How often have you heard of it happening to such a degree that kids decide to change hairstyles to avoid it?
You said:
We know that they mess with it when it’s out, but not when she puts it up. If they’re touching it because it’s big, that implies that it’s no longer big when it’s up. There’s no reason to think that, unless you’re trying to define “big” in a way that avoids the unique aspect of her hair that’s tied to her race. Which seems contortionist to me.
This seems pissy and rhetorical, where my question was genuine. Not everyone is aware of stuff like this: http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/25/touching.natural.black.hair/index.html
Reasonably, yes. Unequivocally, no.
In other words, based on my experience in the world, I’d put the likelihood of this being because she’s black at 50%+. But there’s also a chance that this could have happened among black friends if her hairstyle were particular unusual.
Huh? Of course these are different.
It’s happened twice in my immediate circle. Once with pigtails, and once with braids. In both cases, the hairstyles were dropped because of hair-pulling (admittedly, in one case, it was really more a question of bullying).
Yes, of course they are. So when you say that my view leads to thinking “any negative interaction where the kid on the receiving end is Black becomes “racist” by virtue of the fact that the kid on the receiving end is Black,” you’re incorrect.
As for the commonality of kids changing hairstyles to avoid hair-pulling, in my ten years of teaching and eight years of parenting daughters, I’ve not seen or heard of it happening once.
Huh? I said none of that.
Then, as so often happens, our experiences differ.
I think the part you are not factoring in is that these children were five years old.
Hair-pulling or touching simply isn’t unusual at that age.
I’d be inclined to agree with you, if the kids were significantly older.
And do you see how no one is questioning the veracity of your experiences in your life? Is it possible for you to extend that same courtesy to W. Kamau Bell?
My son, who happens to be one of 3 white kids in his grade of very mixed children, likes to wear a crew-cut during the summer. He would like to wear it during the school year but prefers not to becuase “the other kids are always touching my head.”
Make of it what you will.
Emphasis added. Not sure where to go with the conversation at this point.
Yeah, I totally believe this. When someone is of a race that’s unusual in a setting, the physical factors that make them clearly of a different race are going to draw more attention. That’s both annoying and innocent, and should be dealt with by teaching kids some respect for bodily autonomy.
When it’s a black kid being bugged like this by a white kid, it ALSO plays into some broader dynamics in our society–NOT BECAUSE ANYONE IS TRYING TO BE RACIST, but because of our history of racism. That kind of shit is called systemic racism. And it should be dealt with by making sure kids know about racism at a young age and pay attention to things they do that could feed into it and avoid such behaviors.
Happily, in this case, both lessons have the same outcome. I believe both lessons are important.
Got any more assumptions you wish to state as facts?
We do not know that it is because of her blackness.
We do not know that the kids are not familiar with that hair type.
We do not know that the kids are not around black people.
It’d be innocent if people stopped attributing everything to racism.
Slee
Alright, I withdraw the asshole comment. My bad. But the Oxford Dictionary definition of racism:
1.1 The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.(bolding mine)
doesn’t fit. There is no evidence of inferiority even implied. Just difference and curiosity. If some white kid came in with punk-rocker spiked out hair and other five years olds touched it, what does that make them? I mean, other than normal five year olds?
Yes, I know unwanted touching of hair is a thing. So is unwanted touching of pregnant womens’ bellies. Does that make the toucher sexist? Even other females? Poor social skills do not equal racism. We are talking about five year old kids here, not adults or even teenagers.
Just because Bell believes it to be racism doesn’t make it so. I believe not to be. Does that make it not so? I guess its a matter of opinion and how you want to define racism. I chose to define it as above. If you leave out the inferior/superior part of that definition, the mere observation of actual racial differences would have to be considered racist.
From a quick perusal of some of Bell’s work, it is apparent that racism is a very important subject to him. But calling this an example of racism makes me call his credibility into question. Its like the saying “When all you have is a hammer…”
While it is common to define racism as personal bigotry toward people of a different race, there is a common secondary definition in which “racism” is shorthand for structural racism.
For example, imagine that a police department decides to deploy its officers to precincts with the highest marijuana arrest rates. Perhaps entirely unknown to the people making that decision, those historical arrest rates were a consequence of prior policing decisions that weren’t based on the frequency of crime. And, if you go back far enough, you find that they have their origin in the kind of racism defined by personal bigotry.
Can we call that a racist decision? Well, it doesn’t involve any belief in the inferiority of people on the basis of race. However, it does treat people differently and worse on the basis of race, albeit indirectly. And it does find its origin in bigotry, even if historical. We therefore generally call such things structural or institutional racism.
Another example, if you don’t like that one. Consider that for many decades black people were prevented from living in the suburbs by a combination of explicitly race-based lending programs and by practices like racial covenants and red-lining (not to mention reduced generational wealth for reasons going back even further). Now, years later, suppose you have a state policy that favors the suburbs in some aspect, without any intent on the part of the policymakers to favor white people. Is that policy racist? Again, it isn’t racist on the surface. And it might not even be racist by intent of the people crafting the policy. But it does treat black people differently and worse, and it is ultimately the consequence of bigotry, just not bigotry of the people who crafted the new policy.
Racial segregation in 2017 and all of its consequences is another instance of structural racism. To the extent that a black five-year-old is a novelty to white kids in a private school, that’s the result of racism. And that same segregation has very likely planted early seeds of bias in those kids, unfortunately. At a minimum, it other-izes the black kids more than they would be if they had grown up in integrated settings. That’s not at all to suggest that these white kids think the black girl is inferior, or even that they could understand or verbalize racial ideas.
It’s partly a semantic debate, but the semantics matter. To deny that structural racism is racism is to deny the essential character of it. It isn’t just economics or the kind of natural exploration of differences that happens regardless of history. It’s the legacy of white supremacy and needs to be accurately identified in order to be defeated.
Since people don’t attribute everything to racism, I guess “it” is innocent. Winner winner chicken dinner!
This is what Bell said. Just prior he was saying how people touched his dreadlocks without permission when he had them.
“People think they have access to touch you without asking, and that’s racism. And now it is little kid racism, but it’s still parents not teaching their kids not to touch other kids without asking”
Two things - first, touching someones hair without permission, even if its something unique to their race, doesn’t make one a racist, IMHO. Even if the reason you are touching it is because its somehow a curiosity and the reason its a curiosity is, historically and for all the wrong reasons, your race didn’t associate with the other race. But a racist? Without knowing a single thing about the person? That term carries a lot of weight and ought not be thrown around casually. You can’t accuse an individual of racism just because the history of our country was (and is) riddled with it. Socially inept and clueless? Sure. But not necessarily a racist. Again, only if you stretch the definition.
Second, Bell is flat out saying that these little kids are racist. They could be playing with his daughter all the time and including her in everything they do. Sharing cookies. Whatever. But because they touched her hair they are racists. I don’t think so. It in no way implies white supremacy. Parents not teaching their kids manners? I got it. But that has nothing to do with skin color or racism. And bad manners at five is to be expected.
So, this is the logic, if I have it right:
The reason those kids touched her hair is because they were curious. The reason they were curious is that they haven’t seen many black kids (no evidence of that, BTW). The reason they haven’t seen many black kids is because, historically, whites and black don’t mix much. The reason whites and blacks don’t mix much is because racist whites want it that way and have done everything in their power to make it so. Therefore, these white five year olds are racists.
I’m the first to admit we have a race problem in this country but I think Bell to it a little too far.
What assumption are you seeing in the text you bolded?
So the idea is that the kids in this story are manifesting the structural racism that runs through their community/school, through no fault of their own. If that is the case, then what should be done about it? What can be done about it?
I dunno, teach 'em?