Undone By Her Radical ‘Do
Annah Anti-Palindrome is recounting a tearful tale to readers of Everyday Feminism:
I remember being ten years old and grieving my girlhood – that short period of time when I was allowed to exist without a preoccupation of my physical appearance constantly looming in the front of my mind – a time when my self-esteem wasn’t rooted in whether or not I was pretty enough, skinny enough, busty enough, sexy enough. Time passed and the more unattainable and oppressive heteronormative femininity felt, the more I grew to hate myself and everybody around me.
Hence, of course, the feminism. One mustn’t let all that hatred and self-involvement go to waste.
I let my leg and armpit hair grow long, and I let the hair on my head spiral into a nest of cords, matts, and tangles (a hairdo I would later ignorantly and appropriatively refer to as dreadlocks).
Bad dog. Minus ten points.
I ran away from home – started hitchhiking all over the country, going to feminist music festivals, entrenching myself amidst the company of other (mostly white) grrrls who were shirking their feminine hygiene routines (shaving, bathing, hair combing, general beauty maintenance regimens of all types).
We must warn The Patriarchy. Some woman hasn’t washed.
In navigating through a predominantly white, feminist punk subculture, I never gave a second thought to whether wearing my hair in dreadlocks was offensive — at least to anyone other than The Patriarchy.
Because if there’s one thing The Great Patriarchal Hegemon™ fears, it’s an unwashed woman with pretentious hair.
Having dreadlocks was part of what allowed me to stop obsessing over my appearance.
Yes, of course. Self-imagined radicals with ostentatious hair – hair intended to be “offensive to The Patriarchy” – give no thought at all to how they wish to seem. Who could possibly think otherwise? However, despite this selfless, fearless attempt to provoke The Patriarchy and render it a-tremble, it seems that in the real world no-one gave a shit:
I wasn’t followed around by security guards every time I went into a store. I wasn’t hassled by the cops for hanging out with my friends on street corners. I wasn’t hauled off to jail on the presumption that I was a gang member just because of my non-conventional appearance.
All that effort to no avail.
Being a white grrrl with dreadlocks, as well as someone who wore clothing scrappily held together by safety pins, dental fIoss and band patches, I was still considered employable and trustworthy.
Imagine her dismay. The beast isn’t biting. What’s a grrrl to do?
Despite my rebellious appearance, I enjoyed a level of tolerance from authority figures and society at large that can only be attributed to my whiteness.
There we go. Another windmill at which to tilt.
And so,
Everything changed when I stopped travelling, started investing in local activist projects, and began building a broader, more multiracial community. For the first time, my peers had lots of questions and critiques about my choice to wear dreadlocks.
Finally, someone has noticed her hair. And better still, new frontiers of outrage have opened up:
I learned to identify the ways that white colonist mentalities show up in our contemporary everyday lives. I realised that I was participating in the shitty reality that, for centuries, white people have felt entitled to taking pretty much anything their hearts desire – entire continents, human bodies, land resources, and, yes, whatever cultural trappings of the communities they colonised that were thought to be intriguing at the time.
Crackers be stealing the Sacred Black Essence. We’ve been down this road before, I think.
I finally cut them off – and when I did, I felt (literally and figuratively) a dozen pounds lighter.
And anyway, oppressing all those dark folk with one’s hair is so exhausting.
Though I am still pretty “alternative” looking, I’ve learned to stand up against systems of oppression by doing the actual footwork in my daily life. I no longer naively expect my physical appearance (on its own) to do that work for me.
Not that she ever cared about her appearance, you understand. Being so terribly alternative.
Annah Anti-Palindrome is “a Bay Area-based writer, musician, optical sound-smith and queer/femme antagonist.”
Spotted by Greg Knapp.
Update, via the comments:
On visiting Everyday Feminism, the first thing to appear was this:
“Scholarships available.”
Feel free to tickle my button.
“I don’t care that my presence illicitness discomfort and sometimes communicates what is seen as blatant disrespect!”
Ethel, the monkeys have been on the typewriters again!
There we go. Another windmill at which to tilt.
I’d like to remind everyone that Quijote was not an idealist–he was delusional. That “Dream the Impossible Dream” nonsense is a romantic reinterpretation of the story that Cervantes never intended.
Faced with the enormous windmills of La Mancha, Quijote declared them to be giants in need of a trouncing by a Valiant Knight. When Sancho observed that they were actually windmills, Quijote said that Sancho was obviously ignorant of Teh Narrative, which is why he failed to properly perceive the giants.
Reality, in the end, asserted itself with some force, as the vanes sent horse and rider tumbling into the plain. That’s a helluva tumble, BTW, the windmills being perched atop a significant promontory.
These and other assertions by reality did not shake Quijote from his delusion: instead, he blamed an evil sorcerer who was obviously stalking him and thwarting his efforts to Do Noble Deeds.
Whatever parallel to the article heading this post I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
The stupid, it burns!
I’d like to remind everyone that Quijote was not an idealist—he was delusional.
Someone fetch that woman cake, stat.
“Despite my rebellious appearance, I enjoyed a level of tolerance from authority figures and society at large that can only be attributed to my whiteness.”
DAMMIT! Anyway, has nothing to do with your whiteness, you self-important moop. It’s because all you “rebellious” types look alike, and all the “straight” “white” “Patriarchal” people are not only used to it, they’re bored with it.
Be daring! Cut off a limb!
And why does she say “white people,” and “black folks”? Isn’t that a bit…crackery?
I’ve often mentioned to friends a bumper sticker I keep threatening to print up, e.g. “Be different! Be NORMAL!”. I’m sure there’s at least a dozen or so normal people in the world i could sell them to.
a bit…crackery
Driving down I-75 from Georgia into Florida, noticed a big, new billboard advertising log-built “Cracker” homes. Shockingly, even it being one of the main thoroughfares into the state, no one but me appears to have noticed it.
wtp, this? http://www.crackerstyleloghomes.com/
Q&JSoABUK, yes. Dat be it. Wonders I could hit that racist site from work. The firewallmen are asleep at the switch again.
Sorry Anna | August 05, 2015 at 10:51
No bib and braces.
a good 50% of the population of the five counties comprising the SF Bay Area are, to be polite, less than totally sane. Some of them (I estimate 15%) belong in straight jackets.
aka, currently the BA does include a rather large debacle of hipsters.
A debacle of hipsters?
I thought the collective noun was a douche of hipsters.
I thought the collective noun was a douche of hipsters.
Eeeeeehhhhhnnn, I’m arguing no. Consider that slimeballs exist all over, therefore a douche of is a little vague.
Contrast with the several collective nouns of a debacle of hipsters, a congeal of hipsters, a fiasco of hipsters, when considering hipster fantasies of someday possibly managing to mebbe get mistaken for adults, the tasteful, the successful, the stylish, having intelligence. Such blatant pretension being a debacle, a fiasco, and they bloody well do congeal . . .
Rather in parallel, one thus then gets a style of mathematicians, an elegance of mathematicians . . .
Someone fetch that woman cake, stat.
My ABD in Spanish Lit needs to serve the world at least one day per year.
I’ll be at my ease until August 2016.
Meanwhile in New York, the scars of America are revealed in a daring yet NSFW or eyeballs way.
Also way too much, I might add.
I can’t tell if that last bit is intended to be snark, as “Yellow Cab” and “Slave Ship” don’t seem particularly analogous regardless of how many people you cram in the former, if not, the author need help, serious, serious help. It also appears our artist has culturally appropriated someone’s high heels.
“Crackers”
The current Mrs. Oik and I were on a road trip through the American Southwest a number of years ago and heading west out of Atlanta towards Savannah and the islands.
Being badly hungover after several days of drunken debauchery in New Orleans, a flight at “sparrowfart” a.m. and in dire need of food and a means of rehydration, we were pleased to find an establishment just off the cloverleaf.
It was a “trailer” (to us a “caravan”) in a lay-by (sorry, don’t the equivalent in Yankspeak) selling food and cold-ish cans of “soda” (“pop” to us Brits and, I am pleased to note, a substantial portion of the Mid-West).
There was a choice of Coke, Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper, served from a styrofoam chest full of water which had probably been ice that morning but by then it was about 37C and well past noon. There was only one type of sandwich available in two sizes. The staff were racially diverse- the black guy did the cooking and the white guy took the money (I’m consciously avoiding doing the “folks/people” thing).
The hand painted sign which had so attracted us read “Poke Chop Sanwichus $1.00 and £1.50”. The only misleading aspect of the sign was the spelling, because we each received a freshly-grilled pork chop, bone included, pressed between two unbuttered slices of Wonderbread.
I am not being sarcastic when I say that I genuinely love America.
Sorry- that should have read “east to Savannah”. Got my geography all ass-backwards.
Although Ms. Annah is anti-palindrome, she’s obviously “pro” “semordnilap.”
Lanc, all carbonated non-alcoholic beverages in Georgia and a lot of the deep south are called “coke,” small “c.” You have to specify the flavor.
It was a “trailer” (to us a “caravan”) in a lay-by (sorry, don’t the equivalent in Yankspeak)…
Rest stop or area, pull-over, parking area, turnoff, or turnout. There are also scenic overlooks if there is anything particularly scenic to overlook, though some have delusions of grandeur.
Most rest stops are on the Interstates, but smaller ones can be found on some US and state highways. Commercial activity is generally not allowed at proper rest stops on main highways, but there are lots of abandoned gas stations and stop-and-robs (with or without buildings still standing) that have roach coaches as you described.
My ABD in Spanish Lit needs to serve the world at least one day per year.
But more servings equals more cake.
Literally.
Is it worth pointing out that Afro-Caribbeans appropriated dredlocks and much else from the Indian community? As can be seen by the fact that Rastas called marijuana “ganga”.
Why is it wrong to appropriate poor hair hygene from people who appropriated it from others?
Is it worth pointing out that Afro-Caribbeans appropriated dredlocks and much else from the Indian community? As can be seen by the fact that Rastas called marijuana “ganga”.
Why is it wrong to appropriate poor hair hygene from people who appropriated it from others?
Because systematic oppressshun and other stuff like that, you shit-lord. Your facts aren’t welcome here.
Facts oppress her hair! Is it wrong that I want to laugh at her?
Yes, I can just imagine how awesome it would be to sit cross-legged on the ground at a music festival with several thousand women who have decided that hygiene sucks; never mind getting, er, “close” to one.
Got here via Timbo’s blog – if she wasn’t a Yank, she’d be a good chance to take out this year’s Frightbat Poll.
Annah Anti-Palindrome is “a Bay Area-based writer, musician, optical sound-smith and queer/femme antagonist.”
Why is she antagonizing queer/femmes? And why is she Anti-Palindrome? Are palindromes somehow patriarchal, or is that a Sarah Palin pun?
It’s really hard to overstate just how amazingly dense is the idea of ‘cultural appropriation’ being a bad thing. You see, transmission and adoption of ideas, both horizontally between different groups and vertically through time, is exactly what culture is. Otherwise every group and every generation would have to make things up from scratch, and we’d all be still at the Ardipithecus level of technological development. You can’t have culture without cultural appropriation.
The self-hatred of these people is the only honest emotional stance they exhibit.
Is it a stench of Skunks?
I’ve got a tenner that says she was sexually abused to some degree, hence the loathing of her won femininity.
No bet.
I used to laugh at these people, too, but a friend of mine starting dating in that pool due to the easy fishin’ and so I reluctantly got to know several of these types. While I have no doubt that some of their horror stories were exaggerated or affected for the attention it garnered them, a truly large number of them were, in fact, physically or sexually abused as children or adolescents. Enough so that it became fairly easy to spot the ones who had from the ones who were faking solely by the behavioural symptoms.
I can’t really find them humorous any more. By and large, they aren’t self-absorbed children with exaggerated egos; they’re deeply damaged people retreating into a coping mechanism.
It’s comforting to think that “the Bay Area” is a fictional creation invented to satirise cultural fads.
I can’t tell if that last bit is intended to be snark,
It’s Jonathan Jones, whose earnestly mouthed bollocks have amazed us before.
transmission and adoption of ideas, both horizontally between different groups and vertically through time, is exactly what culture is.
That. As I believe the happening kids say. See also Franklin’s recent post.
Taken at face value, the “outrage-as-a-lifestyle wing of the progressive Left,” as Franklin puts it, seem to want all culture racialised, ‘purified’ and categorised by tribal affiliation. A notion with unedifying historical precedents. And as exemplified by the Columbia University undergrad, supposedly a scholar of the humanities, who didn’t want to listen to Mozart’s music (to find out whether she might enjoy it) because Mozart wasn’t black like her.
When people want so hard to be different, I always think of this:
http://www.funnyonlinepictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/34.png
Where & when did the desire to do your own thing turn into a terrible self-regard?
-sigh-
Ah well.
Btw, is it slightly weird to say that I think Ms Anti-Palindrome looks kinda cute?
Are palindromes somehow patriarchal, or is that a Sarah Palin pun?
It’s just a silly play on words, hence Annah instead of Hannah or Anna, both of which are palindromes.
I wonder if “feminist” is the female form of “onanist” as the “Everyday Self Love Course” would indicate.
Btw, is it slightly weird to say that I think Ms Anti-Palindrome looks kinda cute?
Yes.
For irony:
Deborah Orr
The Picture of Dorian Gray made me forever suspicious of the self-righteous
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/06/picture-dorian-gray-hypocrisy-ravage-lives
For irony
Heh. Self-awareness, like logic, seems forever to escape her. For readers unfamiliar with Ms Orr and her mental cutting beam, see here and here.
It’s hard to tell, but she certainly doesn’t look skinny or busty enough from those pictures.
Did she add the “h” to her first name because she’s, you know, anti-palindrome and all?
Straw? No. Too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts.
Just to annoy anti-palindrome.
So, she’s Anti-Palindrome. I’m Uncle Paraprosdokian.
“It’s Jonathan Jones, whose earnestly mouthed bollocks have amazed us before.”
I’m afraid to click that link. 🙂
By and large, they aren’t self-absorbed children with exaggerated egos; they’re deeply damaged people retreating into a coping mechanism.
There are the genuine ones, as you say, and then there are the wannabees.
Scratch someone with Münchausen syndrome (not by proxy) and you’ll find a kid who was raised in a home where one member of the family was chronically ill, such that all the family’s time and emotion was consumed by that illness. They learned that to be sick was to be loved and to be well was to be ignored.
Likewise, the affectation of mental distress by way too many feminists is a method of winning sympathy, of being “interesting” and exotic, of being so exquisitely attuned to pain that all and sundry must treat them with kid gloves and RESPECT.
Those who are genuinely damaged often have personality disorders; borderline PD means an addition to drama — they don’t feel truly alive unless their lives are in utter chaos, so they ensure that their lives are chaotic, though they lack the capacity to see that they’re the ones causing it. No, it’s their tragic, tragic lot in life to be thus distressed.
It’s this disorder that’s inspiring the current feminist affectations. Mental illness as a status symbol.
What stupid, simpering fools humans be.
So, she’s Anti-Palindrome. I’m Uncle Paraprosdokian.
At some so far generally undefined point I will be utterly unsurprised to have someone vehemently scream of my being the Antichrist . . . of which I expect to note that Oh, nonsense, I’m very clearly much more of an Uncle Christ . . .
David, the problem with “earnestly mouthed bollocks” as a link for me is I’m afraid that I’ll click it and find some naked, out of shape, plastic encased artist funneling some other naked artist’s ball sweat onto a canvas.
Did someone say ball sweat…?
Test.