ignore me, just disabling email notification.
your talking about single braids, the ones that just hang. yeah, if you want something different for the week, than that’s fine, but if you expect it to stay in the whole month or months…no.
Well, as with any hairstyle on anyone…it really depends on your face and even the shape of your head. i like my guy to have what is called a ‘low fade’. which has very little hair on the top of his head and cut very low at the sides and at the back.
The funny thing is Pennylane…she’s got all that knowledge in her head–but I damn near gotta fight with her to DO any of those styles when I come see her!!! Yeah, I wanna “ask the black woman” something; how come I gotta do all that? Hmmm?! 
hee hee! Juuuust kiddin’ sweetie. BTW, it’s not that I couldn’t respond to Biggirl…but let’s just say I’m getting practice on how to spoon-feed my future daughter (I mean “…people in clubs act like people in clubs”?!? C’mooon). Any “real” questions for a black man? I don’t biiiite–shuddup Vivian…
Great Thread Vivian. Regardless of all the stuff that should be in the Pit or Great Debates.
I have a question/issue even though I am more of a lurker than a poster, maybe because I am a white male, and white males are creepy (know any African/Hispanic/Asian serial killers/pedophiles/car salesman?) but this thread was so gripping I couldn’t resist a post. The white people smell like raw meat/wet dog/sour milk thing has had me laughing for 2 days straight. I mean, OK so we smell? What do we smell like? Raw meat? Yikes, I need a bath.
Anyway, what I wanted to ask/address was something that I have always noticed. I can bring up a point in a meeting that makes no sense and not have a fucking clue as to what I am talking about and worst case scenario it gets ignored. Some times I get positive feedback like what I am saying has any use what so ever. I still can have everyone’s attention next time, no one disrespects me, or is like “Oh he doesn’t seem to be working out” and I can even get promoted when I don’t know how to do my current job, much less what I am getting promoted into (this has happened twice). I know I am taking a long time to get there, please bear with me.
So you know about short man’s disease, AKA the Napoleon complex. I think that stems from the fact that tall men get more respect than they deserve solely on merit, look at all the tall presidents. We tend to think someone who is taller than us has authority, we are more easily intimidated by taller people, etc. I can say from experience that I and a lot of (obviously not ALL, if someone cries reverse racism, or accuses me of white guilt I will puke on my Dockers, and send them the bill) other white males get more props than they ‘deserve’. At long last, do you think that all non male, non white have an equivalent to a short man’s disease?
I realize that you are not speaking for anyone but yourself, but I also realize that your some aspects of your life experience will be categorically different from mine in certain ways because of the fact that you are a BLACK WOMAN and I am a WHITE MALE and in this evil fucked up world we live in they are unfairly treated differently, which is the WHOLE POINT OF THIS THREAD. Not to protest too much or anything.
Last but not least, earlier in the thread there was a big debate over whether the white women in the elevator were racist for wanting to touch your hair. I think the fact that you have to go “is that racist or just curiosity” is exactly the point. The chance that someone would want to touch me at all much less my hair is pretty unlikely, but if they did, I wouldn’t think about my skin color as a factor, because 99.9% of the time it is not. It seems that people are nitpicking at details and opinions when really the idea here is to say “Hi, I am not black, what is it like to be black, considering the impact being black might have on you as a person?” OR “Hi, I am black, how do you feel about being black, considering the impact being black might have on you as a person?”
I judge people on how they look, if I step into a meeting about a new web based application we will be deploying in South East Asia and the person running the meeting is wearing old running shoes, ill fitting jeans, a Red Dwarf T-Shirt and has an unflattering hairstyle (in this case race or sex really don’t matter) I will think “Great, this person will really know what they are talking about” but if they are wearing Hugo Boss (or Anne Taylor, my sexism was showing there), have an aluminum briefcase and smell good I will think “this person is an idiot, I can go through some of my mail while they waste everybody’s time.” If anyone can say that they honestly would not have that reaction then you are an idiot, you will spend your life “getting to know the real person” who is a Klan member, or a Drunk, or a Teenager, or a Pompous Asshole (that would be me) while I am getting Undeserved Promotions. When I meet black person, I don’t think “fried chicken” or “lazy” but I may think “Fro So Sof by Sta Sof Fro”.
Sorry about the freak out (I have had too much positive re-enforcement), please answer the above (way above) question as best you can. Thanks
Peace,
mangeorge
I am a white Australian woman and I like my hair to be really short at the back for no other reason than I hate fussing with it. People always ask if they can touch it, not just here, it has happened in the USA and NZ and everywhere else I go.
It is considered different for some reason (especially when I was a respectable tax-collector working in the legal end of town in grown up clothes and I am hurtling towards 37 years old with alarming speed) and I look friendly so people ask. I have never thought of it as anything but that, perhaps you shouldn’t either Vivian.
What do I say? Well, if I am fairly sure I will never see them again I usually reply “Sure, just be aware it turns me on and I may orgasm on the spot”. They usually don’t want to after that.
Interesting thread, thanks.
Farkle -
You’ll never see me. Can I touch your hair?
Back when I used to have short, brightly coloured hair, people used to want to touch it a lot. I don’t know if they thought the colours changed the texture or something, or if it was just the length… It was weird though.
And oh, hi Farkle. 
Sure, just be aware it turns me on and I may orgasm on the spot
Hi Daikona, fancy running into you here
you have to pay for your own extensive therapy should you be the first person ever to fail to give me the desired effect
(that is part 2)
maaaan…i’m still trying to figure out what your question was!
the answer is…hell yeah! i find in my line of work as an implementation coordinator for a e-health company, people are almost ALWAYS surprised to see me and how much i know. I guess when they speak on the phone, i give no inkling of what race i am (which i think is odd, but that is a different thread altogether), so when they see me, i get the 'oh! i didn’t know you were black ’ look. and trust me i know what that looks like. it also comes in ‘you don’t look african’ or 'you look good for a african’
sometimes i wonder if i got to where i am today because of my expereince or because of my skin colour. i say that becuase i find that many whites find me ‘scary’ when really, its just me being aggressive. i think that’s a problem amongst blacks in the workforce. i find that becuase i am aggressive, they confuse it with scary or angry. here at work, i get a lot of the ‘don’t want to make Vivian mad’ remarks, even though they have never seen me get mad? Is that because i seem to fit a angry black female stereotype? i don’t think so. but i mean, i’m sure they aren’t acting all ‘jenny jones/ricki lake/jerry springer’ on me because it’s what they think i am…it’s not racism…it’s just seemingly fitting a stereotype.
Just a thought here, but did you ever think the reason people are getting upset at your opinions is the attitude you are projecting?