I went to Valbella, Switzerland to attend a Transcendental Meditation teacher training course. On the first day, a white friend and I, decided to walk around and explore the town.
In 1973, I wore my hair in a huge Afro. I was proud of my hair. I loved it: To me, my hair seemed soft and ethereal, almost angelic. When I looked in the mirror it made me feel better. And there was my artistic self that whispered, in my quiet moments, that it might just be beautiful.
Anyway, as we walked down the main street, people began to follow us. To our surprise the following crowd kept getting larger and larger. We began to feel a little afraid, and just then they stepped up and surrounded us.
We tried to speak to them in French. But to our surprise, they countered in English. Soon we were conversing freely in French, and American English. It was a friendly, lively and delightful conversation. Suddenly, they revealed they had never seen a black person before. I was stunned. They had a million questions. I answered them as best as I could. They wanted to understand discrimination. I tried to explain. But I could tell that they found my answers unfathomable.
Then it happened. They asked me if they could touch my hair. They had never seen hair like mine before: huge, black, fluffy. As they asked, they smiled at me. They stood by quietly waiting for the answer. Unlike Americans, they did not grab or pull. In their faces, I found no hostility, no cruelty. I found only a child-like curiosity.
So I consented and they came forward, one at a time. With fingertips only, they gently touched my hair. They exclaimed how soft it was. One woman said: "It is so beautiful." Fifty or more people each individually touched my hair. We were on the street over an hour. Then I returned to my hotel.
Alone in my room I burst into tears. I sobbed and sobbed. Part of me was wailing in pain and part of me was sobbing in joy. Because for me, it was one of the first times I had been treated like a human being. And the longer I stayed in Switzerland, the more I did not want to return to America: Where I was not fully human; where I did not have the right to prevent a touch.
The Trauma of White Privilege: The Benefit of the Doubt
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