A meditation on something dread-full...but meaningless

Today I saw an interesting thing. There was an article on the web…actually a personal essay. It was written by an extremely earnest young individual and published (as I recall) by a left of center website.

But what intrigued me was the topic. The author was a white woman, intensely opposed to the patriarchy and the system As It Is. Which is quite understandable and, indeed, in my opinion, praiseworthy. Even as a white, middle-class, middle-aged male, I can see that.

But, where the story gets complicated is in her topic. She had written what amounted to a mea culpa…because of her hair.

She had, it seemed, dreads—dreadlocks, I mean. She had adopted this style as a means of advertising her opposition to the white patriarchy in all its manifestations.

Okay, fine. I’m not particular fond of dreads on us white people. I think they look kind of ridiculous. But it absolutely none of my business how people want to their wear their own hair.

But, the woman wrote…and wrote with what I think was real anguish...she realized that her adoption of the hair style was “cultural appropriation,” that it signified her own white privilege, and that she should be truly ashamed of herself. As an act of contrition, she then promptly snipped off her un-curly locks.
I came away from the story just a bit astonished. Because, well, bluntly, it is beyond what good or bad was done here.

I mean, honestly, exactly what real, honest-to-God, actual harm did her dreads do anyone or anything? Did they increase the probability of a young black man getting shot at random traffic stop? No, probably not. Those odds are pretty damn high as it is.  Okay, so did they cause more young women of color or otherwise to be raped and killed in their own neighborhoods? Again, no. That happens all too often, neither in spite nor because of anyone’s haircut.  So…let’s cut to the chase. Did her dreads mean that there were more drone strikes in Iraq, more innocent people blown to shreds in the Middle East, more people of color beaten to death in the backs of police vans…more wars or destruction or death or oppression?

Answer? No, no, no, and, for a change, no.

Okay, let’s play it back the other way. The author cut her hair. Did that do any good? I mean, real, material, physical good that you could see, feel, or measure? Did it reduce poverty in America? Did it feed hungry children in the streets? Did it put any serial killers, sadists, thugs, child abusers, terrorists, KKK members…or International Bankers…in jail?

Uh…no.

Very, very honestly, I am not sure that anything did happen here. I feel that it is complete non-event. Maybe it made the author feel better, which is fine. Maybe a few of acquaintances were no longer offended by her act of cultural appropriation…which is a good thing, I suppose. But, again, it seems a little irrelevant to the world at large.

Yet, clearly, this was an issue…for the author, and perhaps for the acquaintances I mentioned. And that concerns me.

The reason? If you really want something to be concerned about, if you want an issue, open your newspaper. Or turn on the computer. There’s lots to pick from, much of it perfectly horrible. In my own city paper, this morning, the headline article refers to a child, a Native American girl of just 11 years, who was abducted and killed by a stranger. They found her body on the mesa. The good news, if there can possibly be any, is that think they’ve caught the man who did it. (He won’t last long in prison, I suspect.)

Or, if that’s not to your taste, look over to the right side of the paper. We have news of Donald Trump’s more or less total victory in the GOP primaries. It is now pretty certain that he will be the candidate. That is a terrifying thing. I am one of those who believe that a Trump presidency could spell the end of the nation as we know it. But, then, none of the other Republicans were much less of a threat. (Can you genuinely envision a Ted Cruz in the White House? Or any of the puppets of the Koch Brothers?)

Still not enough? Okay, let’s flip open the paper. On the next few pages we have shootings and killings; stories on the increasingly bloody wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan; refugees turned back or beaten in Europe, or drowned off its shores; a feature on increasingly severe weather events, and the global warming which may make parts of the Middle East and North Africa uninhabitable before the end of the century; job losses and factories closing everywhere as the Neoliberal, Neo-Managerial, Post-Industrial Economy completes its disembowelment of the world…

There is, in short, not a place on the planet where you couldn’t find something…something real, something tangible, a genuine threat to life, limb, and liberty…to be concerned about.

In comparison to that, hair…or “cultural appropriation,” whatever the hell that really means…simply doesn’t cut it. No pun intended. It is, at best, irrelevant. At worst, it is a distraction from the real problems that we face as a civilization…from, in fact, the things which could result in our demise as a species.

That’s why this story of the author and her hair worries me. I don’t mean to focus on this one woman, or her essay. I don’t mean to personally rebuke her or discount her concerns. But, I have seen too much of this kind of thinking among the intellectuals, academics, activists, and others who should be at the cutting edge of social change, who should be the ones leading the charge, who should be fighting for inclusion, liberation, the end of oppression in all its myriad forms…

Yet, instead, they have focused on symbols rather than facts, on the abstract rather than the actual. Which means, in material terms, in terms of measurable good or bad, they might as well have never existed at all.

So, I beg you… all of you…idealists and activists and intellectuals…

For God’s sake, forget the hair, forget the “cultural appropriation,” forget the relentless hunt for slightest ideological imperfections in yourself and others… even, yes, for now (if not forever), forgive and forget the occasional “micro-aggressions” and insensitivities of even clueless white males like myself (well-meaning, but so dreadfully unaware of our privilege)…

And see the world as it really is…where they are much greater, much more dangerous dragons to oppose… far more deadly than dreads… even more perilous than men like me. Because dreads can be cut. I can be ignored.

But the deaths of children, of hope, of life…

Such things are horribly, terribly, unforgivably eternal.