Courtesy of Postbourgie
There’s a white woman running around New York in a big black afro wig because she thinks it’s teaching her something about herself and the world and how she sees it and how it sees. She blogs about it sometimes on her website, Before and Afro.
This little journey began after she bought the wig as a part of her costume for a 70s-themed party. Apparently, some kind of inner enlightenment happened when she put on the wig because she decided to keep wearing it out in the world at random occasions (mostly at parties full of black people). I read the entire blog (in spite of how badly it hurt my face to do so) and I have no idea what the connection between her wig and this enlightenment is, and she never really says. It’s kind of like the GOP’s “we’re going to fix the problem by fixing the problem!” approach. She speaks so generally and vaguely about the purpose of it all that she just sounds. It’s “a new way to view the world.” It’s “vital to the soul.” It’s a “genuine and profound and very real experience.” Also, vibes and inner peace and herbal tea and all that.
Before and Afro is a clueless, masturbatory foray into privilege so white I can barely look it in the face. In her entry “Let’s Get Real,” she insists that she “is aware,” that she knows that what she is doing can be seen as offensive. The fact that this whole bizzarro thing doesn’t end there is testament to how unaware she actually is. She insist this isn’t about race, but then seems to try to justify what she’s doing in an entry full of pictures of random, anonymous black people. See? It can’t be offensive! Black people posed for her while she wore the afro, and even smiled! She rejects the idea that her wearing the afro isn’t a caricature or costume (…even though she bought it as part of a freaking costume), but really, it can’t be anything but.
Our hostess shared with us some before and after photos—her without the afro, and her after putting it on. The before pictures show a pretty blonde sitting posed on her bed, hands clasped sweetly on her knee, mega-watt smile filling the lens.
But then the afro comes on, and POW!
Continue reading at Postbourgie
