tousled

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> if "tousled" is expanding its
> meaning, it could apply to a large Afro as well.

Exactly so! I hadn't thought of that, though I'd certainly have
considered a Jafro/Jewfro/Isro to be touslable. (The mind works in
mysterious ways!) I've heard all three of these in the wild, with
Jafro being most common. OTOH, I've heard only "Jewfro" on the tube. I
haven't seen any of them in print.

When I was in Germany, the indigenous human resources - well, it was
"indigenous personnel," in those days - always said that Negroid hair
was "schoen!" Unfortunately, the self-hatred that was and is probably
the major "side-effect," so to speak, of racism, a lot of black GI's
reacted negatively to this, being able to see in this genuine,
well-meant compliment only mockery. "My 'bad' hair is 'schoen'? Wha
chu tawm 'bout, cumrad?! I ain't did nuthin' t' you!" This resulted in
a lot of unnecessary friction. Of course, the poor Germans, being
entirely sincere, had not the *slightest* idea what they were doing
that was so wrong.

But the European scene was a mindfuck for the bruz and cuz. It was
American racism turned inside out. The primary, indeed, the *only*
factor that the Germans noticed or cared was race. Except that it was
a *good* thing! A German acquaintance, sunning herself, rubbed herself
against me and almost moaned, "I wish that I could be as dark as *you*
are!" But not because she had any interest in me qua me. Only my skin
tone mattered to her. A "Warmbruder," or gay guy, trying to pick me up
in the Hannover-Bahnhof, took my hand, kissed it (I thought that he
only wanted to shake hands. Really! I was fucking *shocked*!), and
whispered, "Ich *liebe* Deine *Farbe*!"

It was as though the granite millstone of race hanging from the black
neck had turned to gold. Being totally accepted simply because of
skin-color was a creepy as being rejected for that reason. It was
really eerie, because it wasn't true acceptance, merely weirdly-strong
interest in the totally-unexpected. Once, in a nightclub in Berlin,
some random frawline came over to me, took my hand, and began to
examine it. She held my hand up to the light, staring hard at it,
flipped it over and back - apparently, she found the pink palm and the
milk-chocolate back to be almost incomprehensible - stroked back and
palm with her finger tips, rubbed the back of my hand against the back
of her hand, checked out the result, released my hand, then turned and
walked back whence she had come, without having spoken a mumbling
word. You'd have thought that I was merely some museum exhibit.

Of course, at that time in Saint Louis, nothing like that would or
could have happened, because it would have simply never occurred to me
to go into a "white" nightclub.

As for my hair, the consensus of white Americans somehow appears to be
that it's "fluffy," though once it was described as being "like
[Causcasoid] pubic hair." Different strokes, I reckon. ;-)

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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