Comic: How To Pay a Compliment

[teaberryblue]

Man, I suck! I totally forgot to post my comic on time. Here it is a little late. All the things that happened in this comic are true things that happened to me-- and the timing is appropriate since an instance of the "wrong way" happened today! Oh, people. Someday I will start grabbing your hair back if I didn't suspect you of having icky germs.



The first eight mailings for No Place for a Black Ace went out today! So you should expect them to start coming in your mailboxes early next week. You can still sign up if you haven't yet.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Comments

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

It's what people from the Southeast US call people from the Northeast!

And people ask that a lot. That and "how do you get it to grow that way?" and "is it natural?" and "it smells clean!"

[pachakuti.livejournal.com]

"It smells clean"? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I mean, like, okay, yay, it smells clean, but why is that something that needs to be vocalized?

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

I think it is a registration of shock at the fact that my hair is clean like theirs. A few times people have actually taken my hair and held it up to my nose to smell it. Once when I was about fifteen a lady did it in a restaurant and asked me if I used shampoo or if that was how I always smelled.

[pachakuti.livejournal.com]

"No, this smell is actually a defense mechanism. If my hair smells like that it means it's about to reach out and drag some more wretched stupid person to their doom."

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

Shh! kittehkat already thinks my hair is going to do that.

[loputon.livejournal.com]

I like telling my boyfriend his hair smells clean. But of course that's something different than what people do with you :p

I just love the smell of freshly washed hair, so "your hair smells clean" is just a compliment. He hates getting "real" compliments (like "you're so smart/beautiful/handy"), so I end up complimenting him on things he doesn't have to do anything special for. Compliments like "your hair smells clean", "your skin is so soft" or "your mouse scrolls so neatly" are completely non-threatening to him, so I give those :p

I'm a big hair-smeller with boyfriends. Wouldn't ever do it with anyone else though! :p

[abhor.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I didn't know that!

So odd. Why wouldn't it smell clean? Why are people smelling your hair?! It's like curly hair brings out the crazies.

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

I think it's less so curly hair and more hair that doesn't fit into certain people's definition of "whiteness." I have a lot of white, curly-haired friends whose hair conforms more to what people normally consider white hair who don't experience this, or at least don't experience it regularly, but several of my black and Latina friends do. People sometimes ask me if I'm white or what my ethnicity is, and I think it's because they're not used to seeing white people with hair like mine, so they assume I am either not white or part white, and use that as a frame of reference for how they treat me. And of course people who aren't white aren't capable of washing their hair and don't deserve to have people respect their boundaries.