WHATEVER WAS I THINKING?

Here’s why.

I have the finest hair in America. Right up there with baby down. It used to be thicker, but it appears I may be fighting female hair thinning syndrome.

The biggest problem is that my hair mats. When I wake up in the morning, I have a mat of hair on the back of head that has to be slowly pulled apart and delicately combed so as not to remove any hair that is already too eager to fall out. Now, since Duluth has an ethnic minority of only 6.3 % and of that only 1.6% are identified as black, you can imagine that black hair care products are not on every shelf.

K-Mart…Episode 1
Me: Do you sell doo rags?
Helpful Clerk: Sure, they are right over here.
(Leads me down a row and turns left)
Helpful Clerk: They are right…umm, they used to be, uh, I know we used to have them. I guess we don’t carry them anymore. You know, there aren’t a lot of “African” people in Duluth.
(I did really well in not pointing out that in the pictures of the “African” people I have seen, I have never seen a Masaii Tribesman with a doo rag.)
Oh, well. I am not too far from a Walgreens.

Walgreens…Episode 2
Me: Do you have any doo rags?
Clerk from Beauty Products section wearing far too much Product: Not really. We quit carrying them because they weren’t selling. You might try the Walgreens down on 11th Ave East. They have more Black people in that neighborhood.
Me: Thank you. (Said while biting my tongue and praying that blood wasn’t running out of the corner of my mouth.)

At this point in time, I’m beginning to think I won’t need a doo rag since I will be pulling my hair out by the roots and bypassing the need for any hair products. The conversations with the help at any more stores would only land me in jail. Folks, it’s almost 2010, I don’t believe there is any reason for even passive racism to exist any more. Yet it does.

Anyway, my new doo rag is made out of a jersey pillow case and will work just find. Don’t think I’ll be running out in the ‘hood to see the reactions of people. I feel good that I solved my own problem. I don’t feel so good that passive racism is still alive and well in my city or anywhere else, for that matter.