You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain

by Phoebe Robinson

Of course, I never looked as chic when rocking the head wraps; I looked like I was smuggling a Swiffer WetJet, walking out of Target. But that’s no matter, because the important thing is that Badu, like Angela Davis, inspired so many black women to not be afraid to wear their hair any way that they chose.

VIOLA DAVIS TAKING HER WIG OFF ON HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, 2014 Let me just start by stating that THIS IS THE SINGLE GREATEST MOMENT IN BLACK WOMEN TELEVISION HISTORY.

They’re both cheating on each other, which isn’t as trifling as it sounds. I mean, two people cheating on each other is like when you and a bestie both have New Year’s resolutions to find better jobs and then on January 2, it all goes to shit because you both independently discover that there’s a Judge Joe Brown marathon on TV and decide it’s way more fun to watch that than it is to upload résumés to Monster.com. Then when you find out the other messed up, instead of getting mad, you just giggle and share a look like, “No one will ever get me the way that you do.”

Anna was hooking up with a superhot black cop who would show up to her job and go down on her, aka the man was a true American hero and every time he showed up on screen, I pledged my allegiance to him like he was the damn United States flag.

If you are going to confront your cheating husband with the greatest nine-word question in television history—“Why is your penis in a dead girl’s phone?”—you want to have your wig off when you say it. Because no matter what his answer is going to be, it’s only going to piss you off and make you want to fight, and you can’t fight if you’re too worried about your wig getting snatched like a white teenage girl in a Lifetime movie. So you must take the wig off and carefully hang it somewhere the way Jews delicately hang a mezuzah outside their homes to protect those inside it. And that’s exactly what Annalise did

I’ve never liked people labeling certain things I enjoy as a “guilty pleasure” because it’s usually code for “Phoebe doing ‘white-people shit.’”

No one tells you this, but when you enter your thirties, you will find vaguely in-shape bodies ridiculously attractive as opposed to your Chris Hemsworth predilections of the past. This is not to say that ripped dudes turn you off. It’s just that the DadBod signifies comfort—in one’s skin, in throwing a middle finger to vanity, and in eating what tastes good as opposed to what makes one look good—and for me, comfort equals home. DadBod is a home that smells like cinnamon and plush carpeting that you can massage your toes in. Seeing a dude be that chill in his own skin makes me want to get turned out like a reversible white-water rafting jacket from Eddie Bauer (aka get laid a lot).

I, on the other hand, am a supermodel in the way that a McDonald’s salad is a salad.

his name is Larry. Y’all. I can’t call out “Larry” during sex. I’m not about that life.

Plus, whenever I arrive, without fail, half the washers are out of order, meaning that I have to fight over the available ones with OBLs, aka old black ladies, who always give me that “You know, the arches in my feet sure are tired from marching for your rights” look. I can’t compete with that. So they win the washers, and I have to wait my turn.

“The Drought That Was So Bad It Could’ve Been the Inciting Incident in Chinatown

When my career is in a state of inertia, I look up positive reviews either to confirm that I’ve chosen the correct profession or to just bask in the glow of a recent triumph. Either way, the goal is to maintain drunk-girl-wearing-a-pushup-bra-on-a-reality-TV-show level of confidence at all times, and Googling myself is a hell of a lot cheaper than a Victoria’s Secret bra and Jose Cuervo.

Here’s the thing about asking Jesus to take the wheel: Sometimes he doesn’t and instead lets you crash your Toyota Corolla into a tree.

And you will think, I could totally have sex with myself right now. You are correct. Go do that and then when you’re done, send that photographer an Edible Arrangement as a thank-you ASAP.

Now, if we’re to believe the commercials airing on BET, all Mickey D establishments are full of black people singing R&B medleys about chicken nuggets. That couldn’t be further from the truth. No matter which location I visit, the vibe is always “Yeah, I shouldn’t be here. Don’t tell my wife/dad/son/guidance counselor,” because everyone has seen the documentaries, heard the health reports, and eaten the kale chips that are supposed to be an equally delicious substitute for McD’s addictive French fries (whoever started this rumor can die in a fire, thank you very much).

I always start my ordering process at Mickey D’s with a softball: a crispy chicken sandwich plus cheese. A newbie cashier will ask if I want cheddar or American, but the grizzled, “let’s cut the shit” cashiers will straight up be like, “the yellow or white one,” ruining all illusion that I was ever choosing anything that was in the cheese family. Those are the employees I like the most. They’re not about pretense. They keep it raw and real, like Dr. Iyanla Vanzant, but instead of fixing lives of C-list black celebs, they’re taking my order.

coming to terms with being treated like the “Other,” accepting that a lot of people will view your actions as either defying or affirming preconceived notions about you, and figuring out ninjalike ways to escape the circle coworkers randomly form around you and another black person because they’re hoping a dance battle will pop off.

To be fair, these kinds of adjustments happen with every race, every sexual orientation, and any group that does not fall into the category of “straight white dude.” However, because of the centuries-long antiblack sentiment in America, it seems that some want to assign particular characteristics to blackness as a means of flattening or dehumanizing people. Blackness is not a monolith. There’s nerdy black, jock black, manic pixie dream black, sassy black, shy black, conscious black, hipster black . . . the list goes on and on.

But some people don’t want to believe that, because if varying degrees of blackness become normalized, then that means society has to rethink how they treat black people. In other words, if you allow black people to be as complicated and multidimensional as white people, then it’s hard to view them as the Other with all the messy ...

As a result of these negative labels, for example, I and other people wind up adjusting our behaviors to counter the negative stereotypes or to avoid becoming the butt of jokes. I’ll overtip to combat the stereotype that black people don’t tip well. Most, if not all, of my black friends have been mocked for speaking intelligently, yet if their diction were poor, they would have been dinged for that. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, as they say.

Not that racism didn’t exist in the ’90s—hello, Rodney King!—it’s just that the kind of racism I might have been exposed to was less Little Rock Nine and more “after-school special where everyone learns a lesson.”

You guys, it took me two months to unpack two U-Haul boxes in my apartment because watching TV is more interesting to me than finding a place for books I’ve bought to look smart in front of my houseguests but haven’t read yet (here’s looking at you, William Faulkner oeuvre that Oprah nominated as a Book Club selection in 2005). Safe to say, my design aesthetic is “lazy as fuck.”

“Yeah, you’re an adult . . . but you’re not a real adult until you do your laundry before you run out of underwear.”

I felt like I was being baptized in Oprah’s titty sweat,

two employees, one white and the other racially ambiguous, or as it’s called in the biz: Liberal Arts College Pamphlet Face.

However, constantly being on guard for racism can make one age in “old black people during the civil rights era” years. It’s similar to aging in dog years except that you say, “Lord, I’m weary,” all the time, and whenever you’re at a wedding, you always ask the DJ to interrupt the dance party and put on a Nat King Cole slow jam.

She apologizes so quickly that I can tell she didn’t hear my complaint at all. Her sorry was totally reflexive based off my displeased tone.

And this is not to say there aren’t many wonderful things about being black. There are, and a lot of them have been absorbed by pop culture—fashion, music, food—but still, there are tons of things about being #TeamMelanin that blow. Like how if I leave the race/ethnicity box empty on a site like Monster.com, I’ll get more job inquiries from employers than if I were to check “black.” Or how if I go apartment hunting solo, landlords tend to be ruder to me than if I bring a white friend along. Or those reminders that I’m not welcome to audition for casting calls via the following stipulations: “No braids, no twists, no dreadlocks, only natural hair color allowed.” Riiiiiight. Because the casting directors are totally going to turn away every brunette white actress who shows up with blond hair. All those things and many more reinforce the idea that who I am is the problem.

“In case you forgot, I’m here to remind you. Welcome, once again, to being black.”

Wishing that white people could, even for a day, experience both the subtle and not-so-subtle racism that black people (and all POCs) go through, just to understand how a lifetime of this kind of treatment changes you.

If you’re going to be racist, which Soul Man certainly is, then you have to be INCLUSIVE with your racism. Don’t pick and choose pieces of racism like it’s IKEA furniture.

This is not to imply that white people don’t struggle; of course they do. Yet, there is no denying that whiteness being “The Standard” makes everything a little bit simpler for them.

In my experience, it’s often the “Oh, Wow! You’re Not Like My Racist Preconceptions of the Others, but You Also Aren’t One of Us Either,” which is as much of a compliment as doing the sign of the cross before drunken sexy-times is a form of birth control.

By Cramblett’s own admission in the lawsuit, she lives in a racist neighborhood, but apparently that fact only became problematic when she found herself raising a biracial child. Sooo, if they had a white child, she would’ve been fine with raising him or her in a racist environment, perpetuating the same ignorance? This woman needs to sit down and study the “When White Privilege Moonwalks Out of Your Life” pamphlet. Turns out it’s a quick read because inside is just the following: People don’t think you’re white anymore. Say good-bye to the societal advantages that benefit whites in Western countries in a variety of social, political, or economic circumstances. Listen to N.W.A to cope, but when rapping along to them, don’t say the N-word . . . because you are still white. Duh.

Hey, Jennifer and Amanda, are you now majorly inconvenienced on the smallest and biggest levels? Do you have to deal with people sometimes treating you like a Cheetos stain under their fingernail? Do you worry about your child’s safety, as my parents did when my brother and I went into certain neighborhoods? Then WELCOME TO BEING BLACK.

You swallow the indignities like I do when the color of my skin is explicitly why I don’t get hired for certain jobs. You rise above the ugly statements—the “Your natural hair isn’t professional” or “You’re black, but you’re not black black”—that are directed at you. You figure out how to live your best life because dammit, your mama and daddy love you. You tell yourself, “And still I rise,” “I’m black, and I’m proud,” “I’m young, gifted, and black,” and then you go to bed, wake up, and do it all over again. Every. Single. Day.

She’s not going to understand why you feel entitled to $50,000 because you can’t even last two years raising a half-black child without wanting to tap out as if Hulk Hogan put you in a headlock.

Congratulations on being black! I know you had no choice in the matter, but I find that congratulating people on something, no matter what it is, just puts them in a fantastic mood, especially when you have to tell some bad news.

sometimes you will feel like a badass whenever you overcome adversity. Other times, the harshness of the world will make you cry.

5. Sometimes—and by “Sometimes,” I Mean “All the Time”—When You and Another Black Friend Show Up to an Event Together, People Will Think You’re Related. You know how in the movie 27 Dresses, Katherine Heigl’s character spends the majority of her time at weddings apologizing for being single? Well, that’s going to happen with you, except instead of your relationship status, you’ll have to explain how all black people aren’t related. Hooray!

Regardless of Gender or Age, Strangers Will Tell You That You Look like Whoever Is the Most Famous Black Person at the Moment. I was once told that I look like LeBron James. By someone who can see.

If You’re in an Interracial Relationship and You Wear a Sleeping Cap/Do-Rag to Bed to Protect Your Afro, Your Significant Other Still Has to Get a Boner Even Though You Look like an Inmate on MSNBC’s Lockup: Raw. Don’t look this up. Just trust me when I say that this will hold up in a court of law.

This concludes your crash course in the world of blackness. As you can see, you’ll spend a lot of time explaining yourself to other people, making sure your skin is moisturized at all times, and praying that when Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire passes away, no one will say you resemble him.

but just try and remember that being black is also great. We, as a people, have overcome so much and have become astronauts, CEOs, and even the president of the United States. So, Payton, you should be stoked to be a card-carrying member of blackness. Just make sure you don’t try to frame it at Michaels.

I’ve been told some of my best qualities include excellent listening skills, a mastery of finding the best GIF to express what I’m feeling instead of actually using words, and my ability to have a stank face locked and loaded when someone acts a stone-cold foo at Steve Madden, but by far, the best thing about me is my perseverance.

Remember on Grey’s Anatomy when Izzie stole a heart for Denny, a heart transplant patient she fell in love with, but he died anyway? It was all very sad, but then things got ri-Donkey-Kong-ulous because months later, she started having sex with his ghost. Many fans of the show were like, “The Lord is testing me with this story line. I’m out.” Not I! I was like, “The Lord is testing me? Well, good thing I brought my TI-83 calc and number two pencil. Let’s do this.” I kept watching Grey’s in spite of all the gintercourse, aka ghost intercourse. I’m not overwhelmingly proud about that level of commitment, but, nevertheless, I deserve some props for sticking with this crazy plot. I mean, I stuck it out past the Izzie-lighting-scented-candles-for-sex-with-what-is-essentially-recycled-air-from-her-home’s-central-cooling-system scene. I overlooked her and Ghost Denny’s “O” faces. And finally, when it was revealed that the gintercourse was actually her hallucinating due to a brain tumor, I didn’t dive out my window because I wasted several weeks on this story line—instead, I watched two more seasons rather than do something productive, like getting my student loan payments in order. #Priorities.

Right-click and send to Trash all the women who say they’re a Carrie. Even if the woman who says this is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, one of the most important activists of our time. No one is a Carrie. I repeat, NO ONE IS A CARRIE. And why would anyone want to be? She kind of sucks (hello, her entire relationship with Aidan), she seemingly worked about three hours a week and was surprised that she didn’t have money, and after Mr. Big, her on-again, off-again beau, stated he’s tired of New York so he’s moving to Napa Valley, she replied, “When you’re tired, you take a nap-a, you don’t move to NAP-A.” The puns, you guys. THE GODDAMN PUNS. They were endless and ridiculous as if she was constantly competing on that game show @midnight and no woman I know is about that Chris Hardwick life. So let’s be real. At best, us ladies are just a bunch of Mirandas with a slightly better wardrobe and at worst, we’re a bunch of Magdas, aka Miranda’s housekeeper, which means we’re a bunch of nosy bitches who rifle through people’s belongings and let them know they masturbate too much.

You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in order to create a society that takes women as seriously as the men. The type that encourages us to not define ourselves by who we go to bed with at night, but by who and what we see reflected back at us in the mirror in the morning. The type that recognizes that women are not a monolith and that they have wildly different experiences informed by their race and/or sexuality. Be that beacon of light that we can look toward. Be the feminist who will help normalize the idea of Feminism for society. Be the feminist everyone needs. No presh.

Can you please see to it that Scandal’s Olivia Pope gets a black girlfriend? Liv makes a lot of dumb mistakes, like sleeping with the very married president of the United States. And quite frankly, living life as a side piece seems to be making her depressed. She would greatly benefit from having a best black girlfriend who can share beauty products with her, bust out the rap from the Living Single theme song, and also keep it real enough to tell Ms. Pope not to get emotionally attached to a guy whose Tinder-profile bio ought to be “I pass my peen around like moist toilettes at a family cookout.”

For some reason, people act like they have ants in their pants when they hear it, which explains why there is an ever-growing list of code words for vagina. My go-to is vajeen,