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.

This has been interesting and my original toughts have yo yo'd a bit and made me consider and look at certain things in a different way.

And yes White people have been the victims of racism at times bit you really can't compare it to the racism that black people have experienced. I would never tell a Jewish person that I understand what they had to deal with because Catholics faced prejudice where i'm from in Scotland.

Is there a difference then between the definition of racism when it's directed at a non white person than when it's directed at a white person? It's as hurtful and rude to whoever happens to be on the receiving end, surely.

No one person, or group of people should be solely responsible for defining anything. And just because a person feels something to be true, that doesn't necessarily make it so. We are all products of our own experiences/backgrounds/upbringing/religions and what we think and believe is inevitably affected by that. Who is to say what a truly objective viewpoint really is?

Personally, I feel I have as much right to define what racism is as anybody else. That's not the same as saying that someone from a minority population can't also define it, but they are no more likely to be right than I am. What will offend one black person may not offend another, any more than what will offends one white person, will offend another.

I have a husband and father who would be more than capable of defining misogyny. Being male, doesn't make their viewpoint 'less' than mine.

I think to say someone is exotic is a bit dodgy. To want to touch a stranger's hair though to me is very strange, even if their hair was made of rainbows or spun gold!

When I was younger I was blue eyed, very pale with white blonde hair. We used to go on holiday to Spain once a year. My mum says the amount of strangers that used to just come up to me, say nothing and stroke my hair!

A guy tried to lead me away in a Spanish market too .

It's not the definition of racism, it's everything else that comes with it. On the whole 'white' people have not experienced what black people have and still deal with racism whether casual, unintended or of the BNP variety. As a White person I can try and understand and empathise with what black people experience but I will never truly understand what they face and how they feel, even if I have experienced a few racist incidents myself at some point. It all goes much deeper.

sozzled, if you, as a white person experience racism, then it will be just as hurtful to you as it is for a black person if they experience it. The colour of your skin, does not make the experience 'less' for you.

If you look at history, you will see that people from all backgrounds and colour have experienced slavery, oppression, ethnic cleansing. It's not top trumps - no one group's experience is more valid than anyone else's.

The simplest definition of racism is that

Racism is prejudice plus power.

All people of any ethnic group can be prejudiced, only those who have power are racist. When people use their position of power to reinforce their prejudices and to enforce them so that as a result of their racial prejudices the rights and opportunities of others are limited, the result is racism.

Minority groups within a particular society can of course be prejudiced toward the majority on an individual basis, but they are not racists at the structural, institutional level because they don't have the socioeconomic clout. Someone from an ethnic minority can behave in a prejudiced manner towards someone from the majority group, but it's an individual act, not a socially structured power arrangement.

By that logic then, the only people capable of true racism are the ruling classes then. White people are not a homogeneous mass. We don't all have the same positions within society and the same advantages. Personally, I feel pretty powerless regarding the state of the nation.

Karma, I don't agree. I was annoyed and bemused when I experienced racism and prejudice, for some White people I am sure it is much more unpleasant. I would never pretend that this makes it possible for me to understand then how black people are affected about racism and how they feel about it and how it has shaped their lives and how they feel and view things.

Hannah Pool is a boombaclart.

Exotic means more than beautiful. It means enticing but a little bit scary too. I think it's a very strange word to use about a stranger's appearance.

As an individual, you felt a certain way, but others may feel completely differently about the same event.

What is boombaclart?

well there is positive interest in the otherness of another person and there is the negative interest that we associate with the ugliness of racism. It is up to the person on the receiving end I suppose. The first doesn't bother me, if you look different, you look different. I think everyone picks up very clearly on whether the interest is tinged with friendly interest or with dislike.

If you look very different to the norm where you are, you look exotic. We all look exotic in some places

I remember when I went to Venezuela being told by a fewf women that I looked exactly like some doll they had as dc -the colouring and the face. They wanted a picture of us together because of this, since I looked weirdly like some Venezuelan doll. It was odd but not offensive. My dd gets her head touched in Egypt because I think blonde hair is supposed to bring luck but there is nothing to my mind offensive about it.

The general consensus is that strangers shouldn't touch pregnant women's bellies, but it's ok to stroke stranger's hair... like goats in a petting zoo?

Yes. it is racist and no you don't and ask to touch strangers ffs

the wise thing might be to keep in mind that some people wouldn't like it. Personally I was never bothered at having my pregnant belly touched or my hair but we are not all the same obviously

@MamaLazarou Haven't heard that phase for a long time, made me LOL

This is getting ridiculous.

Exotic = racism? behave yourselves!

I'm a white,
When at school I was pushed in the bushes by a group of black girls.
I was assaulted by a black guy.
I had my "boobs" oinked by a bunch of black guys on bikes.
I was mugged outside my school by two black guys and one black girl.

A white friend and I were sitting in the wimpey bar one saturday. Two black guys came and sat next to us, threatened us, before leaving, spat in our faces.

So, shall we say that I have also been subjected to racism?

phrase even

Karma it is not a nice turn of phrase but being in the midst of a serious discussion it made me laugh

As you were...

Oh and forgot to say, I was drugged and raped by a black guy due to the fact "he actually stated this" I wouldn't go out with him because he was black" - this was not the case, I just didn't bloody fancy him.

Now, if this isn't a racist attack I don't know what is.

HardCheese thank you, I've been wanting to make that point the whole thread but knew I was way too tired to articulate it properly

asking to touch a strangers hair is not usually done in our culture. When in Rome etc

'Exotic' simply means 'foreign'.

I was at Warwick Castle with a Scottish friend in Highland garb once and some Japanese tourists jostled for a photo of themselves with him.

I was in Sri Lanka once in a fishing village and a woman came up to me and touched my eyelids. I asked her why and through sign language she said it was because they were grey. well, they started off the day with black eye shadow on but it had faded or worn away as the day passed. I did not feel anything racist at all about it. It was simply one culture meeting another. I suppose it was an eye opener for both of us. (And no, my face was not caked in pancake makeup in a hot country - just something to make my eyes more 'visible').

Agree with all the exotic is patronising, colonialistic, petting-in-zoo type comments. I also am British and do not look typically English, I don't start spitting feathers if someone tells me I am exotic-looking but tend to respond in a "riiiight, okaaay then" kind of a way. (Back away slowly)

I hate it when people ask me where I am from originally, which thankfully does not happen to me very often at all because well, you know, this is not the 1950s and most of my peers consider me to British, not exotic and not "other". I hate being "othered". Exotic is right up there to me with phrases like "dusky maidens" in my book.

I'm always seen as an "English Rose" which to me means rather plain, but that is personal to how I feel about being called this (nothing at all racist in it). I'd LOVE to be called exotic. As humans it seems we all want a bit of what we havent got huh.

Friend of mine is a Malay Indian, her name on dating sites is "Exotic Creature".

Racism is only permitted to be prejudice with power??

Ok, what do you tell my black African client who spent his school days being beaten up and called a monkey by his Caribean school mates? Or the Jamaican boys taking the piss of the St Lucians for being from a small island?

Or the quite vicious racist abuse sadly often prevalent between black and Asian communities??

With all due respect you don't half talk tosh.

I think that racism is being melded with prejudice here

Between ALL people there is prejudice...I think Spero you are mistaken in some of your racism examples..I am from a Caribbean back-ground and the small island thing is not imo racism...

Racism is a belief or doctrine that the inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others. This is also compounded by a government and socially acceptable behaviour that results in the bad treatment and supression of another race so YES in truth true racism is defined to a certain degree by power.

Prejudice on the other hand covers a multitude of sins this is an unfavorable opinion or a feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
also any preconceived opinion or feeling, favorable or unfavorable is a prejudicial one.
but it also covers unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group.

Racism is about intolerance and supression

Where the tenuous line where prejudice stops and racism starts is difficult...