tousled

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:07 PM -0400 9/23/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>HDAS II has five exx. of _Isro_ beginning in 1975.
>
>Ye editor has never encountered _Jafro_ or _Jewfro_.
>
>In college, ye editor had an Italian friend with very curly hair.  He and
>everyone else just went ahead and called it an "Afro."
>
>
>JL

Mine was an officially designated Jewfro, registered well before 1975.

LH

>
>On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: tousled
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  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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>
>
>
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>
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