{"id":5763,"date":"2019-03-15T09:51:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T13:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5763"},"modified":"2025-08-24T10:31:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:31:14","slug":"dont-touch-my-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2019\/03\/15\/dont-touch-my-hair\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Touch My Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Frida Kahlo by Jemima Bean, age 10.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jemima is 10 years old. She points to the computer screen, tapping on a black sweatshirt with bold, white letters. \u201cThis is the one I want. It says, \u2018Don\u2019t Touch My Hair.\u2019 I get tired of telling people to stop.\u201d Today, Jemima\u2019s hair is braided into long, ombr\u00e9 braids. They fade from black to blonde and look, \u201cJust like Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s!\u201d Jemima beams. She says it took her mom 14 hours of braiding to put them in. You can tell she is proud of her mom. Turning back to the screen she checks to make sure her size is in stock. It is. Her grandma gave her $50 for Christmas, and this is the purchase she is most excited to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I have a new hairstyle, people won\u2019t stop touching it.\u201d Mostly it is other girls in her fifth-grade class. But on a recent field trip, she couldn\u2019t get an older woman to stop. \u201cMy hair was purple. It was really pretty. A lady I didn\u2019t know just kept running her hands through it. I told her she had to ask to touch my hair. My mom and I practice that a lot. How to talk to people who touch me. Anyway, I told her, but she didn\u2019t stop. She told me my hair was \u2018too tempting.\u2019 That made me feel weird.\u201d Jemima says her mom took to social media to share the story and educate people on black hair care. The woman who had touched her hair heard about it. \u201cShe emailed my mom to apologize. She was really nice. She just didn\u2019t know. That is OK. But she should have listened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone is so nice, though. Jemima says fifth grade has been difficult for her. Navigating the pre-teen years can be tough for any child. For a child who is one of the only black children in her school, it sometimes feels impossible. Jemima explains that the girls don\u2019t just touch her hair: they also want to wear the same styles. \u201cI tried to explain cultural appropriation to them. But I can\u2019t always make the words in my head come out the way I want them to.\u201d English is Jemima\u2019s second language, making it even more challenging. Jemima says she doesn\u2019t expect people to know, but she does wish they\u2019d listen. \u201cI get pretty sad sometimes. A lot of people are mean to me because I\u2019m black. We had to move to a new state because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keegan Butler is 15 and is friends with Jemima\u2019s older sisters. He says he has seen people touching Jemima\u2019s hair and it makes him uncomfortable. \u201cI have witnessed\u2026older white women fondle her hair. It is always without consent.\u201d He feels like people are probably just curious or trying to be complimentary. \u201cThey say things like: \u2018Wow, this is so fascinating.\u2019 \u2018Your hair is so cool.\u2019 \u2018How do you get these braids? Does your mom do them for you?\u2019 \u2018Is it real?\u2019 \u2018How do you wash it?\u2019\u201d Keegan goes on to say that, while these may be intended as compliments, they are actually micro-aggressions. \u201cThese are subtle forms of racism. People may not even be aware these things are racist, but they should be. The curiosity is understandable. \u00a0But pulling and touching Jemima\u2019s hair dehumanizes her. It makes my skin crawl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jemima flips through her sketchbook. It is hard to comprehend that these are the drawings of a 10-year-old. \u201cMy Frida Kahlo drawing is probably my best one. She had a really hard life. I think about her a lot.\u201d When she grows up, Jemima hopes to be an artist. And a dancer. And to play the flute. Whatever the future holds for her, Jemima thinks she is lucky. She knows her family and friends will always fight for her. \u201cMy mom says we can do hard things together. I\u2019m really glad I don\u2019t have to do the hard things all by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you would like to see more of Jemima\u2019s art, you can follow here on Instagram @jemima_bean<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jemima is 10 years old. She points to the computer screen, tapping on a black sweatshirt with bold, white letters. \u201cThis is the one I want. It says, \u2018Don\u2019t Touch My Hair.\u2019 I get tired of telling people to stop.\u201d Today, Jemima\u2019s hair is braided into long, ombr\u00e9 braids. They fade from black to blonde […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8519,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5763\/revisions\/8519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}