I'm White and I Recently Touched a Black Woman's Hair

I love to write, but I don't write just for myself. I love the two-way dialogue that comes from reading your comments--even when my life gets busy and I don't have the opportunity to respond as quickly as I'd like. I appreciate how you all share parts of yourself and push my own perspective on the world.

One such example comes from commenter Phyllis. She responded to my recent post on not touching my hair with a comment that was so honest, it's resonated with me since I read it. You see, Phyllis is a white woman who has touched a black woman's hair. She writes:

"I'm white, and I recently touched a black woman's hair. I didn't ask first. The situation was a little different, but not so different that I think I'm off the hook.

We meet at a race amity conference, where we were both presenters; we attended each other's workshops, allowed ourselves to be vulnerable during a frank discussion about race, and made a promise to keep in touch. We both felt the potential for a deeper friendship. So as we hugged goodbye I expressed my feelings of affection by stroking her hair. She wears her hair straightened, and this was not about curiosity or wanting to touch something that had an interesting texture. It was simply an expression of what I was feeling, without so much as a moment's thought about how it might affect her.

I did not detect any reaction, nothing that would have clued me in to the inappropriateness of my behavior. But for several nights during the following week I had dreams in which she hovered on the periphery of the action, looking at me but refusing to speak. After the third dream I figured I must have subconsciously picked up on something that needed resolution, and I sent her an email asking if she wanted to tell me anything.

The phone conversation that followed was painful for me and difficult for her. But in the end, because I was able (this time) to listen without getting defensive and she was willing to take the risk of speaking and to forgive me, the incident served to strengthen our relationship.

Here's the point I'm trying to make, and I'm speaking particularly to any white readers who think they're immune to unconscious racist tendencies: There is no way we can claim freedom from the brainwashing about race that this society has been dumping on us for centuries. It doesn't matter if we identify as a different ethnicity; if we look white, we've absorbed attitudes of white privilege.

It doesn't matter if our families were not in this country during slavery times (mine weren't either--they came from Europe fairly recently); research has shown that immigrants pick up racist conditioning within a few months of their arrival.

The reason white people are less aware of the racist climate in this country is that our institutions have done a great job of keeping us blind, and we are comfortable in denial. And any time we begin to think that we're more aware than other white people, we run the risk of making fools of ourselves and insulting people of color.

The reality is that I should have known better than to touch a black woman's hair. I've been doing racial sensitivity training for many years. I even wrote a book about it. That phone conversation was so painful for me because I really hoped I had gotten to a place where I would never again do or say something that hurt a black friend.

But that's slightly unrealistic, and I think that the work of achieving true racial healing has more to do with how we behave after we realize we've screwed up. We're afraid of losing our dignity if we admit we were wrong and apologize. But actually we stand to lose something much more precious if we don't."

Thank you, Phyllis, for being so sincere and for putting your experience out there so we can all learn from it. It's really appreciated. xo's - Liz