I’ve heard
a lot of hair comments over the years. Some weird, some stupid, some plain
idiotic. But last week I heard an unexpected one…
Some girls
in my class were talking about hair and one of them turns to me “Igor, you
got to have some foreign blood, right?” (That line doesn’t translate well from
Danish BTW. It sounds potentially offensive in English and it really wasn’t in
Danish.)
I was
pretty surprised because I have never had my well, Danish-nes, questioned
before.
And I guess
my answer of “Errh, well, I’m Danish with a bit of German and a tiny bit of
Spanish blood” wasn’t exactly what she was expecting.
That's indeed a strange one! I've seen pepole of all ethnic background with amazing or not so amazing hair.
ReplyDeleteBut hey! I'm German, I'm not entirely sure what my background is, but I'm fairly sure that there could be something Scandinavian, probably Swedish there. judging from the odd redhead in my family and looking at populations with a higher frequency of red hair, it should be.
Greetings from Germany from Gothic Lolita!
Well, while great hair is genetic, I don't think it's based on your background of where you came from.
ReplyDeleteMy family has British, Italian, Polish and some Cheroeke Indian (native american) I believe. Doesn't mean I was guarenteed to have great hair, but my parents both do and so did my grandparents on my dad's side, and since I take after his side, viola. :)
Great to see you're back, I've missed you!
ReplyDeleteAbout the hair/ethnic comment, couldn't it be about your hairtype being perceived as different from us more common fineys? I know I for one have oogled your hair, compared to my own spider web thin hairstrands and sighed more than once:)
I think there are common cliches about hair, for example that scandinavian hair is very fine and fragile. It goes for every type of cliche, like southern europeans are short and dark etc, that it applies to some, and doesn't apply to others.
ReplyDeleteI am French with Spanish blood on my mum's side and Italian (northern) on my dad's. My mum has very fine thinning dark hair and my dad has a full mane of luxurious light brown hair which has only started graying at the temples very recently. My brother has very thick, coarse "Spanish" hair.
I don't know what French hair is supposed to look like anyways, or what French people are supposed to look like either. We're neither particularly northern europeans or particularly southern either. Maybe we're supposed to have average european hair? (sorry for the random musings on hair and nationality here)
You should obviously take it as a compliment for your lovely thick hair, but I do feel it smelled very faintly of xenophobia. I'm not accusing your friends of being racist of course, just saying that by pointing out how different your hair is from other people of your nationality, they were sort of "other-ing" you.
Hey ! I just wanted to say to you that, I took the decision to cut all my hair to begin a very new hair journey from almost bald to knee length ! Your hair is a model to me so, I 'm going to knee length with my natural hair color. If you wanna see the haircut, you can go to my blog on november 30th ! Thanks for the inspiration ! *0*
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm french with a little bit polish and asian. I think the asian side help, my great grandmother had beautiful very long hair..
DeleteI've read Theodora's comment and just felt I had to write an answer. You write about how the comment Igor received smelled of xenophobia becasue they were othering her on account of her hair being different.
ReplyDeleteWhen did noticing that we're all not exactly the same as everybody else, to that being automatically based on fear or dislike?!
Igor has knee-length hair, I think she's aware of the fact that she's breaking the norm. Noticing that knee-length hair is unsual isn't by default a sign of disapproval. Being different, doing something original isn't a bad thing and pointing out that something isn't common or mainstream isn't derogatory.
There.
Now I can go on with my life.
I didn't mean that I minded the fact they pointed out her hair was different, since I thought they obviously meant it as a compliment as in "your hair is nice and different", not "your hair is different, go away you gross different person".
ReplyDeleteWhat bothered me was the fact it was associated to issues of nationality; the reasoning behind their comment being "your hair is different, therefore you must not be from here".
I probably shouldn't have written this and I definitely could have phrased it better, as I know that Igor said it really didn't sound racist and she personally didn't take it that way. I am not accusing her friends of trying to make her feel alienated, and she obviously didn't feel that way either.
Perhaps I just reacted to it this way because this is something that I have personally been annoyed with, that basically people refuse to believe that I am French on account of my physical appearance. Not that I care this much about my nationality just that being accused of lying about it is frustrating and kinda rude.
I feel very sorry if this is turning into a completely different conversation which Igor probably did not intend on starting, but I really thought what was interesting about her anecdote was how people have stereotypical ideas of what a person from a certain country is supposed to look like, at least hair-wise.
I hope this comment clears up things and I do offer my sincerest apologies to everyone involved, Igor, her friends and her readers, if I have offended them with my apparent ignorance that seemed to equate pointing out someone's differences with a negative thing.
I'm Irish and Finnish and I have thick (from Dad) resilient (from Mom) fine hair (everyone in my family has fine hair). I grew it to waist heat stying it, washing daily and regularly ripping a brush through it because I always wore it down. The hemline was even really thick. I'm trying to be nicer this time.
ReplyDelete