Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents selected comments about being Black in France from the discussion thread of a 2018 (vlog) "Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States". That video log was published by Roman Around The World, Apr 19, 2018.
These selected comments are from Black people living in France or other European countries.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Roman Around The World for publishing this vlog and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/11/youtube-discussion-about-black-people.html for a closely related pancocojams 2019 post entitled "Black People Nodding At Black Strangers In Europe, In The United States, & Elsewhere".
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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD OF THE VLOG "Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNiWNfzP1sw
(Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.)
1. Gaverne Bennett, 2018
"This is a very interesting video. I lived in Paris for about 5 years. Ok, I think I agree with what you are saying but there are much, much deeper levels going on with Paris and France than maybe you perceived. Difficult to say everything here but talk to somebody from Martinique (or of Martiniquiuan descent) or alternatively of Algerian descent. They will tell you the real score. Just to let you know I am of Jamaican descent but I was born and grew up in the UK, London in case you are wondering. France, the UK, and the US really are different countries on this subject I have found.Profoundly different.
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REPLY
2. Roman Around The World, 2018
"Yes. The issues of race in Paris are indeed deep. I'm planning future videos with people born and raised in France. Conversation to be continued...."
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REPLY
3. Gaverne Bennett, 2018
"The people to talk to are people of Algerian descent..."
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REPLY
4. flokiz z, 2018
"@Gaverne Bennett algerians are hypocrites , and racist arabs , why would she go talk to an arab? HUGE racism between blacks and maghreb(morocco, algeria, tunisia) in France, maghrebian women(algerians,morrocans, tunisians) like black guys(and the world "like" is too kind to use) and it creates a huge racism here between arabs and blacks, they are not africans, those are arab colonizers"
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REPLY
5. Veronique428, 2018
"flokiz z I do agree when it comes racism towards black people, arabs are far to be our allies nor in France nor in Africa.
But there is many African born and raised in France whom she could speak to‼️"
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REPLY
6. Rowhider RC & Racing, 2019
"@Veronique428 My wife, a black african women lived for 4 years in Marocco and was regulary called "Ni&&er*" and other racists insults... Not a single time in 10 years in France"
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
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REPLY
7. Rom's, 2019
"Gaverne Bennett algerian people generaly hate the french ! so they 're going to bash france ! france has a particular and complicated relationship with algeria and algerians in the common history between the two nations, algerians in france are often in confrontation with white french and the authorities !! And don't forget that they are Muslims and therefore their culture is Islam and not the French culture which poses a real problem in France !"
**
8. Patrice Moniz, 2020 [This comment is reformatted to enhance its readability.]
"Very interesting video, and as a Black French man ,who was born and raised in France during 25 years. I've lived and studied in New York for nearly 2 years and established in London ,in the U.K. ,since nearly 10 years, I do have an accurate point. Sorry in advance for the long comment
Being black in France is definitely not the same as being black in the US. Definitely, I can't blame Black Americans for it. This is just the "segregation effects" sad to see but when you think about it, it is not that far after all. Back in the US as a Black French, I was pretty shocked to see all those black things going on, if you make it big as a Black there, he might be mentioned somehow ,like you made it despite being black. I'm a professional dancer and I heard Misty Copeland in an interview (first Black Principal Ballerina at the American Ballet) "I made it, despite starting ballet at 13 (which is late for ballet) I'm quite short and I'm black" that shocked me, truly shocked me. Being black is still a thing in the US, white and black Americans, both keep cultivating it.. no ones fault, I mean, slavery is to blame for sure, people who perpetrated that atrocity are to blame.
It seems pretty hard for black Americans out there to just forget and move on, can't blame them..so many reminders of their blackness...Think about it, in the 90's you could read in the US news : "Madonna is dating this guy despite him being black" yeah ,in the 90's not so long ago (watch the truth or dare movie to see this interview) That's what I'm saying,it seems like there is still to many white people in America who can't let it go and I believe there is just to many of them and in very high positions. However I didn't feel it when I was in the US not at all. As there, I wasn't black, I was French..likewise, it is cool to be French in America whatever the color of your skin. It is another story in France.
I've recently moved to France again, just for a year ,I had to deal with stuff..both my wife and I (she's mixed race french/arabic and she definitely looks arabic) after being in London for so long ,coming back to France was shocking as we felt "Black and Arabic" at many occasions, soooo many.. can't even explain, in London we are French in France we are Black and Arabic and that was very violent, like a slap in the face. The only difference with the US, big difference though, makes colored people's life easier, true, I don't complain, thank God I wasn't black in America..in France it is very discreet, taboo, but we definitely feel it. You both girls can't as in France you are not black you are Americans, and that's so cool. Also being light skin definitely made a difference in my life as a French black man. I'm also named Patrice ,which is very French. My dark skinned black friends called Mustapha and Mamadu had both very different lives, trust me. My life was very easy in France because I'm (café au lait) like they are saying. Many people even told me ,many times "Look at this African guy, always the same, so rude and smelly, (After noticing my shocked face) Oh, don't take it personally Patrice, you're different Patrice, you are light and pretty, it doesn't apply to you at all, come on, you are not really black!"
Oh yeah! Or white people impressed by my perfect French speech "Oh your French is perfect young man! No accent at all, my God this is so rare!! Oh, hold on, you are "métisse" right? One of your parent is French that's why!" No no both my parents are light skinned from Cape Verde..
and I can go on forever...But indeed it is very different that the life of a black man in America. We didn't experience any segregation. We are French ,it is true, many white French agree with that but behind closed doors is another story but thank God, there is more smart white French in France and that's a big difference. But you both can't feel it, I'm sure you both have good French skills but maybe not as sharp yet, you can't get this "racisme ordinaire" right, it is very discreet, maybe you will after 10 more years.
Finally, I believe London is the perfect balance between Paris and New York, this city is so tolerant and open to the world, nothing comparable to the US or Paris, really, they are so avant garde. Here your color doesn't matter, you can truly succeed, sincerely, there is racism of course, but it is very rare to witness. Finally, France is my country ,I'm French and proud of it, I was made in France and I've been blessed my entire life for meeting the right people. Some French are definitely racist and now they feel like they can say it out loud, but I forgive them, France is still beautiful and even if I can't live there anymore, this negative mentality doesn't suit me anymore, I will always be French and proud. Vive la France!"
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9. Jamilla Diallo, 2020
"@Patrice Moniz so true. I lived in France for a while and am light skinned. People would ask me from which part of the Caribbean I was from.They were shocked when I said I am not from Martinique or Guadeloupe but from Africa.Also, I got the " you are not really black" which is a racist microagression. Like you can only be Black if you are dark skinned."
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10. Patrice Moniz, 2020
"Jamilla Diallo yeap! but if one day something goes wrong with your white friends, oh, you are black again! Thank God not all the same..! Stupid people are everywhere.. take care Jamilla"
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11. Dominique ho-sing-ming, 2020
"Jamilla Diallo: this is not some sort of aggression. We recognize people can be mixed too and respect that."
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12. Andy Fos, 2020
"@Patrice Moniz Imagine a black guy from the banlieue listening to this conversation on how it is to be black in France.
Now imagine a black guy who grew up on a council estate in London hearing you say London is so tolerant....same thing.
They are Americans in Paris, you are French in London. Being abroad you act differently to the people who grew up there and people act differently towards you until the honeymoon is over."
-snip-
From https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/apr/04/photographer-banlieue-monsieur-bonheur-department-93-paris-france-fox-news-no-go-zone "The banlieue, the working-class areas that encircle Paris and other French cities, are used to being demonised. On 24-hour news channels and in parts of the French press, these suburbs are seen as breeding grounds for hooliganism, drug trafficking and radical Islam."...
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REPLY
13. Patrice Moniz, 2020 [This comment is reformatted to enhance its readability.]
"Andy Fos and I decided to rise way above that ,the honeymoon will end when I will decide to. I have a successful life and career because I've used my blackness as an advantage despite everything you said. I'm blessed. Well, I grew up in a very simple household by a banlieue and my closest friends where all from the banlieue and we were still extremely happy and fortunate to be born and raised in France. This is just small incidents ,lack of education, fears which can't stop us. I'm not living based on how people will react to me, We are the ones in charge of our destiny and "whatsif" won't help anyone. And Imagine everyone was black in the world? And Imagine people in Syria? Let's not complain.
Yes London is tolerant and I mean it. It is from personal experience. All this is from personal experience. We all experienced things differently and the way we react is KEY. Many of my black and arabic friends from the banlieue live today very successful and prosperous lives. Do not let your neighborhood define your future. With this "whatif" mindset you can't go forward. Send lights on your journey and even the racists will fall in love with you and change for good. Again by experience, I saved the souls of many racists around me in France and London. By educating them, trust me, true story. We can't save them all but we can make a difference. We are not victims.
I don't live my life by imagining. I'm writing down my own story as many of my colored friends did, we dreamt and today we are living the dream. And France definitely helped on that. No bitterness, no hate, no "whatif", move on. Send good on your journey and good will ALWAYS come back to you, wherever you are born. You can be born on a council estate and die in a Mansion. ALL ON YOU."
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REPLY
14. Andy Fos, 2020
"@Patrice Moniz You yourself said when you went back to France you felt Black and your girlfriend felt Arabic again etc...
Anyway my point was not about success or where you start and where you finish but about perspective.
If I walk into a shop and am treated like a king and the next guy walks into the same shop and is treated like a criminal, is it a great shop or a terrible one?
If I say to these ladies " You are wrong", can they accept that? Of course not, they experienced it BUT there are other experiences and perspectives based on various factors.
I am glad you feel successful and in control of your own destiny. We are not alone in the world, shouldn't we care about the experiences of others too?"
**
REPLY
15. T.J. JAZZ, 2020
"@Patrice Moniz Loved your response! "You're not like them" "your not really black" ....If I got paid everytime an ignoramous said that to me... "Our" story is complicated...and it is also what makes us nod at eachother on the street, rough points, but beautiful as well❤"
**
16. Sam Sy, 2020
"Moreover, and I speak as a black french man in France right now, you should consider that in Paris black American are thought to be the epitome of « coolness » so they would be treated differently. Prejudices exists in every country..here it.s just French prejudices.
But the black recognizing other black thing is universal..🙂 A nod , a hand gesture , a look ..that’s all it takes to remind us we are all from the same « village» really."
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REPLY
17. Eve P, 2020
"@Sam Sy thanks for sharing. I think we (as a black French woman) better bond with each other because of our African or Caribbean backgrounds and also we do share afro American pop culture because there's not enough contents from afropean people"
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REPLY
18. Bonjourlemonde, 2020
"Sam Sy so true Black american is what is cool in usa. Jazz, hip hop, soul, urban fashion, Black panthères etc: The fighters"
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19. Harold Matouba, 2020
..."Racism is forbidden in France but french pratices racism against black, arabs, gypsies, muslims. Great companies, public organism even trade labour were pointed by activists for storing data concerning these population. "each race a mark". One for the black (not the same for the African and the Caribbean) , another for arabs and muslims etc. I notice that french people love to be considered as a "human race protector" . BS"
**
20. Edwin Swezey, 2020
"When I first came to France in 1972, 95% of my reason was to escape American racism. I was surprised to find that the French did have a racist streak at the time, but it was against Arabs, as they remembered the "dirty" Algerian war for independence. That has worn off over the years, since most Arabs in France aren't from Algeria and a lot of those that are here play on the championship soccer teams. They're f&&king* heroes, now.
As for blacks, Kim's experience is just what I have always felt - you just walk down the street (even in 1972) and don't even notice when another black person is walking on the same sidewalk. It just makes no difference. And there are mixed-race couples, too: That was pointed out to me by an American I met in the 1980's, but I had never noticed that before."
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this post.
**
21. Oumar DIALLO, 2020 [This comment is reformatted to enhance its readability.]
"France was described much as your experience in that everyone was considered French and expected to adopt French culture and identity", you are so right about this point, I'm Senegalese and I have been in France for 4 years as a student and engineer now, one day my boss told me that " Oumar I think you are not deeply concern about french culture, as like Oumar you don't use to it or Oumar you did not assimilate yourself inside french culture. I was shocked like never before, it looks like I have to be as they are, I have to be french, think in french way, have a french behaviour, a kind of universel culture which all people must enjoy etc. but I cannot be like that ✋, I'm so related and proud on my Senegalese culture, So that's something really disgusting for me.
last summer, after back from my vacations in Senegal, I was talking to one of my colleagues, She asked me a question like "Oumar how was your vacations, and how did you felt the first weeks back to your country, honestly the question was "do they (senegalese citizens) seem bizarre for you because for a while you did not have been in Senegal", my answer was like " yeah my vacation was really good, and honestly when my plane landed in Dakar airport, it was like I never have been in france, I just forgot french society, I was normal as everyone, free as everyone, speaking wolof instantantly, I was at home so there is nothing better than that" and she was shocked because of what I have said, surprised she was, I was too.
I'm always shocked about this kind of things, what I can say is " I can integrate into French society and I did but I will never be assimilated". in contrast, I have been in China for 5 months and never felt so real abroad, so good. for Chinese, you cannot be a Chinese and that's fine for me, you are what you are and it's fine for them and I really think this is why I have liked there, the way of feeling that I'm the Senegalese even if there are huge cultural differences between me and them, and those differences were what was beautiful between us, were the attraction.
**
22. Williams Bulambo, 2020 [This comment is reformatted to enhance its readability.]
"Hey great video! Great energy! Great spirit! Just a couple of things i want to go back on though.. i am black, born in france, raised in africa, moved back to france when i was a teen and my step-dad is american so i kinda mingled with the three cultures.
(1) The excitement of seeing another black person only occurs when you’re in a mostly white environment, like u said if u see tons of black people everyday obviously you won’t be that much excited
(2) Interracial couples are shamed especially by the families of both parties. White people want nothing to do with other races because they are lowkey racist and other races want nothing to do white people because the « white man ». Moreover what’s interesting is that there’s even a relunctance of other races mixing together because we’re different in our culture, color, religion or even country. Some black parents in france tell their kids not to bring home black people from certain countries.
(3) Even though there is this great sense of belonging to the country we’re still not equal and reminded everyday. We might not say it as often as black americans but as a person you’re aware that you’re not just french if your ancestors were other than white. You’re always going to be french AND.
(4) We do get together as a community of black people, even more often than you think. Certain nuances should be taken in account. Black people who grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods are going to hang out with and mostly have white friends. The opposite is true too meaning white ppl who grew up predominantly black/arabic(these are the more common distinctions) are going to hangout with and mostly have friends of both or either or race. Exceptions exist too. For example i have friends of both parties. The gag is i only hang out with either or, never with both.
(5 and final) It is considered racist to classify the population by color however the government bypasses that by classifying the population by origin. For example which country your parents or your parents’s parents come from. It just depends how many generations your family’s been here for.
**
23. Maghreb Al 3arabi, 2020
"In France we think the same thing of America, that every one is equal and that there are no differences between race colors etc..
i'm disapointed that it's not the case.
But honestly, after watching your video i think that it's the same thing every where on this earth; every one prefer his//her own community and culture,
And we reject the person who is not "like us".
Here in France, there is a LOT of racism and discrimination, ask black people who are born here you'll see;
I am a Muslim Arab and i choose to return to my grandparents country. I can't stand France anymore even thoug i'm born here.
Peace and have good travels around this world👍❤"
****
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Showing posts with label Black people in Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black people in Europe. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Black People Nodding At Black Strangers In Europe, In The United States, & Elsewhere
Edited by Azizi Powell
Update: November 17, 2019
This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video entitled "Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States."
This post also presents excerpts from that discussion about the custom of Black people nodding at Black strangers.
This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series about the custom of Black people nodding at other Black people who are strangers. This custom is often referred to as "the nod" or "the Black nod".
Click the tag "video, articles, and comments about "the nod" to find other pancocojams posts about this subject.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to those who are featured on this YouTube video. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
****
Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States
Roman Around The World, Apr 19, 2018
Paris is a diverse city. But what's it like to be Black in Paris? Black travel here in France is a bit different than other countries. And that means no head nod here...
-snip-
Here are selected comments from that discussion, including two comments that I added to that discussion, (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. Volcy Thoughts, 2018
"Y’all don’t do the black person head nod in France? Ah man..."
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REPLY
2. Jordan H, 2018
"SirVolcy No communautarism in France, sorry :)"
-snip-
Here's a French definition of communautarism:
"le communautarisme est un terme socio-politique désignant les attitudes ou les aspirations au sein de minorités et moins couramment au sein de majorités (culturelles, religieuses, ethniques...) visant à se différencier volontairement, pour s'entraider, voire pour se dissocier du reste de la société"
-snip-
Google translate to English:
"communitarianism is a socio-political term designating attitudes or aspirations within minorities and less commonly within majorities (cultural, religious, ethnic ...) aiming to differentiate voluntarily, to help one another or even to dissociate themselves from the rest of society"
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REPLY
3. "Alia Guerin, 2019
"No its not done, only if you know somebody i wont do it to anybody .. I can say bonjour goodmorning if you like .. but that i do because its considered being polite not because you are black."
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REPLY
4. francesca, 2019
"It depends on where you live. Like if you live in big cities like Paris, Marseille, etc, you won't get a lot of head nod but if you living in cities (Grigny, Clichy,..) where there is a lot of minorities, then you'll get more head nod. Since we coming from the same backround and stuff you know.. We understand, help and support each other more."
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REPLY
5. Lunatic Blues, 2019
"We actually do it when we are in room filled with white people.
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REPLY
6. 9 Lives And Counting, 2019
"Why would you walk around bobbing your head at utter strangers all day? Not a thing in UK either. None of my friends do it."
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REPLY
7. emma, 2019
"don't do it in the usa either....in fact doing so in NY might trigger a serious beatdown."
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REPLY
8. Frankeya Atkinson, 2019
"9 Lives And Counting it’s a brief acknowledgement of a shared experience."
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9. Fadzai Chengeta, 2019
"Stereotypes aren’t good man not every black person does"
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REPLY
10. Chesterfield, 2019
"Actually, it feels weird doing so. For example, when you visit a French village, where there are almost no minorities and you see another black fella, sure you'll notice each other, but it would feel communautarian and awkward to directly go to that person, or even nod at them, especially around other people.
But again, there are different cultures within the same community in the same country. Minorites coming from cities where there is a lot of immigrant descendants will naturally go to their own folk, and even be proud of it. It happened to me when I went to University, where most people were whites. Most of my friends were from minorites because we 'naturally' stuck together"
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REPLY
11. Azizi Powell, 2019
"@francesca • I'm an arm chair traveler African American who some how happened upon this video. The only international nation I've been to is Canada. I find it and this discussion very interesting. For clarification, did you mean "but if you living in cities (Grigny, Clichy,..) where there aren't a lot of minorities, then you'll get more head nod." ?- Meaning the brief physical acknowledgement of someone else being Black happens more in smaller cities than larger cities where it is more common to see other Black people?"
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REPLY
12. Azizi Powell, 2019
"And just for the record, as a 71 year old African American, I've noticed that the custom of Black strangers in the USA briefly nodding at other Black people when we pass each other on the street has lessened considerably since at least the 1980s or so, and is hardly done at all now in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, particularly with Black folks under the age of 40. I think that custom changed when gang activity in Pittsburgh got to be really bad. During that time younger Black people in Black poor & working class neighborhoods in Pittsburgh & surrounding areas identified with the neighborhood they lived in and didn't think that they could get support from other Black people just because they were Black (which is what I think the "nod" meant- that we're all in the same boat because of our race and if there was trouble and/or you needed support, then you could turn to someone else who was Black.) While the gang activity appears to have gotten better, I think that way of identifying yourself based on your neighborhood and not just your race (or city) still occurs in this city anyway.
Personally, I miss that custom of physically acknowledging Black strangers. And I still nod at other Black people I see, especially Black people over 40 or so. I believe that sub-set of Black people are (or were) used to that custom, particularly when we are "the only ones" in malls or in other mostly White frequented places which happens quite often in Pittsburgh since that city is only 20% Black and the county is only 12% Black."
**
13. maeva tbze, 2019
"😂😂 you can, we'll understand why you do this if you ever come here! I do it sometimes but most of the time it's more subtle.. we just make eye contact and like we know haha! I have friends with many different origins (white or non-white) but the majority of my best friends have always been black tho... i think from the point of view of any non-white person in France it's hard to say that France is really colorblind... in theory yes the République, but not in real life. And i had this conversation with some of my white classmates and some think there is almost no racism in France bc of this message of equality, and that we have the same life, which is very problematic and they were shocked when i told them that i have encountered racism (especially because I'm a middle-class well-educated black (mixed) woman)... but for me being born and raised in France has been mostly a positive experience"
**
14. Tara Young, 2018
"Just got back from France. I only got the "head nod" from other Black Americans. So glad I saw this before I left cuz I got no head nod from other Blacks/Africans. It was good to understand why."
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15. ArmandoJaune, 2018
"Black and French, it happens, just not in big cities."
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REPLY
16. Sebastien Fuger, 2018
"Lol you've never been to France."
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REPLY
17. ArmandoJaune, 2018
"@Solemn Package Haha jsuis français donc me dis pas que je suis jamais aller en France, de quoi tu parles?"
-snip-
Google translate from French to English
"I'm French so do not tell me I'm never going to France, what are you talking about?"
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REPLY
18. Sebastien Fuger, 2018
"@ArmandoJaune bah alors tu sors pas assez mon gars!"
-snip-
Google translate from French to English
@ArmandoJaune bah then you do not go out enough my guy!
**
REPLY
19. AdelSd, 2019
"It might appear weird, but from my perspective (French man from Syrian origin) I find it really strange to nod to people just because they share the same "ethnicity" than yours. Imagine, if white people were doing the same, they'd just be called racists (in the way that they don't behave the same toward people of their ethnicity compared to others). Even more when applied to American society, where people from African descent are absolutely not coming from the same country nor share the same heritage. To follow up on my analogy with white people, that'd be the same as having a white Afrikaaner and a Swedish nodding to each other on the street on the simple fact that they are white. Obviously, it comes from the fact that I have a different cultural point of view than US people, due to the fact that I'm French, but that's tough for me to really understand and justify."
**
20. emma, 2019
"And it's not like the "head nod" is frequently done in the usa....In some cities like NY, Chicago just to name a few doing so might start a fight, especially if it's between two guys, sooooooo....."
16. Ron Mosely, 2019
**
21. Ron Mosely, 2019
"The French speakers dont do that ! But Black folks in the UK do that! Black folks relate in London, give you that hey brother , look , but in Quebec and As she says in Paris , they dont give a phuq ~ London has every English speaking nation in Africa and the Carribbean, but dont get into that "where you from" crap! But even at the airport, Black folks will relate! ..She mentions , NYC, no one throws shade at interracial couples, and the opposite is true regarding French speaking African immigrants as compared to English speaking immigrants ! the Senegalese, Cote D;'Ivoire, Gambians, will treat you like family, but the Nigerians and Ghanians will relate , just to be civil or polite ! Black people have been in France for over 1200 years, so now a Black person does not have to have someone White on their arm to make , them fit in or be more French!"
**
22. elena 240, 2019
"I can't stand it when Black People don't speak"
**
23. thedarkestcloud, 2019
"This is kind of hilarious that you would acknowledge another person of color in France... Especially in Paris you'd be waving every 5 seconds... imagine waving at every black person in Brooklyn... nonsense, Paris is not Warsaw, it is diverse,and no interracial dating in France is not a way to "solidify your frenchness", it is just two people falling in love and being attracted to each other, there too, Paris is not California, black people don't date ethnic French people to go up in society's hierarchy"
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Update: November 17, 2019
This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video entitled "Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States."
This post also presents excerpts from that discussion about the custom of Black people nodding at Black strangers.
This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series about the custom of Black people nodding at other Black people who are strangers. This custom is often referred to as "the nod" or "the Black nod".
Click the tag "video, articles, and comments about "the nod" to find other pancocojams posts about this subject.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to those who are featured on this YouTube video. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
****
Black in Paris - It's Different than Being Black in the States
Roman Around The World, Apr 19, 2018
Paris is a diverse city. But what's it like to be Black in Paris? Black travel here in France is a bit different than other countries. And that means no head nod here...
-snip-
Here are selected comments from that discussion, including two comments that I added to that discussion, (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. Volcy Thoughts, 2018
"Y’all don’t do the black person head nod in France? Ah man..."
**
REPLY
2. Jordan H, 2018
"SirVolcy No communautarism in France, sorry :)"
-snip-
Here's a French definition of communautarism:
"le communautarisme est un terme socio-politique désignant les attitudes ou les aspirations au sein de minorités et moins couramment au sein de majorités (culturelles, religieuses, ethniques...) visant à se différencier volontairement, pour s'entraider, voire pour se dissocier du reste de la société"
-snip-
Google translate to English:
"communitarianism is a socio-political term designating attitudes or aspirations within minorities and less commonly within majorities (cultural, religious, ethnic ...) aiming to differentiate voluntarily, to help one another or even to dissociate themselves from the rest of society"
**
REPLY
3. "Alia Guerin, 2019
"No its not done, only if you know somebody i wont do it to anybody .. I can say bonjour goodmorning if you like .. but that i do because its considered being polite not because you are black."
**
REPLY
4. francesca, 2019
"It depends on where you live. Like if you live in big cities like Paris, Marseille, etc, you won't get a lot of head nod but if you living in cities (Grigny, Clichy,..) where there is a lot of minorities, then you'll get more head nod. Since we coming from the same backround and stuff you know.. We understand, help and support each other more."
**
REPLY
5. Lunatic Blues, 2019
"We actually do it when we are in room filled with white people.
**
REPLY
6. 9 Lives And Counting, 2019
"Why would you walk around bobbing your head at utter strangers all day? Not a thing in UK either. None of my friends do it."
**
REPLY
7. emma, 2019
"don't do it in the usa either....in fact doing so in NY might trigger a serious beatdown."
**
REPLY
8. Frankeya Atkinson, 2019
"9 Lives And Counting it’s a brief acknowledgement of a shared experience."
**
REPLY
9. Fadzai Chengeta, 2019
"Stereotypes aren’t good man not every black person does"
**
REPLY
10. Chesterfield, 2019
"Actually, it feels weird doing so. For example, when you visit a French village, where there are almost no minorities and you see another black fella, sure you'll notice each other, but it would feel communautarian and awkward to directly go to that person, or even nod at them, especially around other people.
But again, there are different cultures within the same community in the same country. Minorites coming from cities where there is a lot of immigrant descendants will naturally go to their own folk, and even be proud of it. It happened to me when I went to University, where most people were whites. Most of my friends were from minorites because we 'naturally' stuck together"
**
REPLY
11. Azizi Powell, 2019
"@francesca • I'm an arm chair traveler African American who some how happened upon this video. The only international nation I've been to is Canada. I find it and this discussion very interesting. For clarification, did you mean "but if you living in cities (Grigny, Clichy,..) where there aren't a lot of minorities, then you'll get more head nod." ?- Meaning the brief physical acknowledgement of someone else being Black happens more in smaller cities than larger cities where it is more common to see other Black people?"
**
REPLY
12. Azizi Powell, 2019
"And just for the record, as a 71 year old African American, I've noticed that the custom of Black strangers in the USA briefly nodding at other Black people when we pass each other on the street has lessened considerably since at least the 1980s or so, and is hardly done at all now in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, particularly with Black folks under the age of 40. I think that custom changed when gang activity in Pittsburgh got to be really bad. During that time younger Black people in Black poor & working class neighborhoods in Pittsburgh & surrounding areas identified with the neighborhood they lived in and didn't think that they could get support from other Black people just because they were Black (which is what I think the "nod" meant- that we're all in the same boat because of our race and if there was trouble and/or you needed support, then you could turn to someone else who was Black.) While the gang activity appears to have gotten better, I think that way of identifying yourself based on your neighborhood and not just your race (or city) still occurs in this city anyway.
Personally, I miss that custom of physically acknowledging Black strangers. And I still nod at other Black people I see, especially Black people over 40 or so. I believe that sub-set of Black people are (or were) used to that custom, particularly when we are "the only ones" in malls or in other mostly White frequented places which happens quite often in Pittsburgh since that city is only 20% Black and the county is only 12% Black."
**
13. maeva tbze, 2019
"😂😂 you can, we'll understand why you do this if you ever come here! I do it sometimes but most of the time it's more subtle.. we just make eye contact and like we know haha! I have friends with many different origins (white or non-white) but the majority of my best friends have always been black tho... i think from the point of view of any non-white person in France it's hard to say that France is really colorblind... in theory yes the République, but not in real life. And i had this conversation with some of my white classmates and some think there is almost no racism in France bc of this message of equality, and that we have the same life, which is very problematic and they were shocked when i told them that i have encountered racism (especially because I'm a middle-class well-educated black (mixed) woman)... but for me being born and raised in France has been mostly a positive experience"
**
14. Tara Young, 2018
"Just got back from France. I only got the "head nod" from other Black Americans. So glad I saw this before I left cuz I got no head nod from other Blacks/Africans. It was good to understand why."
**
15. ArmandoJaune, 2018
"Black and French, it happens, just not in big cities."
**
REPLY
16. Sebastien Fuger, 2018
"Lol you've never been to France."
**
REPLY
17. ArmandoJaune, 2018
"@Solemn Package Haha jsuis français donc me dis pas que je suis jamais aller en France, de quoi tu parles?"
-snip-
Google translate from French to English
"I'm French so do not tell me I'm never going to France, what are you talking about?"
**
REPLY
18. Sebastien Fuger, 2018
"@ArmandoJaune bah alors tu sors pas assez mon gars!"
-snip-
Google translate from French to English
@ArmandoJaune bah then you do not go out enough my guy!
**
REPLY
19. AdelSd, 2019
"It might appear weird, but from my perspective (French man from Syrian origin) I find it really strange to nod to people just because they share the same "ethnicity" than yours. Imagine, if white people were doing the same, they'd just be called racists (in the way that they don't behave the same toward people of their ethnicity compared to others). Even more when applied to American society, where people from African descent are absolutely not coming from the same country nor share the same heritage. To follow up on my analogy with white people, that'd be the same as having a white Afrikaaner and a Swedish nodding to each other on the street on the simple fact that they are white. Obviously, it comes from the fact that I have a different cultural point of view than US people, due to the fact that I'm French, but that's tough for me to really understand and justify."
**
20. emma, 2019
"And it's not like the "head nod" is frequently done in the usa....In some cities like NY, Chicago just to name a few doing so might start a fight, especially if it's between two guys, sooooooo....."
16. Ron Mosely, 2019
**
21. Ron Mosely, 2019
"The French speakers dont do that ! But Black folks in the UK do that! Black folks relate in London, give you that hey brother , look , but in Quebec and As she says in Paris , they dont give a phuq ~ London has every English speaking nation in Africa and the Carribbean, but dont get into that "where you from" crap! But even at the airport, Black folks will relate! ..She mentions , NYC, no one throws shade at interracial couples, and the opposite is true regarding French speaking African immigrants as compared to English speaking immigrants ! the Senegalese, Cote D;'Ivoire, Gambians, will treat you like family, but the Nigerians and Ghanians will relate , just to be civil or polite ! Black people have been in France for over 1200 years, so now a Black person does not have to have someone White on their arm to make , them fit in or be more French!"
**
22. elena 240, 2019
"I can't stand it when Black People don't speak"
**
23. thedarkestcloud, 2019
"This is kind of hilarious that you would acknowledge another person of color in France... Especially in Paris you'd be waving every 5 seconds... imagine waving at every black person in Brooklyn... nonsense, Paris is not Warsaw, it is diverse,and no interracial dating in France is not a way to "solidify your frenchness", it is just two people falling in love and being attracted to each other, there too, Paris is not California, black people don't date ethnic French people to go up in society's hierarchy"
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Irish-Nigerian Writer Emma Dabiri Discusses Whether Irish Black People Are "Woke"
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from a blog post written by Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster Emma Dabiri. That blog post discusses whether Black people from Ireland are "woke" (meaning "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice"). Two comments from that post's discussion thread are also included in this post.
The Addendum to this post presents information from Wikipedia about Black people in Ireland.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Emma Dabiri for writing about this subject, Thanks to all others who are quoted in this post.
****
FEATURED EXCERPT: On Whether Irish Black People Are Woke...
From https://www.dublininquirer.com/2017/10/25/emma-on-whether-irish-black-people-are-woke-and-on-changing-foreign-names
"Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster. She is currently a teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and is working on her first book.
...“Staying woke” refers to questioning the dominant paradigm, and occupying a state of awareness about structural oppressions.
The phrase “staying woke” has some early references in the 1960s, it was then further popularised in the 2008 song “Master Teacher” by Erykah Badu, but really caught on following the wave of protest after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the subsequent rise of Black Lives Matter. In 2016, “woke” entered into the Oxford Dictionary.
Like so many words and phrases used throughout the Anglosphere and indeed beyond, (“hipster”, “cool”, “uptight”, and “bling”, to name a few), its origins are found in African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE). In AAVE, the state of being awake is often spoken as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke”.
The influence of African American language in Ireland and globally is vast, yet it is either unacknowledged or too often dismissed as “slang”.
For me, true wokeness would also require a basic critique of the neoliberal capitalism, which is part of the infrastructure that both produces and sustains racism.
The word has in a short time travelled far from its original meaning and is increasingly used in popular culture to confer an edgy activisty cool. I recently saw a top 10 list of wokeness, devoid of any black names, topped by someone like Taylor Swift. Appropriation 101.
Now are black Irish people woke? I don’t know. We can’t make assumptions that every person of African descent in Ireland is thinking in the same way; I have met some who are, and some who emphatically are not.
Certainly, I remember surprise as a teenager on occasions meeting other mixed-race people – girls especially – who didn’t want to be friends, often quite the contrary, in fact. I’m guessing they didn’t want to stand out any more than they already did, and my outspokenness made them uncomfortable.
I also think there was sometimes a touch of competition, rather than solidarity, a strange sort of territorialism, a bit like: “I’m the only (insert minority of choice) in the village.” But this was my teenage experience and Ireland is at a really interesting point now, where a black Irish culture and identity is starting to emerge.
I never thought I would have an opportunity to see my blackness expressed in a particularly Irish way, or my Irishness take on a black expression. A few years ago I remember hearing Irish-Nigerian rapper Rejjie Snow referencing Marcus Garvey, Doctor King, and Malcolm X in a Dublin accent, and being happily shocked. I was thinking, wait … this is happening, this is actually happening … there’s gonna be a reference point for us … it’s exciting.
Am I black? Gosh you aren’t shying away from the big questions, now are ye? But yes, I identify as black. The thing is, despite being told I was black (and often not so politely) my whole damn life, and often being reminded that I wasn’t “really Irish”, my claiming of my blackness still elicits occasional cries of “But what about your ma?” or “You’re erasing your Irishness!” Blah blah di blah blah blah.
I think what we really need to look at is why a person with a white parent can identify as black, but why a person with a black parent can rarely, if ever, identify as white. We have to stop acting as though racial constructions are rational or ordered. They are not. I always say that you cannot be “half white”. You are either white or you’re not. And I’m not.
When the imperial European powers started colonizing the world, the white racial category was invented as a function of capitalism to consolidate resources for one group, while extracting resources from others, and justifying it, because according to the racial hierarchy “blacks” were barely human and as such their (our) enslavement by a “civilized” (lol) race was actually an improvement on previous conditions.
It’s key to remember that in the early history of the social category “white”, Irish people were not included, although eventual entry into the category was to prove very beneficial.
Whiteness is sustained and preserved through a myth of purity, exclusivity, and restricted access. Blackness in contrast – in spite of the narrow tropes of blackness that are peddled to us via mass media – remains diverse and dynamic.
No doubt I am mixed, but I’m mixed and black. Blackness can accommodate mixedness, in a way that whiteness, with its myths of purity cannot. In some contexts I am black, in others mixed, sometimes I am Irish, others Nigerian (white is still off limits), but I am always me, always with the potential to identify as any of these things.
A lot of white people seem to assume that being black is all just a bit sh&t* and characterised by banging on about racism. Well, much as various parties have tried to make it thus, it’s about a lot more! I love being Irish, but I also love being black.
There is a diasporic black cultural world formed of West African, black American, Caribbean, and European influences, that is just so innovative and adaptive and creative, and which produces so much culturally. That heritage is a constant source of inspiration and strength to me. It’s really wonderful to be able to call that space home.
Now, what would a centre for ethnic minorities look like? Ethnic minorities are extremely diverse, what with making up the world’s majorities and all that. People tend to come together out of similar needs and shared cultural orientation. The cultures, needs and experiences of different groups cannot be conflated.
A 2015 report, “Afrophobia in Ireland”, published by the Irish branch of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), highlighted the severity of the racism that black and African people, in particular, face.
Moreover, anti-black racism often remains virulent in other ethnic minority groups. So something as general as an “ethnic-minority centre” would not be particularly appealing to me.
However, I certainly agree that spaces for more specific groups can be be powerful indeed. I craved black companionship when I was growing up, that sense of understanding, and reassurance, the space to not always have to justify my existence.
Having that black support network now that I didn’t have growing up, helps me to be a more grounded and secure person, even when I am in entirely white environments as I often am. Could you get something started in your community?
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this sentence.
Selected comments:
AD Powell
21 November at 23:58
"I am as white as Emma is black, more so really. Both my parents are part-black whites. I totally reject Emma’s claim that whiteness equals purity. I have fought for multiracial whiteness for decades. Other whites are not a problem. The fanatical opposition consists of blacks and mixed-race people who THINK they are black.
[http://multiracial.com/index.php/… "")"
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Note: In case anyone wondered, I'm not "AD Powell".
**
Ife
7 May at 17:11
"Well observed and experienced Emma. As a Black American who visits Ireland frequently (yearly since 2006), I have not found one Irish person of African/Caribbean ancestry to be “woke.” I’ve tried to speak with them and it just doesn’t happen. They seem to act as if it’s “guilt by association,” to even be seen having an interest in even acknowledging me. No issue with Irish who are “white.” My “white” Irish friends are always puzzled, when I try and reach out to say “hi” to black folk there and they snub me. I gave up trying to connect years ago. Personally, I think there’s some secret competition for attention going on that I’m not privy to. My last trip was January 2016 and I finally met and spoke with a brother from Dublin (of Nigerian ethnicity; who grew up in London), he was “woke.” The word “woke” makes me laugh, but it’s the current modern pop-culture vernacular. shrugs I try to be “hip.” "
****
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-stay-woke-really-means-definitions.html for a closely related pancocojams post entitled "What "Stay Woke" REALLY Means (definitions, early influences, & uses)".
****
ADDENDUM
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_in_Ireland
..."Black people have lived in Ireland in very small numbers since the 18th century.
They are mainly concentrated in the major cities and towns, especially in the Limerick, Cork and Dublin areas. During the 18th century, many worked as servants of wealthy families. Former slaves who visited or toured Ireland included Olaudah Equiano[1] and Frederick Douglass.
Lord Edward FitzGerald was saved in 1781 by Tony Small, a freed slave, after the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Small returned with Lord FitzGerald to Ireland, and in 1786 his portrait was painted by John Roberts.[2]
Enslavement of blacks was rare in Ireland during the 18th century, although the legal position remained unclear until a judgement in England in 1772, the Somersett's Case. Others were tradesmen, soldiers, travelling artists or musicians. They were never very numerous, and most were assimilated into the larger population by the second third of the 19th century. They include the rebel Mulatto Jack (fl. 1736), the singer Rachael Baptist (fl. 1750-1775), who were both Irish. Other such as Osmond Tisani (fl. 1905–1914) were born abroad but settled in Ireland.
[...]
The 2006 Irish census recorded 40,525 people of Black African ethnicity and 3,793 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,172,013, meaning that 1.06 percent of the population self-identified as Black.[4] The preliminary results of the 2011 census recorded 58,697 people of Black African ethnicity and 6,381 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,525,281, meaning that 1.42 per cent of the population self-identified as Black.[5]
In 2007, Nigerian refugee and politician Rotimi Adebari was elected as mayor of Portlaoise, the first black mayor in Ireland....
[...]
More recently, following the European migrant crisis, refugees from conflict zones in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, the Congo, and Burundi have settled in Ireland.[8]
Northern Ireland
At the time of the 2001 UK Census, of the total population (1,685,267); 255 people described their ethnicity as Black Caribbean, 494 as Black African and 387 as Other Black, meaning that the total Black population was 1,136. These figures do not include individuals who described themselves as being of mixed-race.[9] The next UK census is to be performed in 2011.
As well as help from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, the EU-funded Afro-Community Support Organisation Northern Ireland (ACSONI) was formed in 2003 to represent the views of black people. ACSONI prepared a report in 2011 on other residents' perceptions and general knowledge of Africa and Africans.[10]
[...]
Notable people
Rotimi Adebari, Irish politician (Nigerian born)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Christine Buckley, Irish activist (Nigerian father)
Cyrus Christie, Irish footballer (English Born)
Lucia Evans, Irish singer (Zimbabwean born)
Layla Flaherty Irish actress and model (Jamaican father)
Liam George, Irish footballer (St. Lucian father)
Chris Hughton, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Henry Hughton, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)
Marsha Hunt, actress, singer, and writer (American born)
Kamal Ibrahim, Irish television presenter and actor
Laura Izibor, Irish R&B singer (Nigerian father)
Ultan Dillane. Irish Rugby player (Ivorian father)
Phil Lynott, Irish rock singer, English born Thin Lizzy (Guyanese father)
Clinton Morrison, Irish footballer (Jamaican father, Trinidadian mother)
Omero Mumba, Irish actor/singer (Zambian father)
Samantha Mumba, Irish pop singer (Zambian father)
Paul McGrath, Irish footballer (Nigerian father)
David McGoldrick, Irish footballer
Ruth Negga, Irish actor (Ethiopian father)
Paul Osam, Irish former athlete (Ghanaian father)
Lanre Oyebanjo, Irish athlete (Nigerian father)
Darren Randolph, Irish footballer (American father)
Kevin Sharkey, Irish artist, television presenter, and actor
Christopher Simpson, Irish actor (Rwandan grandmother)
Rejjie Snow, Irish rapper
Annie Yellowe Palma, Irish author (Nigerian father)
Simon Zebo, Irish rugby union player (French-Martiniquais father)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)"
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from a blog post written by Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster Emma Dabiri. That blog post discusses whether Black people from Ireland are "woke" (meaning "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice"). Two comments from that post's discussion thread are also included in this post.
The Addendum to this post presents information from Wikipedia about Black people in Ireland.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Emma Dabiri for writing about this subject, Thanks to all others who are quoted in this post.
****
FEATURED EXCERPT: On Whether Irish Black People Are Woke...
From https://www.dublininquirer.com/2017/10/25/emma-on-whether-irish-black-people-are-woke-and-on-changing-foreign-names
"Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian academic, writer, and broadcaster. She is currently a teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and is working on her first book.
...“Staying woke” refers to questioning the dominant paradigm, and occupying a state of awareness about structural oppressions.
The phrase “staying woke” has some early references in the 1960s, it was then further popularised in the 2008 song “Master Teacher” by Erykah Badu, but really caught on following the wave of protest after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the subsequent rise of Black Lives Matter. In 2016, “woke” entered into the Oxford Dictionary.
Like so many words and phrases used throughout the Anglosphere and indeed beyond, (“hipster”, “cool”, “uptight”, and “bling”, to name a few), its origins are found in African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE). In AAVE, the state of being awake is often spoken as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke”.
The influence of African American language in Ireland and globally is vast, yet it is either unacknowledged or too often dismissed as “slang”.
For me, true wokeness would also require a basic critique of the neoliberal capitalism, which is part of the infrastructure that both produces and sustains racism.
The word has in a short time travelled far from its original meaning and is increasingly used in popular culture to confer an edgy activisty cool. I recently saw a top 10 list of wokeness, devoid of any black names, topped by someone like Taylor Swift. Appropriation 101.
Now are black Irish people woke? I don’t know. We can’t make assumptions that every person of African descent in Ireland is thinking in the same way; I have met some who are, and some who emphatically are not.
Certainly, I remember surprise as a teenager on occasions meeting other mixed-race people – girls especially – who didn’t want to be friends, often quite the contrary, in fact. I’m guessing they didn’t want to stand out any more than they already did, and my outspokenness made them uncomfortable.
I also think there was sometimes a touch of competition, rather than solidarity, a strange sort of territorialism, a bit like: “I’m the only (insert minority of choice) in the village.” But this was my teenage experience and Ireland is at a really interesting point now, where a black Irish culture and identity is starting to emerge.
I never thought I would have an opportunity to see my blackness expressed in a particularly Irish way, or my Irishness take on a black expression. A few years ago I remember hearing Irish-Nigerian rapper Rejjie Snow referencing Marcus Garvey, Doctor King, and Malcolm X in a Dublin accent, and being happily shocked. I was thinking, wait … this is happening, this is actually happening … there’s gonna be a reference point for us … it’s exciting.
Am I black? Gosh you aren’t shying away from the big questions, now are ye? But yes, I identify as black. The thing is, despite being told I was black (and often not so politely) my whole damn life, and often being reminded that I wasn’t “really Irish”, my claiming of my blackness still elicits occasional cries of “But what about your ma?” or “You’re erasing your Irishness!” Blah blah di blah blah blah.
I think what we really need to look at is why a person with a white parent can identify as black, but why a person with a black parent can rarely, if ever, identify as white. We have to stop acting as though racial constructions are rational or ordered. They are not. I always say that you cannot be “half white”. You are either white or you’re not. And I’m not.
When the imperial European powers started colonizing the world, the white racial category was invented as a function of capitalism to consolidate resources for one group, while extracting resources from others, and justifying it, because according to the racial hierarchy “blacks” were barely human and as such their (our) enslavement by a “civilized” (lol) race was actually an improvement on previous conditions.
It’s key to remember that in the early history of the social category “white”, Irish people were not included, although eventual entry into the category was to prove very beneficial.
Whiteness is sustained and preserved through a myth of purity, exclusivity, and restricted access. Blackness in contrast – in spite of the narrow tropes of blackness that are peddled to us via mass media – remains diverse and dynamic.
No doubt I am mixed, but I’m mixed and black. Blackness can accommodate mixedness, in a way that whiteness, with its myths of purity cannot. In some contexts I am black, in others mixed, sometimes I am Irish, others Nigerian (white is still off limits), but I am always me, always with the potential to identify as any of these things.
A lot of white people seem to assume that being black is all just a bit sh&t* and characterised by banging on about racism. Well, much as various parties have tried to make it thus, it’s about a lot more! I love being Irish, but I also love being black.
There is a diasporic black cultural world formed of West African, black American, Caribbean, and European influences, that is just so innovative and adaptive and creative, and which produces so much culturally. That heritage is a constant source of inspiration and strength to me. It’s really wonderful to be able to call that space home.
Now, what would a centre for ethnic minorities look like? Ethnic minorities are extremely diverse, what with making up the world’s majorities and all that. People tend to come together out of similar needs and shared cultural orientation. The cultures, needs and experiences of different groups cannot be conflated.
A 2015 report, “Afrophobia in Ireland”, published by the Irish branch of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), highlighted the severity of the racism that black and African people, in particular, face.
Moreover, anti-black racism often remains virulent in other ethnic minority groups. So something as general as an “ethnic-minority centre” would not be particularly appealing to me.
However, I certainly agree that spaces for more specific groups can be be powerful indeed. I craved black companionship when I was growing up, that sense of understanding, and reassurance, the space to not always have to justify my existence.
Having that black support network now that I didn’t have growing up, helps me to be a more grounded and secure person, even when I am in entirely white environments as I often am. Could you get something started in your community?
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this sentence.
Selected comments:
AD Powell
21 November at 23:58
"I am as white as Emma is black, more so really. Both my parents are part-black whites. I totally reject Emma’s claim that whiteness equals purity. I have fought for multiracial whiteness for decades. Other whites are not a problem. The fanatical opposition consists of blacks and mixed-race people who THINK they are black.
[http://multiracial.com/index.php/… "")"
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Note: In case anyone wondered, I'm not "AD Powell".
**
Ife
7 May at 17:11
"Well observed and experienced Emma. As a Black American who visits Ireland frequently (yearly since 2006), I have not found one Irish person of African/Caribbean ancestry to be “woke.” I’ve tried to speak with them and it just doesn’t happen. They seem to act as if it’s “guilt by association,” to even be seen having an interest in even acknowledging me. No issue with Irish who are “white.” My “white” Irish friends are always puzzled, when I try and reach out to say “hi” to black folk there and they snub me. I gave up trying to connect years ago. Personally, I think there’s some secret competition for attention going on that I’m not privy to. My last trip was January 2016 and I finally met and spoke with a brother from Dublin (of Nigerian ethnicity; who grew up in London), he was “woke.” The word “woke” makes me laugh, but it’s the current modern pop-culture vernacular. shrugs I try to be “hip.” "
****
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-stay-woke-really-means-definitions.html for a closely related pancocojams post entitled "What "Stay Woke" REALLY Means (definitions, early influences, & uses)".
****
ADDENDUM
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_in_Ireland
..."Black people have lived in Ireland in very small numbers since the 18th century.
They are mainly concentrated in the major cities and towns, especially in the Limerick, Cork and Dublin areas. During the 18th century, many worked as servants of wealthy families. Former slaves who visited or toured Ireland included Olaudah Equiano[1] and Frederick Douglass.
Lord Edward FitzGerald was saved in 1781 by Tony Small, a freed slave, after the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Small returned with Lord FitzGerald to Ireland, and in 1786 his portrait was painted by John Roberts.[2]
Enslavement of blacks was rare in Ireland during the 18th century, although the legal position remained unclear until a judgement in England in 1772, the Somersett's Case. Others were tradesmen, soldiers, travelling artists or musicians. They were never very numerous, and most were assimilated into the larger population by the second third of the 19th century. They include the rebel Mulatto Jack (fl. 1736), the singer Rachael Baptist (fl. 1750-1775), who were both Irish. Other such as Osmond Tisani (fl. 1905–1914) were born abroad but settled in Ireland.
[...]
The 2006 Irish census recorded 40,525 people of Black African ethnicity and 3,793 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,172,013, meaning that 1.06 percent of the population self-identified as Black.[4] The preliminary results of the 2011 census recorded 58,697 people of Black African ethnicity and 6,381 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,525,281, meaning that 1.42 per cent of the population self-identified as Black.[5]
In 2007, Nigerian refugee and politician Rotimi Adebari was elected as mayor of Portlaoise, the first black mayor in Ireland....
[...]
More recently, following the European migrant crisis, refugees from conflict zones in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, the Congo, and Burundi have settled in Ireland.[8]
Northern Ireland
At the time of the 2001 UK Census, of the total population (1,685,267); 255 people described their ethnicity as Black Caribbean, 494 as Black African and 387 as Other Black, meaning that the total Black population was 1,136. These figures do not include individuals who described themselves as being of mixed-race.[9] The next UK census is to be performed in 2011.
As well as help from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, the EU-funded Afro-Community Support Organisation Northern Ireland (ACSONI) was formed in 2003 to represent the views of black people. ACSONI prepared a report in 2011 on other residents' perceptions and general knowledge of Africa and Africans.[10]
[...]
Notable people
Rotimi Adebari, Irish politician (Nigerian born)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Christine Buckley, Irish activist (Nigerian father)
Cyrus Christie, Irish footballer (English Born)
Lucia Evans, Irish singer (Zimbabwean born)
Layla Flaherty Irish actress and model (Jamaican father)
Liam George, Irish footballer (St. Lucian father)
Chris Hughton, Irish footballer (Ghanaian father)
Henry Hughton, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)
Marsha Hunt, actress, singer, and writer (American born)
Kamal Ibrahim, Irish television presenter and actor
Laura Izibor, Irish R&B singer (Nigerian father)
Ultan Dillane. Irish Rugby player (Ivorian father)
Phil Lynott, Irish rock singer, English born Thin Lizzy (Guyanese father)
Clinton Morrison, Irish footballer (Jamaican father, Trinidadian mother)
Omero Mumba, Irish actor/singer (Zambian father)
Samantha Mumba, Irish pop singer (Zambian father)
Paul McGrath, Irish footballer (Nigerian father)
David McGoldrick, Irish footballer
Ruth Negga, Irish actor (Ethiopian father)
Paul Osam, Irish former athlete (Ghanaian father)
Lanre Oyebanjo, Irish athlete (Nigerian father)
Darren Randolph, Irish footballer (American father)
Kevin Sharkey, Irish artist, television presenter, and actor
Christopher Simpson, Irish actor (Rwandan grandmother)
Rejjie Snow, Irish rapper
Annie Yellowe Palma, Irish author (Nigerian father)
Simon Zebo, Irish rugby union player (French-Martiniquais father)
Kwame Ampadu, Irish former footballer (Ghanaian father)"
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Racial & Other Societal Implications Of Touching Black People's Hair
Written by Azizi Powell
This serves as a companion post to http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/02/good-hair-bad-hair-black-attitudes.html Good Hair & Bad Hair (Black People's Attitudes About Our Hair)
****
Why do White people touch Black people's hair and what do Black people think about that custom?
The following comment was written in reference to a post on the Afro-Europe.com blog about racism experienced by Black people in Russia:
...”You get a smile here, as a black, when you are ready to disburse some cash and make a purchase that brings in money to a czech, or when they wish to fee* the texture of your skin or hair, if they are seing a black for the very first time. So** even go as far as saying that touching a black can bring some luck or fortune to one white czech.”
- http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2011/02/should-black-people-travel-to-russia.html?showComment=1350987399032 "Should Black people travel to Russia?", posted by Anonymous October 23, 2012 12:16 PM [a Black male in the Czech Republic]
-snip-
[Italics added by me to highlight that sentence]
*The word "fee" is probably a typo for the word "feel".
**The word "so" in the last sentence is probably a typo for the word "some".
That comment reminded me of information that I came across years ago that in several European traditions it was considered to be good luck to be the first person to see or get a kiss from a sooty faced chimney sweep or a dark skinned person on the first day of the year.
In one article about the old custom in Hungary of giving out postcards on New Year's Day, one postcard from 1938 shows the chimney sweep holding a bucket of four leaf clovers. Perhaps it was those clovers that led to the superstition that it was good luck to meet a dark faced individual in the beginning of the New Year. Of course, the chimney sweep was dark faced because of the soot which covered his face as a result of the work that he did.
http://www.luckymojo.com/chimneysweep.html
Also, a portion of an online article about New Years superstitions includes information about the custom of "first footing" at midnight on New Year's Eve. According to that custom, it was considered good luck if a person who was dark haired was the first to cross the threshold of your house, and it was considered bad luck if a person who was blond or red haired did so. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/newyears/beliefs.asp.
Those superstitions may be updated versions of the belief that good luck would be conferred on the first person who saw a chimney sweep or a dark faced person on New Year's day.
Given that "black" was generally considered a color of evil in those European cultures - indeed "black" was considered the color of the devil - I wonder if those traditions meant that on the first day of the year, all beliefs were turned upside down (or "turned on their head", if you will pardon that pun).
The comment cited above that was written by a Black man from the Czech Republic motivated me to look online for other articles about why Black people think that White people want to touch their hair, with or without permission. As a result of that search I found this 2008 blog post: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/09/can-i-touch-your-hair-black-women-and.html
"Can I Touch Your Hair? Black Women and The Petting Zoo"
Renee, Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The poster indicated that when she was a child living in a Greek and Italian neighbourhood in the USA, she "was a curiosity. People would touch it, and ask questions about its care like my hair was some kind of pet dog."
-snip-
The poster wrote that "they were being racist, or treating me like some kind of exotic creature, never once occurred to them"....
-snip-
She also wrote that she has grown in confidence as an adult and now asserts that "My blackness and your curiosity does not give you the right to touch me. I don't care if you smile while you do it, or whistle Dixie out of your ass. My body deserves just as must respect as anyone else. In answer to your question both verbalized and assumed, NO YOU MAY NOT TOUCH MY HAIR."
-snip-
To date (October 24, 2012), there are twenty one comments that people wrote on that blog. The commenters who self-identified their racial/ethnic ancestry indicated that they were Black, or indicated that they were White, or indicated that they were of some mixed racial ancestry. One of the commenters, a Black male named Anthony, wrote that he wanted to share his story because he didn't want people to think that it was only Black females who experienced White people touching their hair without permission. Here's an excerpt of Anthony's comment:
My sense was that most of the commenters to that blog post disagreed with the blogger Renee's position that racism was the reason why White people (and other non-Black people) wanted to touch Black people's hair. Instead, the majority of those commenters indicated that curiosity about hair that was different than their own was the reason why White people wanted to touch Black people hair. One commenter shared her experiences of people in China wanting to touch her hair -and her skin. That commenter wrote that she believed that the Chinese people wanted to do this because they were curious about her hair & skin since they had never seen a Black person before.
Two of the commenters shared their experiences of children in the Caribbean rushing up to them to touch their hair. One of those commenters described herself as a Black woman with long hair & indicated that this happened to her during her vacation in Jamaica. The other commenter described herself as being Hispanic/Caucasian and wrote that this happened to her during her vacation in Haiti.
And at least one commenter who identified herself as Black shared that she has had a number of experiences in which other Black people wanting to touch her long hair to determine if her hair was "real" or if it was a weave or extensions (hair that is woven into or otherwise attached to a person's hair in order to add to the length of that person's hair).
That said, most of the commenters wrote that the act of touching someone else's hair is an act of disregarding that person's personal space.
I agree with this conclusion and would also add that touching someone's hair or body without permission, or even asking to touch the hair or body of a stranger violates societal rules of etiquette. And, returning to the conclusions reached by Renee and some other commenters to her blog post, it seems to me that the belief that you can violate other people's personal space, and disregard their rights to privacy by touching their hair or their skin just because you are curious about those people's differentness suggests to me that you don't believe that those people are as worthy of respect as you are. If you feel that you can only get away with this act of disrespect with people of who are members of a race or ethnicity which historically has been considered inferior to your race/ethncity, that might, indeed, mean that you actually are racist.
That said, there may be other reasons why people-including Black people-may want to touch a Black person's hair. A particularly powerful photograph that was taken by the White House photographer Pete Souza is of a young Black boy in the White House Oval Office touching President Barack Obama's hair. In an article accompanying that photograph, Jonathan Capehart, a Black journalist writes:
****
FEATURED VIDEOS [revised on August 24, 2014 because a previously posted video is no longer available.]
Example #1: Never Touch a Black Woman's Hair
AShotofJenn, Uploaded on Feb 1, 2012
Horrific thoughts when someone tries to touch my hair.
-snip-
Here are three comments from that video's viewer comment thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQB0THw6-wg:
TaShar16, 2012
"I have a serious question. Why can't/shouldn't you touch a black woman's hair? Seriously what are the reasons? I can see if the woman has a week and she don't want someone to know it's not really her hair. Or, is it because you feel the person's hand is dirty? I hear jokes about this all the time, but I really don't know why.
**
jackalo34, 2012
"From my experience, it’s a myriad of things. 1. Like you said, I don’t know where the person’s hand has been. 2. You might mess up my hairstyle. 3. MOST people do it without even asking and it’s plain rude. 4. A lot of people do it because they think you have a weave eg “weave checking” 5. Some people just don’t like being touched in general. Personally, I love when someone plays in my hair…but it’s gotta be someone I know like my bf or my family but yea."
**
OmoItsekiri, 2013
"If your hair isn't permed i.e. curly or coiled a LOT of random people on the street will actually ask to touch your hair! Sometimes you're just not in the mood to have hands pulling at your hair! I don't mind people touching my hair but within reason!"
****
Example #2: Don't Touch My Hair
jsi08, Uploaded on Feb 7, 2012
Mini rant.
-snip-
In this video a Black women who is mixed racal not only rant about people touching her hair, but also rants about people asking inapporpriate questions such as "What are you?" and "What race are you?"
****
Example #3: DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR WITHOUT ASKING!!
Tribesbez, Uploaded on Dec 29, 2011
Just a story about something that happened to me recently. Please leave your thoughts in the comment box!
-snip-
This young woman tells about the time when an older Black woman in the mall touched her hair and then described it a being coarse in an insulting manner.
Heeere ar three commens from the video's discussion threead:
SincereCurls, 2012
"That happens to me a lot... People are so intrigued with natural hair, Idk why, but they are... I totally agree with you on that the last thing that someone should do is make a negative comment about your hair after they touched it... I thought an older lady at my job was trying to get some tips from me when she asked me, "how did you get your hair like that?" I told her and she said, "so that is how you get it so nappy"... I was like really... Maybe I misunderstood her..."
**
kizzy6, 2012
"I so agree with you! Its about respect. I hate when my friends feel like they can just touch my hair after touching God knows what. NO THIS IS NOT A PETTING ZOO BACK UP! If someone ask maybe but its still awkward to me, its just hair!"
**
Kiki E., 2014
"I don't like when random people touch my hair. Especially if they don't ask. I go to a mostly white school and white girls always just think it's ok to come up to me and touch my hair."
****
Example #4: Interactive public art exhibit: You Can Touch My Hair
Confident Curls, Published on Jun 9, 2013
Here's an exchange from that video's interesting discussion thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbDgxJNIAVM
Ullah, June 2014
"THE PROBLEM is that whites often see blacks as a collective so that if one steals, for some
reason they like to think most blacks steal--if one likes or allows strange hands in their hair then others will too. I have had white women reach over and grab a hank of my hair to feel it also had them digging into the hair to my scalp to "see if it is weave". A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Touching hair will neither foster or engender understanding--it simply places a formerly ignorant group in the position of them thinking they know more than they really do.
I had a white woman tell me that my waist length hair (when it was that long) was weave because she read that black women could not grow hair. When I insisted it was, she reached over and ran her hands over my scalp before I jerked away-- she then asked me if I had that invisible strand weave because as she stated :she did hair so she knew my hair must not be real"
I told her that if you knew about single strand weave than she also knew that if felt it was easily discerned due to the stiffness of binding fake hair to real hair.
I also told her to not believe everything she hears no matter what color the source is--blacks can no more speak for all other blacks than one white can represent all other whites--what this exhibit did was get a lot of buzz and put people like me on display with many whites thinking that for some reason what a few did in one State must mean black women were now open to being head molested--I have to tell people to not put their hands on me--that is just nasty.
Reply by Jaunnette Lorimer, July 2014
"THE PROBLEM is that whites often see blacks as a collective" ... Did you not just make a collective as well? Not "some" or "many" or even "most" but a lump. I'm not saying it doesn't happen because I'm not stupid, but believe it or not, hair touching is not exclusively white to black. I had some guy rush up to me in a bar and go "I just have to feel it!" and crunch my hair in his hands. I was baffled, and so shocked all I could do was stand there and then finally go "Uh... okay bye?" and leave. Would I like it to happen again? Hell no, that was just weird. Do I go around touching other peoples hair? Only if I know them! And vice versa, I don't mind people touching mine but not a drive-by hair groping.
Personally, I don't think them doing this exhibit is wrong because I don't think promoting the actual "touching" of their hair is what it was really about so much as opening the conversation about it. As far as being on display I'm sorry you feel that way. Fact of the matter is we're all on display. Flat chest, big boobs,butt-length hair, pixie cut, curly, straight, red, green, purple.
You notice there were no men standing there with signs, I think that speaks to the problem being not just racial but gender. Women, all women, are objectified. Dissected down to a few base features. Isn't right by any means, but that's why opening conversation about it is important.
****
RELATED LINK
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/25/touching.natural.black.hair/index.html
'Can I touch it?' The fascination with natural, African-American hair
****
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND THANKS
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of the YouTube videos that are featured in this post.
Thank you for visiting pancocojams.
Viewer comments are welcome.
This serves as a companion post to http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/02/good-hair-bad-hair-black-attitudes.html Good Hair & Bad Hair (Black People's Attitudes About Our Hair)
****
Why do White people touch Black people's hair and what do Black people think about that custom?
The following comment was written in reference to a post on the Afro-Europe.com blog about racism experienced by Black people in Russia:
...”You get a smile here, as a black, when you are ready to disburse some cash and make a purchase that brings in money to a czech, or when they wish to fee* the texture of your skin or hair, if they are seing a black for the very first time. So** even go as far as saying that touching a black can bring some luck or fortune to one white czech.”
- http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2011/02/should-black-people-travel-to-russia.html?showComment=1350987399032 "Should Black people travel to Russia?", posted by Anonymous October 23, 2012 12:16 PM [a Black male in the Czech Republic]
-snip-
[Italics added by me to highlight that sentence]
*The word "fee" is probably a typo for the word "feel".
**The word "so" in the last sentence is probably a typo for the word "some".
That comment reminded me of information that I came across years ago that in several European traditions it was considered to be good luck to be the first person to see or get a kiss from a sooty faced chimney sweep or a dark skinned person on the first day of the year.
In one article about the old custom in Hungary of giving out postcards on New Year's Day, one postcard from 1938 shows the chimney sweep holding a bucket of four leaf clovers. Perhaps it was those clovers that led to the superstition that it was good luck to meet a dark faced individual in the beginning of the New Year. Of course, the chimney sweep was dark faced because of the soot which covered his face as a result of the work that he did.
http://www.luckymojo.com/chimneysweep.html
Also, a portion of an online article about New Years superstitions includes information about the custom of "first footing" at midnight on New Year's Eve. According to that custom, it was considered good luck if a person who was dark haired was the first to cross the threshold of your house, and it was considered bad luck if a person who was blond or red haired did so. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/newyears/beliefs.asp.
Those superstitions may be updated versions of the belief that good luck would be conferred on the first person who saw a chimney sweep or a dark faced person on New Year's day.
Given that "black" was generally considered a color of evil in those European cultures - indeed "black" was considered the color of the devil - I wonder if those traditions meant that on the first day of the year, all beliefs were turned upside down (or "turned on their head", if you will pardon that pun).
The comment cited above that was written by a Black man from the Czech Republic motivated me to look online for other articles about why Black people think that White people want to touch their hair, with or without permission. As a result of that search I found this 2008 blog post: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/09/can-i-touch-your-hair-black-women-and.html
"Can I Touch Your Hair? Black Women and The Petting Zoo"
Renee, Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The poster indicated that when she was a child living in a Greek and Italian neighbourhood in the USA, she "was a curiosity. People would touch it, and ask questions about its care like my hair was some kind of pet dog."
-snip-
The poster wrote that "they were being racist, or treating me like some kind of exotic creature, never once occurred to them"....
-snip-
She also wrote that she has grown in confidence as an adult and now asserts that "My blackness and your curiosity does not give you the right to touch me. I don't care if you smile while you do it, or whistle Dixie out of your ass. My body deserves just as must respect as anyone else. In answer to your question both verbalized and assumed, NO YOU MAY NOT TOUCH MY HAIR."
-snip-
To date (October 24, 2012), there are twenty one comments that people wrote on that blog. The commenters who self-identified their racial/ethnic ancestry indicated that they were Black, or indicated that they were White, or indicated that they were of some mixed racial ancestry. One of the commenters, a Black male named Anthony, wrote that he wanted to share his story because he didn't want people to think that it was only Black females who experienced White people touching their hair without permission. Here's an excerpt of Anthony's comment:
I'm a black male and for about 14 years I had dreadlocks. While in college, at the university of Minnesota, I had numerous white people ask to touch my long dreads. Usually it was more people touching/grabbing my hair without asking. Never was it a pleasant experience educating or refusing someone about my hair. The fact that i was placed into a position where i had to "educate" someone about my hair made me different, which I didn't like. How many times have you had your hair grabbed by a man or woman that you don't know?-snip-
My sense was that most of the commenters to that blog post disagreed with the blogger Renee's position that racism was the reason why White people (and other non-Black people) wanted to touch Black people's hair. Instead, the majority of those commenters indicated that curiosity about hair that was different than their own was the reason why White people wanted to touch Black people hair. One commenter shared her experiences of people in China wanting to touch her hair -and her skin. That commenter wrote that she believed that the Chinese people wanted to do this because they were curious about her hair & skin since they had never seen a Black person before.
Two of the commenters shared their experiences of children in the Caribbean rushing up to them to touch their hair. One of those commenters described herself as a Black woman with long hair & indicated that this happened to her during her vacation in Jamaica. The other commenter described herself as being Hispanic/Caucasian and wrote that this happened to her during her vacation in Haiti.
And at least one commenter who identified herself as Black shared that she has had a number of experiences in which other Black people wanting to touch her long hair to determine if her hair was "real" or if it was a weave or extensions (hair that is woven into or otherwise attached to a person's hair in order to add to the length of that person's hair).
That said, most of the commenters wrote that the act of touching someone else's hair is an act of disregarding that person's personal space.
I agree with this conclusion and would also add that touching someone's hair or body without permission, or even asking to touch the hair or body of a stranger violates societal rules of etiquette. And, returning to the conclusions reached by Renee and some other commenters to her blog post, it seems to me that the belief that you can violate other people's personal space, and disregard their rights to privacy by touching their hair or their skin just because you are curious about those people's differentness suggests to me that you don't believe that those people are as worthy of respect as you are. If you feel that you can only get away with this act of disrespect with people of who are members of a race or ethnicity which historically has been considered inferior to your race/ethncity, that might, indeed, mean that you actually are racist.
That said, there may be other reasons why people-including Black people-may want to touch a Black person's hair. A particularly powerful photograph that was taken by the White House photographer Pete Souza is of a young Black boy in the White House Oval Office touching President Barack Obama's hair. In an article accompanying that photograph, Jonathan Capehart, a Black journalist writes:
Thanks to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, we African Americans are sensitive about our heads and our hair. A pat on the head, especially from someone white, would be considered to be patronizing at best. “Don’t let anybody touch your head,” my mother told me when we moved from Newark to a predominantly white town in New Jersey. I would learn at school that some would rub the head of someone black for good luck. And there were all sorts of put-downs for black hair — from Brillo to something not appropriate to mention in a family forum such as this. Thus, having your head touched is a rather intimate gesture that only family could get away with.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/photo-speaks-volumes-about-obama-and-race/2012/05/24/gJQA2T2lmU_blog.html Photo speaks volumes about Obama and race By Jonathan Capehart 05/24/2012
For Jacob, asking Obama about his hair was clearly about establishing a connection, about confirming that the powerful person who looks like him is really like him in so many ways. As Obama adviser David Axelrod told Calmes, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’”
The power of that photo taken by White House photographer Pete Souza had those two elements for me. A black man allowing his head to be touched by a stranger. But not just any stranger. A child seeking a familiar link between himself and the black man, who also happens to be the leader of the free world. Still, I don’t think I can ever articulate everything the Souza photo says to me.
****
FEATURED VIDEOS [revised on August 24, 2014 because a previously posted video is no longer available.]
Example #1: Never Touch a Black Woman's Hair
AShotofJenn, Uploaded on Feb 1, 2012
Horrific thoughts when someone tries to touch my hair.
-snip-
Here are three comments from that video's viewer comment thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQB0THw6-wg:
TaShar16, 2012
"I have a serious question. Why can't/shouldn't you touch a black woman's hair? Seriously what are the reasons? I can see if the woman has a week and she don't want someone to know it's not really her hair. Or, is it because you feel the person's hand is dirty? I hear jokes about this all the time, but I really don't know why.
**
jackalo34, 2012
"From my experience, it’s a myriad of things. 1. Like you said, I don’t know where the person’s hand has been. 2. You might mess up my hairstyle. 3. MOST people do it without even asking and it’s plain rude. 4. A lot of people do it because they think you have a weave eg “weave checking” 5. Some people just don’t like being touched in general. Personally, I love when someone plays in my hair…but it’s gotta be someone I know like my bf or my family but yea."
**
OmoItsekiri, 2013
"If your hair isn't permed i.e. curly or coiled a LOT of random people on the street will actually ask to touch your hair! Sometimes you're just not in the mood to have hands pulling at your hair! I don't mind people touching my hair but within reason!"
****
Example #2: Don't Touch My Hair
jsi08, Uploaded on Feb 7, 2012
Mini rant.
-snip-
In this video a Black women who is mixed racal not only rant about people touching her hair, but also rants about people asking inapporpriate questions such as "What are you?" and "What race are you?"
****
Example #3: DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR WITHOUT ASKING!!
Tribesbez, Uploaded on Dec 29, 2011
Just a story about something that happened to me recently. Please leave your thoughts in the comment box!
-snip-
This young woman tells about the time when an older Black woman in the mall touched her hair and then described it a being coarse in an insulting manner.
Heeere ar three commens from the video's discussion threead:
SincereCurls, 2012
"That happens to me a lot... People are so intrigued with natural hair, Idk why, but they are... I totally agree with you on that the last thing that someone should do is make a negative comment about your hair after they touched it... I thought an older lady at my job was trying to get some tips from me when she asked me, "how did you get your hair like that?" I told her and she said, "so that is how you get it so nappy"... I was like really... Maybe I misunderstood her..."
**
kizzy6, 2012
"I so agree with you! Its about respect. I hate when my friends feel like they can just touch my hair after touching God knows what. NO THIS IS NOT A PETTING ZOO BACK UP! If someone ask maybe but its still awkward to me, its just hair!"
**
Kiki E., 2014
"I don't like when random people touch my hair. Especially if they don't ask. I go to a mostly white school and white girls always just think it's ok to come up to me and touch my hair."
****
Example #4: Interactive public art exhibit: You Can Touch My Hair
Confident Curls, Published on Jun 9, 2013
Here's an exchange from that video's interesting discussion thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbDgxJNIAVM
Ullah, June 2014
"THE PROBLEM is that whites often see blacks as a collective so that if one steals, for some
reason they like to think most blacks steal--if one likes or allows strange hands in their hair then others will too. I have had white women reach over and grab a hank of my hair to feel it also had them digging into the hair to my scalp to "see if it is weave". A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Touching hair will neither foster or engender understanding--it simply places a formerly ignorant group in the position of them thinking they know more than they really do.
I had a white woman tell me that my waist length hair (when it was that long) was weave because she read that black women could not grow hair. When I insisted it was, she reached over and ran her hands over my scalp before I jerked away-- she then asked me if I had that invisible strand weave because as she stated :she did hair so she knew my hair must not be real"
I told her that if you knew about single strand weave than she also knew that if felt it was easily discerned due to the stiffness of binding fake hair to real hair.
I also told her to not believe everything she hears no matter what color the source is--blacks can no more speak for all other blacks than one white can represent all other whites--what this exhibit did was get a lot of buzz and put people like me on display with many whites thinking that for some reason what a few did in one State must mean black women were now open to being head molested--I have to tell people to not put their hands on me--that is just nasty.
Reply by Jaunnette Lorimer, July 2014
"THE PROBLEM is that whites often see blacks as a collective" ... Did you not just make a collective as well? Not "some" or "many" or even "most" but a lump. I'm not saying it doesn't happen because I'm not stupid, but believe it or not, hair touching is not exclusively white to black. I had some guy rush up to me in a bar and go "I just have to feel it!" and crunch my hair in his hands. I was baffled, and so shocked all I could do was stand there and then finally go "Uh... okay bye?" and leave. Would I like it to happen again? Hell no, that was just weird. Do I go around touching other peoples hair? Only if I know them! And vice versa, I don't mind people touching mine but not a drive-by hair groping.
Personally, I don't think them doing this exhibit is wrong because I don't think promoting the actual "touching" of their hair is what it was really about so much as opening the conversation about it. As far as being on display I'm sorry you feel that way. Fact of the matter is we're all on display. Flat chest, big boobs,butt-length hair, pixie cut, curly, straight, red, green, purple.
You notice there were no men standing there with signs, I think that speaks to the problem being not just racial but gender. Women, all women, are objectified. Dissected down to a few base features. Isn't right by any means, but that's why opening conversation about it is important.
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RELATED LINK
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/25/touching.natural.black.hair/index.html
'Can I touch it?' The fascination with natural, African-American hair
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