I’m not LHOD, obviously. But I think that taking that portion of the quote out of LHOD’s post misrepresents what they’re actually saying. Did you mean to quote more of it?
@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness addressing DemonTree:
I didn’t, because I’m not seeing how I misrepresented their point. I’m not being snarky. Can you spell out what I am misrepresenting?
I agree with this to the point that I can consider it an example of privilege. The vast majority of products on the beauty aisle are made for / marketed to caucasians. That’s where the privilege lies and that absolutely needs to change (and smart companies are doing just that) but the categorization “normal” as being exclusionary or offensive seems a stretch to me.
It reads to me as if LHOD is saying DemonTree is:
nitpicking to make it seem like this isn’t about white people sad they’re not considered normal
while your taking the latter part of that alone as a quote from LHOD reads to me as if you’re saying LHOD themselves meant what they’re complaining about somebody else saying.
Not sure if that’s clear. Maybe @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness will weigh in.
In my area, the vast majority of the people actually are White. Filling the aisles with equal numbers of products aimed at people with Black hair would make no sense at all; they’d sell very few of those, for the same reason that the Kosher section around here is half of one shelf if the store’s got one at all: there just isn’t that much local market.
But it’s still a problem if the items aimed at White people are the ones labeled “normal”. Go take a look at the cartoon in post #137; that illustrates the problem nicely.
(If stores in areas with a majority Black population are stocking hair products in the same proportion as stores in my area, that’s a huge problem in itself, I agree.)
I’m not entirely sure how what you said related to what you quoted, TBH. What you quoted, however, says that “this isn’t about white people sad they’re not considered normal.” You left off the part where I wrote “the complaints are clearly about that.” You then wrote that you can buy default shampoo, and you haven’t lost that privilege.
Which, cool, but that means you’re not complaining, so I’m not sure I’m clear on how you’re responding to me. Also not being snarky, just confused.
That said, I’m not too worried about this, and if we’re just talking past each other on some minor point I’m happy to let it go.
Okay, I think we are talking past each other, and it’s probably not worth spending more space on it. I apologize if my quote misled others as to your point. I didn’t intend to do so. That probably means I didn’t quite get your point, but it’s not the end of the world.
@filmore’s post 137 wins. We could have saved 70-ish posts of bad faith consternation and 70ish posts of patient 'splainifying if this had been post #2.
I’ve always thought “Normal” when it comes to shampoo just meant “not-oily” and “not-dry.” I don’t see what that has to do with race at all, there are plenty of white people with hair that is oily or dry. But if they want to change it to “average” instead, I don’t see the big deal. The two terms seem the same to me.
I’d like to try once, if I may. I think I have a clearer explanation, and this is the sort of misunderstanding that could easily come up again.
Imagine Obama makes a speech saying “Our enemies think America is weak.” Some guy who hears that goes and tells his friend “Obama says America is weak.”
That’s basically what happened here. LHOD said that DemonTree was wrong to think this isn’t about some white people sad they’re not considered normal. You quoted him as saying this isn’t about white people upset about not be considered normal.
Your quote was thus the opposite of his meaning.
Then the word “average” is the new “normal” and we will then have to change that so someone who doesn’t feel they are average isn’t somehow butt-hurt. Where is the logic in this?
I would think that they would be more concerned with their Block and White intensive whitening lotion which I didn’t know existed until I looked up Unilever. You da pronoun.
Once again, this is a marketing department hoping to sell more product by using more inclusive language in their advertising and labeling. There’s the logic you seek. There may be some social motive, too, but I tend to err on the side of cynicism when it comes to advertising. Follow the buck. They’ll use whatever words bring the most $$$ through the door.
Well, there’s a difference between an “average” and a “norm”. A norm is typically considered a—wait for it—normative standard describing how some characteristic is supposed to be. An average, on the other hand, is just a data point about where things actually are.
Surely you see, for example, why many short men consider it more insulting to be characterized as “below normal height” than as “below average height”.
Ah, whereas what i meant to say was that i thought LHOD was wrong in this criticism of demontree, because this change in language hasn’t changed the fact that white people still get to be considered normal. I still get to be considered normal, even if the shampoo doesn’t use that word. I don’t have to buy "shampoo for ___”, i can just buy “shampoo”.
So it may really just be people upset that something changed.
Nope. Average isn’t normal. They mean different things.
“Average” is a more accurate word for hair inbetween oily and dry than “normal” is. It’s entirely normal to have oily hair or dry hair.
This is true. I’d guess that it’s typical for young people to have oily hair and for old people to have dry hair, and all of oily, average, and dry are pretty normal.
Also, AFAICT, it’s typical for black people to have less oily hair than white or Asian people, and that’s normal too. (Apparently it’s because natural scalp oils don’t distribute along tightly coiled hair strands as readily as along straighter hair.)
This gets so confusing, because there are layers of wrong in this whole scenario 
. It seems likely to me that it’s like this:
- The majority of Northern European hair texture was considered “normal”.
- Based on some focus group stuff, they changed so “lots of Northern European Hair” was no longer labeled “normal.”
- This is a small change that doesn’t address underlying issues where white people are considered normal.
- Nonetheless, some folks are freaking out, because even the barest suspicion of de-centering white people comes across as a full-scale culture war to them.
I’m not sure where this fits it, but I feel similar market tactics are at hand with marketing condom sizes, yet I don’t really hear people bitching about that. Nobody has an “average” or “normal” condom size so far as I can tell. And the small sizes are labeled as “snug” or “slim fit.”
Try garlic.
https://wisconsingarlic.com/garlic-variables-guide/
the grades according to diameter:
Super Colossal: 3.0”+ Diameter
Colossal: 2.75” Diameter
Super Jumbo: 2.5” Diameter
Jumbo: 2.0” Diameter
Giant: 1.88” Diameter
So all garlic bulbs are above average?