Via reddit’s SRSsucks forum, comes this stern correction regarding countercultural coiffure:
This is the post about white people with dreadlocks. This is the post about white people who just don’t get the possibility that they could be doing something colonialist.
The author of the piece, a self-described “white, queer, rural-identified, able-bodied+mentally ill Episcopal priest lady,” is unhappy with the sight of,
white dude colonisers with dreads.
Why?
Because we’re seeing white boys… maintaining and justifying racist hair.
Yes, racist hair.
And being white herself, our Racially Enlightened Hair Corrector has much to say on the subject of the melanin deficient:
White people have this terrible, awful, no-good habit of trying to take everyone else’s “authenticity” because they feel so like lost and indie and culturally dislocated and their poor little selves are so tired, because they have all this power and it’s so exhausting.
Which I’m sure describes every single pale person you happen to know, yes? Thankfully, the author is determined to make the world a kinder, fairer, fluffier place, a feat that’s to be achieved by everyone else doing exactly as she says. And so, should you encounter a pale person with politically incorrect hair, the author’s suggested response – the “only appropriate thing” – is to deliver a long, un-paragraphed diatribe with fits of random shouting:
O my fucking sweet Mary mother of God WHAT are you doing with your HAIR? Do you have NO idea what that hair means?
And,
Do you not understand that locs are an intensely political statement and that black people – especially black women – are constantly policed about their hair?
And,
Are you ENTIRELY unversed in ways that it is a fucking day-to-day struggle to even exist and advocate for oneself in the hegemonic power structure of contemporary America and trying to negotiate the politics of their fucking hair on top of that exhausts them daily?
And then, on account of being so enlightened and righteous, things get a tad emotional:
What are you going to do next? Wear a hijab? DO YOU FEEL ENTITLED TO THAT, TOO, BECAUSE YOU APPARENTLY FEEL ENTITLED TO FUCKING EVERYTHING ELSE?
Once the roar of piety has subsided a little, the offenders of hair propriety are instructed to,
Learn how to do the most basic power analysis.
Because white men with ‘locs’ aren’t just committing a fashion gaffe, they’re stealing the very essence of black people, all of whom, obviously, are exhausted by such things. (To say nothing of the countless Sufis, Maoris, ancient Spartans and Hindu holy men, who have at various times worn their hair in a similar fashion.) Yes, we’re in the realm of politically unauthorised hair. Why, it’s practically abuse.
One supportive commenter captures the warm and generous spirit of the post:
If you have a privileged body, shut. UP. Seriously.
Our teachers have spoken. We must feel their pain and do as they say. 
Makes you long for the comparative innocence of the days when self-righteous ladies went around jabbing at offending chaps with umbrellas. Okay, those days probably never existed. But it sounds fun.
Normally I’m all for the pedantic unearthing of recondite connections between hitherto unrelated subjects, so the politics of hair sounds quite interesting generally – it’s just the combination of that idea, and the extreme self-righteousness of the blogger, makes the whole thing deliciously absurd.
In view of this article, baldness is the true progressive answer.
What a bunch of post modern, Luddite losers.
This seems somehow relevant. If you can, do stick with the video. The clucking outrage gets a little competitive.
As Ace says,
And remember, these people are students, intellectuals, our hope for tomorrow. Truly, we live in an age of heroes.
“You’re not allowed to interrupt.”
Stunning.
Stunning.
It’s a conversational car crash that keeps on crashing, over and over again. It’s practically burlesque. But it’s a logical endpoint of being schooled in identity politics and competitive victimhood. If your precious misfit status has been cultivated and dramatized to such an extent, where else can it go? The standard techniques – feigned outrage, dogmatic browbeating, quoting Judith Butler – may work on people who aren’t familiar with the pantomime and can’t claim any victimhood points. Being shrieked at and scolded by a bare-breasted lesbian can, I’d imagine, be a tad unnerving.
But as Ace notes, all of the participants claim the same right to win by default, on account of their being “marginalised” and, by their reckoning, automatically fabulous. The initial crux of the argument – whether lesbian #1 must think of a trans woman as equally female and part of the lesbian’s tribe – is lost in the performance. It’s just a pretext for some grandstanding. And so we get the flimsy gay guy in the jaunty hat insisting he’s a lesbian too. (Because… well, extra points!) Amid all the bluster and theatrical exasperation, it just becomes a row over whose Rules of Pretending™ should prevail.
As I’ve said, it helps to think of these things as a social positioning exercise. And this little pantomime hasn’t been arrived at by accident. It’s a drama they’ve been taught.
To be fair angry lesbian “accepts” that baseball hat gay / lesbian guy / girl “exists” so she’s much nicer than the average Palestinian.
Wow, so many rules.
Cameras stealing their souls was bad enough, now they have to put up with loc copyright violations.
Don’t tell the Celts.
“White, queer, rural-identified, able-bodied+mentally ill Episcopal priest lady”
Nyah, nyah I’m victimier than you.
“Are you ENTIRELY unversed in ways that it is a fucking day-to-day struggle to even exist and advocate for oneself in the hegemonic power structure of contemporary America”
Why, yes. Yes I am entirely unversed in whatever it is you said. And for that I fall on my knees and thank God.
If Black people love their kinky hair and dreadlocks so much that they deny white folks from having them too …. why are so many black hoes wearing white girl wigs, including America’s first lady hoe the Mooch herself.
Black girls all envy white girls, they have nose jobs, lip jobs and wear wigs or use a flat iron so they don’t look so African ugly.
Blacks are so fortunate to have this white woman looking out for their interests.
Next week on the chopping bock: White boys who play the blues.
6. If people who are marginalized and oppressed say “Do not presume to speak for us,” do not presume to speak for them.
An American:
Identity as a Venn diagram.
Sorry, I’m going to have to steal that line. Without accreditation. Just try to stop me.
Unless of course you’re marginalized or oppressed.
So are blacks infringing on white culture when they straighten their hair?
No, Gearbox, it’s just another unfortunate expression of white oppression and black self-hatred.
This seems relevant too:
And so we get students exaggerating their precious misfit status and bitching about which of them is more put-upon than the other. And likewise, we arrive at arguments about racist hair.
“What are you going to do next? Wear a hijab?”
The scariest line in the whole damn thing, David — becuase that might just be what they are going to do. Crazy people tune right in to the zeitgeist sometimes.
People who were deluged with political correctoids in places like Berkeley, Madison, etc over 30 years ago learned fairly quickly that justifying yourself to these harpies was merely feeding into their madness.
It quickly became apparent that the only suitable response was “Do go fuck yourself.”
Being shrieked at and scolded by a bare-breasted lesbian can, I’d imagine, be a tad unnerving.
There must be a website for that.