A few days ago we were made aware of a young black
woman at San Francisco University who was verbally chastising (and physically
blocking the path) of a white male student who had his hair in dreadlocks. She
was berating him for invading her “culture” with his choice of hair
arrangements. She was absolutely mini-aggressing him verbally but also put her
hands on him in an attempt to keep him from escaping her abuse.
If the young man, who in years past would have been
praised for his hair and for its message of being down with the struggle, was in
fact infringing on the woman’s “culture” as she argued, how is she not
infringing on his culture by wearing an upscale, stylish sweater and jacket, by
taking showers, which are uniquely western/American activities, by eating American
food instead of conch burgers, by speaking English and attending an American
college instead of idly laying under a palm tree somewhere smoking grass and
doing nothing at all toward her future? She probably even drives an American
automobile. She was doing all of these things, but were they infringing on the
young man’s culture or the culture of any white person? Not in my American they
weren’t.
And exactly what is the “culture” of a black woman
living comfortably in America that she would abuse someone for any particular
hairdo? It’s very much a part of the
American culture to allow differing ideas and styles to be seen and heard and not
be attacked, as we plainly saw in the video of the event. And additionally, the
woman complaining about culture infringement wore an afro hairdo. Why is her
non-white hair not culturally offensive to white Americans? Is this woman from
Communist North Korea that she is so demanding that only what she approves can
be displayed?
It’s almost a relief to find that the charge of racism
has been dropped from minority attacks on white people, but also disturbing
that the young man’s hair got a minority student so upset. After all, the man
made no claim of being black, he only chose to do the dreadlock thing with his
hair.
I don’t think any hair style is owned by any group of
people, but if cultural infringement on a black person’s life is the issue,
then the young lady of this subject should be outraged at Rachel Dolezal who a
year of so ago wore an Afro hairdo and pretended to be black, even though both
of her parents are white and she has no black brothers or sisters. She passed
as black and even held a racially identified position that was thereby denied
to a real black person, and she did everything she could to be accepted as
black and to be thought of as such. This type of activity is deranged cultural
infringement and outright lying on Ms. Dolezal’s part, but the young lady who
abused the man with dreadlocks was apparently good with the lying identity of
Dolezal and just wanted to confront someone about something.
When a hair style becomes a subject of abuse and
attack, the attacker had better get her head examined, because she’s nuts. But
Obama promised to “fundamentally transform America” and this is just another
tentacle of that promise.
