To think someone saying your hair is exotic & wanting to touch it is not racist?

[BoobleBeep]

I'm wondering about this, I have tried to link the articale by Hannah Pool in Grazia but can't find it online.

It was an article on casual racism in the UK and she cited an incident where she had been in the womens toilets and a white women had said how beautiful and exotic her hair was and asked if she could touch it (whilkst reaching out and touching it), Hannah Pool said no you can't and teh women said she was rude.

I lived in Japan for years and had blonde hair back then. Lots of people saidhow exotic my hair was and people liked to touch it sometimes, it didn't bother me at all. My daughter is mixed race and has gorgeous very thick black hair and I love touching it as it is so different to my own.

I have afro-Caribbean hair and grew up in Cornwall so had my fair share of people wanting to touch my hair. To be honest I hated it and the last time someone tried to touch my hair uninvited I recoiled in horror. I don't think it's racist but weird and patronising. This is because usually people attempt to touch it before you have given consent.

Touching someone elses hair uninvited is rude, not racist.

Mixed race hair certainly isn't exotic around here, but it doesn't stop me wanting to touch it. Of course I never would. It's just not the done thing. Invasion of personal space and all that.

Touching someone's hair expressly because it is different and "exotic" is though. I assume the woman in the story doesn't grab every white woman's hair she meets.

If a man at your work grabs your butt is he being sexist or just rude for touching you? He's being sexist because he is only touching you because you're a woman.

EleanorRathbone you put this so brilliantly, I just wanted to quote you for posterity:

"casual racism isn't about wanting to cause offence is it, it's about having the privilege of not having the faintest idea what might be accidentally offensive and expecting someone to receive what you say on your terms rather than their's."

Touching someone's hair, uninvited, because it is exotic is casual racism. It is saying that I can do what I want because I am me and you are other, ergo other is inferior.

I dont like exotic either.

the hair touching thing? Not sure. It does seem an odd thing for a grown woman to do to another grown woman.

I complemented a black woman on her beautiful wavy dreads once and she looked at me as if I was a bloody fool. I just put that down to her sterotyping me as a stupid blonde white girl.

I just thought she had lovely hair. Not exotic or unusual. I am surrounded by dreads and afros in my house.

I have very curly/frizzy hair even though I am white and when I was a child mums used to coo over it as if I was an exhibit. Now, though, I am constantly annoyed by the assumption that there is something 'wrong' with curly hair and that it must be smoothed and straightened or otherwise it looks hideous. There is a current TV advert that says almost exactly this. Even my daughter's form teacher suggested she should straighten hers (it's even frizzier than mine) no doubt expecting to be thanked for suggesting a solution to the 'problem'. It seems that curly hair is either wierd or wrong. I think that's rooted in racism. FFS, its just curly hair!

I adore curly hair.

My youngest has the curliest of all my 5 DCs. I just love to put my fingers in it.

I need more gin

I'm one of those people who compliments other women when I feel the urge. I reckon we're mostly a bit short on positive feedback, so I do it. Now I'm thinking perhaps I shouldn't.

I dunno.

Not so long ago I was on a train pretending to be engrossed in my phone and out of the corner of my eye I just caught a glimpse of this hand making its way in the direction of my hair...I put a stop to that very quickly! I wear my hair in an afro quite a lot (the bigger the better) and get some curious looks and/or questions which I'm usually happy to entertain but do not touch the fro without asking, its just rude.

There was also a lady at my old work place who thought it was funny to pet my hair or stick things in it, I put her in check and she took offence telling another colleague that I "should be happy that she wanted to touch it at all!" Idiot!

I mean, if anybody can take offence at anything, which I guess they probably can, should I just keep my mouth permanently shut? Until this evening, I've figured that a couple of inadvertent offences are worth it for the dozen day-brighteners. But maybe not, since offence clearly runs so deep.

More

I have to admit there is a genuine urge to touch a proper spectacular fro.. hmm I find them most impressive. But I know better than to touch people.

Afro, gimme guidance! Obviously I wouldn't grab your tresses or stick things in it

Now, if I were on your train and said I hope you don't mind me saying I think your hair looks amazing ... does it offend you?

I think saying "I love your hair" woudn't be taken wrong by most people Garlic, its the touching and the "exotic"

Absolutely! I'm a sucker for a compliment.

Garlic, that should have read absolutely not!

Yeah, sorry, I think you're being a bit disingenuous, garlic!

Surely it's easy to pay someone a compliment in a genuine, neutral, non-patronising way?

It's nice that you pay random compliments. I might try to do that more. I often think things but never say them. Not much use in that!

@ Slinking, do it! It makes me feel good if I'm having a shitty day.

I see why the 'exotic' could be offensive but, really, doesn't it depend on the circs? People call my experimentally bright-coloured clothes exotic (long story). I always suppose they mean 'different', 'noticeable' - which is the point! Clearly, I've got no idea whether Pool's hair was 'exotic' at the time. In the photos I googled, it was either short or straightened (extensions I thought) so not outstanding. If she had cascades of glistening corkscrews or something that time, it would be ... exotic.

I'll make bloody sure I don't use that word around any but the most average white person in future, though. Oh, hang on, your average white person isn't exotic by any stretch! Damn!

Thanks. I might be being dumb, but not disingenuous.

I love that film, Eleanor :) Timely reminder, for many of today's threads!

good grief. why not have a read of this - for all those who think there's no harm in treating another human being as 'exotic'. www.amazon.co.uk/Hottentot-Venus-Saartjie-Baartman-Buried/dp/0747592845/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321660848&sr=1-1

this tragic young South African woman was also a symbol of the abolished slave trade, exploitation and colonialism ... that's the pathos of her story, isn't it, Alisa, along with far too many similar ones. How does it demonise a word?

I have never heard of a white person called exotic...