Day One: You Can Touch My Hair

10 Comments

1. This is a great idea “You can touch my hair”. Alot of my white friends love to touch my hair. But when I started wearing front lace wigs, i would tell then to go easy lest they pull the wig off my head, that I would hate! Wendy Williams touch her own wig all the time hidding the little notes under the wig, but she would never allow anyone to touch it!

2. I think this event is a great idea! Waaaay back in the day (er… the 80’s :)) when I shaved my head and went natural for a spell, it was all the non-black ppl who embraced my hair, ASKED (yes, they asked) if they could touch it and thought it was cool. It was the blacks who had issues with it and talked about me like a dog. Unfortunately, not knowing how to care for my natural hair, I succumbed to the all mighty chemical. That is why I’m not surprised by the overwhelming negative response on line by blacks. However, I applaud you for putting black hair out there in the forefront. What you’ve done is built yet another bridge between ppl when so many others do all they can to create chasms. I have a 3 year old boy and I’m amused by the amount of white ppl who love his hair! They touch it and marvel at how soft it is. Now, I’m no fool, but not once I have ever detected a sense of condescencion. Just ppl marveling how cute my kid is! So keep doing what you’re doing, Unruly. . I have a feeling future generations will benefit from you efforts. Peace

3. I’ve had a couple of co-workers touch my hair because they thought it was a wig. I usually wear my hair straight but I loved the curls I get using Curlformers. So my hair was curler. The same person touch my hair when I wore it curly a few months later. If she had asked, I probably wouldn’t mine.

   A couple of days ago a neighbor was admiring my long henna’d hair. My mother was with me and before the neighbor could ask my Mom said “Yes, it’s all her hair!”. 🙂

4. When are you bringing this awesomeness to San Francisco? We have a Union Square, too.

5. Antonia, I think this is a wonderful exhibit! People who don’t have hair like ours would obviously have a curiosity about what it feels like. And this would give them a chance to understand a bit more about their wonder. I would love to help, so if you need more hair models I’m willing to volunteer for your next exhibit. I am all for people better understanding & accepting black women’s hair in today society! Good job bringing that awareness to the public!

6. I’m from the nation’s cap and would loooooooooove to have this at union station or especially gallery place Chinatown where large amounts of different races pass by daily (especially gallery place on a Friday/Saturday). I would also love to participate although my fro is far shorter and far more nappy. I love when people ask to touch my hair and especially black people because there is a predetermined idea of what natural hair feels like and I absolutely love explaining the ins and outs of all facets of black hair relaxers, weaves, texlaxes, and natural/locs.

7. Dear Un-ruly Hair:

   I am curious if you could shed light on the following question: how and why does this function as art? Put another way, what is distinctive about this project that makes it a work of art as opposed to just a social experiment? Not that those are mutually exclusive, but because I’m a working artist, I am interested in what exactly it is that makes this exhibit artistic. Also a few questions about how the staging was designed. Who was the audience for this project? What was the ratio of whites to non-whites who touched each head of hair?If the number of non-whites was higher – did that still make the project effective?

   Many thanks for your responses,
   Dell

8. I am inspired by this. so much of our hair has been attached to past traditions and the only way we can create new ones is to challenge why we are so uncomfortable and why others may be comfortable or uncomfortable with touching ethnic hair. As a hairstylist and someone who hasn’t necessarily wanted someone to touch their hair uninvited, this to me is so very much needed. If we want for out hair to not be villainized and for out hair care standards to be considered along with those of Vidal Sassoon and others then a change must happen and this is the beginning. Thank you. Truly thank you!

9. I am a curly girl (white) who grew up in a very white environment – I am from Jersey in the Channel Islands (near France!). I met and made friends with a black girl when I was 16 and I asked her if I could touch her hair. She wasn’t offended (should she have been?) and said yes. I was really interested to see if it felt different to my curly hair because it certainly looked different. And surprise, surprise, yes it did feel different – really lovely and soft. She then went on to show me how she put baby oil in her hair and put it into little braids before going to bed. This was the early 80s. We spent a lot of our time together laughing cos I kept asking such stupid questions like can you get sunburn and do you blush . . . yes I know, but hey I was 16 and very naive. Isn’t it just part of natural human curiosity to want to know things about someone who is different to you – be that culturally, racially or sexually? Should we be afraid to engage in information sharing with our fellow humans?

   • Hi Karen, I so appreciate your honesty. My response is to give you my experience – and in the spirit of growing, not hostility. To help put it into perspective as to why it could be hurtful or seem insensitive to some… here are my two cents. When I was growing up in a racially diverse school, I had people (some friends, some not) comment about my hair, ask the same questions that you did. It was always a white person. Often times my answer was followed by a judgemental statement on their part – i.e “ewwww” or “that’s weird.” At the time, the culture / media frowned upon big lips, big butts, broad noses, kinky hair, etc… – anything that was the anti-thesis of Caucasian beauty. Given that cultural backdrop, the problem is when one feels alienated by the questions. Many of us are already conditioned by society to defend how God made us. Second, I was blessed to meet many people from various cultures – Samoans, Cambodians, Latinos, Caucasians, Asians, etc. Not once did I wonder if their human body had the same basic characteristics as me (blushing, sun burn/tan, etc) These questions, while they seem / are innocent, can be hurtful to the person on the receiving end if makes them feel objectified or SO extremely different that common sense doesn’t prevail. From a young age, I had to understand the white culture & I understood my culture. Naturally, it stings when our culture is so alien, yet we live in such close proximity.