Is this for real!?

[conuly]

Q. Discount bin Merida: In a bit of a perfect storm of hair care, I recently shaved my head and then decided to stop straightening my curls when working from home looked to be a full-time thing at my job. Then my company brought us back into the office on a hybrid schedule. The timing has made the hair situation look a lot more extreme than it will in a couple of months (because there’s now no weight in my hair to pull down the curls).

This seems to have set off the marketing manager.

“Fern” doesn’t believe white women have curly hair. She’s accused me of cultural appropriation and blackface. She’s even threatened to go to HR. (Fern is white, too.)

It’s ridiculous. This is how my hair grows out of my head, ginger and spirals. However, I do feel bad because Fern is increasingly a laughingstock among people she’s ranted about this to. It also won’t reflect well on her judgment if she does take it to HR. So far, despite efforts by her friends, me, and one Black co-worker she tried to rope into this, she refuses to believe any evidence to the contrary.

Can you think of anything I can do to convince someone who’s SO embedded in SUCH a bizarre, and random, belief that my hairstyle does exist? Some of her friends have offered to pay for me to get my hair straightened, since she won’t let it go. I don’t want to do that, although I do feel a bit of a jerk since I assume that her fixation on the curl thing, in the face of all evidence, is probably a sign of something else going on with her. It also seems overkill to make any sort of official complaint over such a ridiculous thing.

(I did wonder if this was some sort of joke, but it’s just going on for so long I can’t see when she’d just laugh and expose the camera at this point?)

What a pickle! Firstly, you absolutely should not change your hair to suit this random co-worker who has a vendetta against your follicular expression. This whole thing seems to have spiraled out of control and it’s time to get down to the root.

Fern is out of her lane in a big way, and from the way you describe things, it seems like she’s basically harassing you. I know you don’t want to get management involved, but this is the sort of behavior that HR excels at clipping. (Well, probably not exactly this sort of behavior, but this kind of uncollegial pressure in general.) Yes, making an official complaint over a ridiculous thing is a big step, but without intervention, ridiculous things tend to stew in their own ridiculousness indefinitely.

From the way you’ve laid out the situation, I don’t think there’s anything you can do to convince Fern that your hair is actually your hair. Her actions have taken on the fervor of a crusade, and while it may be noble in her mind, it’s also dumb. Even if you were purposefully making your hair curly, it’s a giant leap to go straight to blackface. Has Fern never heard of a perm? Did Fern not watch the cursed season of Felicity? Let’s be serious. You’ve spent too much energy on this already and I think what’s best for you and for your workplace and for your Black co-worker who was someone pulled into this (bless their hearts) is to put some distance between you and Fern. And in an office environment, distance sometimes needs to be put into place by a strongly worded memo from a different department.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/06/coworker-cultural-appropriation-curly-hair-dear-prudence-advice.html

Comments

[azurelunatic]

This is the kind of situation where the first person to contact HR can set the tone.

[ashbet]

Uhhhhhhh.

*looks in mirror at my own natural hair texture*

And I cut it short once — ONCE — and learned my lesson ;)

This coworker sounds unhinged.

I can, I guess, understand ONE conversation about the hairstyle, but once the LW said that it’s her natural curl, that should have been *it* — Google exists for a reason, and this has definitely crossed the border into inappropriate work harassment.

LW should definitely get HR in on this.

[jadelennox]

Fern is ridiculous, but I've certainly encountered people who believe I couldn't possibly have this hair texture naturally, and mine's not even that curly, just plain old 3B.

Weirdly, one of these people is my mother.

[resonant]

But I mean even if it wasn't her natural hair texture, so what? Is cultural appropriation so ubiquitous that it's being committed by everyone who's ever touched a perm rod?

[minoanmiss]

LW has My Permission as an Official Black Girl to wear her hair how it grows out of her head or to change it if she likes. I have spoken.

*giggle*

[shanaqui]

The number of white people who discover their "frizzy" hair is actually "curly hair that has been treated badly all their life" when they try "the curly girl method" [goodness I hate that name as an enby who has taken some cues from it] actually surprised me quite a bit, but ginger hair and curls run together in my family (including in my childhood photos, where'd that gooo, give it back), so I shouldn't have been. Either way, a bit of surprise is fine, but this is ridiculous.

If I were LW, I'd go to HR now, maybe even just as an "I didn't want to report this, but I believe it's going to be reported anyway, and perhaps I can save some time by explaining now that my hair is naturally curly, and I really don't want Fern to be so upset, but I don't think the harassment of me to straighten my hair -- including by people offering to pay for it just to content her -- is acceptable."

[naath]

As a white woman with hair so straight it can't be curled... I am well aware that my hair texture is not aveerage, kI do wonder how one gets to be employed while thinking it is. (I sympathise wih hair growing pains. olthough mine are more about hair in eyes)

[lilysea]

I'm not sure if this letter is real,

or if it's a fake letter by a pro-racism troll...

[minoanmiss]

I can see how it might be a fake trying to call out "white-knighting" by making up a ridiculous example thereof. If it were written by a racist troll the Angry Person would be a Black woman and there would be fake AAVE quotations.

That said, I have learned a lot about hair care from a couple of Jewish friends of mine with hair pretty similar to my own, so I can believe LW exists, and we all know human barmyness knows no bounds.

[cimorene]

I had multiple, unrelated friends with hair like she's describing in middle school, one male and one female. So the hard part to imagine for me is that she's never seen similar white person hair before... unless maybe she always assumes it's an appropriative perm!

[ethelmay]

I wonder what she thinks about Bob Ross (who apparently did perm his hair).