Haircut Names have been changed...

A friend of mine named John met a woman named Jenna. They met in Texas, when John's band played in a bar in Jenna's hometown. Fast-forward several months and Jenna is moving to John's hometown, with the expectation that unless things go horribly wrong, John and Jenna will be Mr and Mrs before the year is out. Jenna is a hair stylist, and she's looking for a salon in the new hometown. She needs someone with long virgin (never permed or colored) hair to be a hair model, because at ritzy salons, stylists have to audition to be hired by giving a significant haircut while the salon owner observes their technique. John's female friends are trying to find the elusive hair virgin, and just like looking for a sexual virgin, we're having to resort to teenagers and geeky middle-aged men.

I work in the land of geeky middle-aged men, and so I asked a geeky virgin-haired middle-aged man a few cubes over if he'd be interested. There was some frivolity-other folks in the cube got in on the discussion-and I left the offer open.

Upon returning to my desk, there was an email detailing his Cherokee heritage (He has mentioned previously that his sons are 1/16 Cherokee, so apparently they convey a Cherokee heritage to him) and atheistic-slash-Buddhist spiritual walk and how the haircut offer was tantamount to offering pork to a Jew.

Aside: This is the comparison he made, but it isn't an accurate comparison. Not all Jews keep Kosher, and those that do keep Kosher say "No thanks, I don't eat (fill in the trayf food here)." rather than "To accept your offer would give offense to the generations of my ancestors who have been God's chosen since the time of Abram." But anyway.

There was further discussion in the email of the haircut "absolutely not" having "the short back and sides of Xiandom". I was not able to find the word "Xiandom" in any dictionary or in a search engine, but after some time realized that it's short for Christendom, like Xmas is short for Christmas.

I replied with an email apology, an appreciation that he spoke up rather than remaining offended in silence, and a request for his forgiveness. I guess he's forgiving me in silence.

I find myself troubled by this exchange.

I was a young girl when the African-American community was the Black community. There were those who claimed that they had 1/16th Native American heritage, naturally straight or wavy (i.e., not curly-kinky) hair, narrow noses, and other oddities. There were also those who claimed that the previous claimants were racist, unenlightened, self-haters denying their God-given blackness. On my Dad's side, there is a Native American ancestor, as evidenced by the cheekbones and dead-straight hair of some of my aunts and uncles, but I don't consider myself part Native American, nor did they.

Since that time, it seems like it's become cool to be part of a minority group. And so, I observe people laying claim to the old 1/16th Native American heritage, except now they aren't black people trying to be less black but white people trying to be less white. Others lay claim to 1/16 African-American heritage, and with these people I feel more at ease rolling my eyes and murmuring a heartfelt "Girl, PLEASE! Whatever!!" As I said before, I don't consider myself part Native American, but I am offended by proxy at the appropriation and reduction of centuries of Cherokee culture and heritage to a...haircut.

So, this African-American-Gyno human has stopped seeking out hair virgins for the Scottish-French-American-Gyno human significant other of her Filipino-Andro human friend. This can't-we-all-just-get-along stuff is hard.

Labels: poseurs, work

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