be even more upsetting because of that same stigma, and someone may not feel comfortable dissuading someone from doing it because of the environment they find themselves in. Not only that, depending on who is doing the touching/asking, the underlying power dynamic that could possibly be present could make the situation even worse. And if someone is uncomfortable with the situation and wants to do something about it, reporting it to the HR department may do nothing except negatively affect them in the eyes of the HR department and their fellow co-workers.
So what are we to do?
I think one way to combat this is that we as a society have to change the conversation about natural Black hair. It isn’t weird or bizarre - it’s normal and grows out of the heads of Black people the same way that it grows out of the heads of literally everyone else. It may not be the same texture as your hair, it may not be the same color, it may not be the same curl pattern - but rest assured that it is simply hair. Black people should also take the opportunity if they find themselves in this situation, and are comfortable doing so, to educate the other person. Explain to them why you are uncomfortable, and the different reasons why they shouldn’t do this same thing to other people.
Perhaps more importantly, there is something that our white friends can do as well - call each other out on your actions when you see something like this happening, especially if it happens in the workforce.
This doesn’t mean start yelling at the person touching/asking to touch a Black person’s hair, because if anything that will be counterproductive and the person won’t learn anything. It means to educate them, and explain that while you understand the interest, here’s why the question or action is inappropriate. Hearing something from various people will have a greater impact on someone than hearing it from a singular person.
If you get nothing else out of this post, get this: Stop touching our hair.
Seriously. You can admire from afar, and if you would like (and know the person), you can go up to them and compliment them on it. But compliments and admiration do not require you to touch it - so don’t. It’s just hair. Hair that we have painstakingly ensured was healthy by often conditioning and moisturizing our hair with different oils and butter, which is removed by unnecessary touching. Hair that we have styled to achieve the look we were aiming for that can be ruined by someone’s fingers. So despite any of your desires, please respect our desires and our personal space and refrain from touching our hair.
It’s a new year. Let this be our declaration: we are respecting each other - and our hair - all 2020.
