Boy, this pushes a lot of buttons for me.
Because it's not the hair. It's the stinky hair products.
I'm white. I have chemical sensitivities. Perfumes in products (and perfumes are in almost all products) can make me very ill. One bad exposure when I'm vulnerable can lay me out with dizziness and headache and hives that can last for days. Over the years, I've had many painful experiences of being excluded from places I wanted to be because someone was wearing very smelly lotion or had used hair spray recently, or used a smelly conditioner. And I have had more than my share of people denying that this could be a problem. Some people don't believe in chemical sensitivities at all; some are sure their hair gel can't be making me sick because it's "all natural"; some are convinced that what I'm experiencing as a toxic cloud of sick-making poison is "lightly scented" and is therefore OK; and some, to draw on a real experience I've had, just flat-out put their "need" to moisturize their hands right this second above my need to not be in an enclosed car full of perfume.
So one button that was pushed for me was the dismissive language used to describe the teacher's allergy.
But I also had a reaction to the racial element of the story, because I've had my own experiences with that.
For instance, years ago I was at the FGC Gathering, and tried to attend all-gathering worship. I arrived early, and a couple of minutes after I arrived, a white woman who was reeking of shampoo sat next to me. I got up and moved.
A minute later, another white person who had just put on lotion or something sat next to me. I got up and moved.
I moved three or four times. And then a black man dripping cologne sat next to me. I almost burst into tears. But I did not move, because I did not want that man to think even for one moment that a white women had gotten up and changed her seat because a black man sat down next to her.
I paid a pretty high price for that choice.
Right now, I have a black child from down the street coming to my house every day. He uses some kind of grooming product that is very perfumed. I haven't said anything to him, and I won't, because right now it is very important to me for a number of reasons that he feel 100% welcome in my home. We send him home at dinner time, we send him home at bedtime, we send him home if somebody here needs a quiet day. But I never send him home for reasons that have to do with him, because I want him to feel that this is a place where he is accepted. But I pay a price for having perfume in my house every day, too.
The teacher certainly handled things badly. She should have spoken to the girls' parents and kept the focus on the possibility that it was a product being used on the girl's hair causing her nausea, rather than addressing the girl directly and describing the problem as being her hair. I'm not going to let her off the hook for that.
But comments like this:
THIS shit right here pisses me off. I read about it earlier and it rankled me highly. Now that the details have come out, my blood is boiling. Oooh the ugly little savage Negroid is making me uncomfortable with her hair and it’s “smells”.
Yes, "ugly little savage Negroid" is exactly what the teacher said and meant. And by putting "smells" in quotes do you mean to imply that the product used--which lists "fragrance" as one of its ingredients--didn't actually have an odor?
My heart goes out to that little girl and I hope the teacher owns up to her bad handling of a difficult situation. But when I see people making this more racial than it was, imputing language and motives to the teacher that go far beyond what she actually said and did, it frustrates me.
I am grateful to the commenter who said:
I come to racialicious because it’s a safe space, not only for racial minorities but for people with disabilities, and I cannot believe that this possible disability (anaphylactic shock!!) was dismissed so callously and casually.
Other commenters also tried to separate out the teacher's possibly-real sensitivity from her bad handling of the situation. No teacher should publicly shame a student for any reason, and that's worth calling her out, and possibly disciplining her for. But--well, I've been sitting here a bit, and I don't have a good conclusion. Just these thoughts.
7 comments:
Wow. Thanks.
I completely agree with you. As a person who is developing perfume sensitivities where none existed before, I've struggled with how to tell people that their perfumes are really making me uncomfortable. My daughter performed recently at a choir concert in a state of extreme discomfort because the junior high choir that joined them on stage hadn't been told not to wear perfume. She had hives on her chest, arms, and face.
It's not you. It's your perfume.
I'm grateful to you for posting about your experience of choosing to move or not move away from people whose fragrances were troublesome. It gave me the opportunity to think about how I might want to handle that situation more effectively when I find myself in it. I'm thinking that directly saying to the person, "I just want to let you know, I need to go sit somewhere else because I am having an allergic reaction to the product you're wearing. I wanted to let you know that so that you would not think it was because I don't want to sit near you" might work? The person might still get offended, but at least then I've done my best to mitigate that and still prioritize my safety? I dunno. I don't know if I'd really have the guts to do that in real life, but in my head it sounds like a good idea. :)
I read about this while I was at the Hampton Ministers' Conference, which is held on the campus of a historic black college. The focus of the story I read was that the student was removed from an AP class to a lower-level class. The administration of the school apparently backed the teacher, but did not ensure the student's ability to receive the education she was entitled to.
Oliver Danni, my two cents is, just move when you have to move, and don't worry about what anyone else is thinking. You're responsible for taking care of your needs, not their potential or imagined reaction.
Do you know of a good alternative to medicated shampoos like Head & Shoulders, without fragrance? We haven't found one yet but I'm hoping you can refer me to a website if you don't know yourself! kim.ranger@gmail.com
I don't know a source for fragrance-free dandruff shampoo. I feel lucky to be able to find fragrance-free shampoo at all--over the years one brand after another has gone off the market on me.
On dandruff shampoos... they mostly have pine tar in them as the active ingredient, and it is STRONG smelling. Even if you did find one w/o fragrance trying to cover up the pine tar, I suspect the pine tar itself would cause problems.
-Suzanne
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