Can't Touch This!

DISCLAIMER: I do love my melanin-impaired sisters and brothers. I promise...That is all


So I've been wearing my hair natural for about 3-4 years now which for someone like me is a blessing and a curse. I get bored quickly with hair styles so it allows versatility, especially when I feel like randomly chopping off my hair (which happens every year and I have been extremely strong in 2014. Whoot whoot!). On the other hand, being natural does require a lot of work which sucks for me because I'm also extremely lazy when it comes to hair. On a good day it's a coiffed fro, on other days it's in my Lady of Rage afro puffs and when I REALLY feel like showing out, I get it blown out by the Dominicans and wear it straight or throw some flexi-rods in it and Shirley temple that ish up. WHY am I telling you all of this you ask? Well I wanted to give you some back story. 

Growing up I attended a pretty diverse high-school so I never really had to deal with The Questions when it came to my hair. You know, those questions...

• When you get braids -"OMG, how did your hair grow so fast?"... 
• And the reverse when you take them out "OMG, why did you cut your hair?"
• "Do you wash it every day?"
• "How did you make it curly like that?" 
• "Do you wear weaves?" etc...

No, those questions did not come until college. The college I attended was fairly diverse BUT you had kids coming from different parts of the country and the world who only knew what they saw on TV so there was a bit of a learning curve. Hell, my first college roommate actually wanted to help me take out my sew in...and I let her (my arms were tired, so what. Don't judge me lol).

Anywho, what I did NOT expect living in a city like New York, was having to deal with these questions daily at my place of employment. 

Let me explain, I work in a corporate office and am one of a few brown M&M's (yes, that's what I call us. Copyright). But working where I work, with educated people and all, I thought that maybe these questions would stop or at the very least be deemed inappropriate to ask a colleague that was not at a "work friend". Wrong. WRONG. It's actually worse.

For Example...

Like I said before, sometimes I can get lazy with my hair -- We had an event coming up so the night before I put flexi-rods rollers in my hair and the next day when I came into the office, I had the whole 50's pin-up look going. Next night, not so much. I was exhausted and entirely too tired to roll it again so I wrapped my hair, put a scarf on and called it a night. Now, for those of you ethnic-hair-challenged folks, a wrap is that doobie thing Rihanna wore to the Grammy's

...Yeah, us brown girls (and some guys) wear that to bed :)

Anyway came into work the next day and the comments began...

"OMG you changed your hair again" 
"How did you make it straight so fast?" 
"Did you wash your curls out?"

Listen my Caucasian love muffins; I love you but a) Why are you clocking what I do with my hair and b) Please stop acting like I just morphed into a Power Ranger right before your eyes every time I change my hairstyle. It's not that serious lol.

But alas; it's not just the questions. Now there seems to be this culture of touching. For instance...

Last September I was in two, count'em two, weddings so I decided to add some length to my hair (notice I said length because for some reason if white girls get length it's called extensions but when we have them it's called weave. No thanks). 

Now I kept this look up for a while. One day as I'm walking down the hall on my way to see a client, I bump into one of my "colleagues" -- I use the term colleague loosely because we are not in the same department, we don't deal with each other often and she usually just gets the generic "Hey how you doing" wave. You catch my drift. 

In passing she says:

"OMG, your hair got so long. Wait is that all yours?"...Then proceeds to reach out and try touch the ends of my hair. 

PAUSE B***H 

1 - I was completely caught off guard. WTF. We are not friends. We don't hang out. Why and how is that any of your business? And furthermore, since when is that an appropriate question to ask someone just off the cuff?

2 - I have never matrixed out of the way so quick in my life. You'd of thought she tried to stab me.

But nonetheless, where and when did it become 'OK' to lay hands on my person. I am not a dog, you do not pet me or anything on my body.

And that was just extensions. Could you imagine if that was a wig?!?

I have a piece I like to call She,Me,Her that gives me a little Diana Ross feel. I like to break it out every so often when I go out; you know, for fun. But I would NEVER wear it to work for that very reason.

*Celie voice* I swear fo' Gawd, IF somebody were to EVER put their hands through She,Me,Her and that ish shifts to the side; I promise you boo boo, I would end up in HR and/or my friends would have to bail me out of jail.

Unfortunately, that was not the first or the last time something like that happened to me at work or even outside of work with a complete stranger. Honestly, I could go on for days. But I guess what I'm asking is does this happen to anyone else? And if it does, do you too find this as annoying as I do or #IsItJustMe

Hey nerds, just a quick PSA before I get out of here: 

The blog is still a work in progress - Logo and Facebook page coming soon - BUT in the meantime... Like, Comment, Share, FOLLOW 

Love, Peace and Hair Grease