Poor Mike Aldrich. After turning away a black patron from his barber shop, saying he wouldn’t be able to help the guy because he wasn’t good at doing black hair, the Bellows Falls barber has become the target of some substantial community ire. The Associated Press reported that Aldrich’s refusal to barber the patron — Dr. Darryl Fisher, of Taos, N.M. — sparked a demonstration by people who claimed his denial of service was racially motivated.
Oh, you gotta love Vermont and its knee-jerk PCness. Well done, white people, for making a fuss about something you know nothing about — black hair.
It is entirely possible that Aldrich is, in fact, a racist who didn’t want to cut Fisher’s hair because he doesn’t like people of color. If that’s the case, I best not be defending the guy. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that Aldrich is a stand-up guy who loves all people regardless of color, creed, political persuasion or sexual proclivity. Then this story makes a lot more sense.
When Fisher walked into Mike’s Barber Shop, he asked Aldrich if a barber was around to cut his coif. Aldrich, the barber who owns the shop, told Fisher the barber wasn’t in. A few hours later, Fisher walked by the shop and saw Aldrich cutting hair. Clearly, dude was a barber. And clearly, he’s also a bad fibber.
But, as Aldrich told the AP, he was simply trying to mitigate embarrassment for both men. See, Aldrich, like 99.9 percent of white hair stylists, doesn’t know how to cut black hair. That’s understandable, since he lives in Bellows Falls, a town of 3000 white people and 11 black people. If you’re the aggrieved patron, Fisher, why would you want someone to cut your hair who doesn’t understand the complexity of your tresses?
When I was in college, one of my roommates was black. Her hair was important to her and, as such, she spent almost as much time on her ‘do as she did on her schoolwork. Our room was full of products that I had never seen in my local Rite Aid — oils, lotions and home relaxers that made our tiny cell of a room smell like the set of Queen Latifah’s Barbershop franchise knockoff, Beauty Shop. Occasionally my roommate’s mother would drive three hours from her home to set up a mini salon on our room. When she left, everything in the room was covered in a fine layer of spray sheen. I couldn’t talk on the phone without the handset slipping from my grip.
If I ever suggested to my roommate that she save her mother the trip and just get her hair done at my salon, she would have looked at me like I had horns, a tail and cloven feet. White people don’t know black hair, she would have said to me. And she’d be right. We don’t.
Similarly, if my roommate suggested that I get my locks lopped at a black salon, I would most likely have balked. It’s not to say that the hair dresser wouldn’t have been able to muddle through and give me a halfway decent cut. But, honestly, I want to get my hair cut by someone who has experience cutting hair like mine — you know, a messy red mullet. If you want to get a wedding dress made, your first stop is not going to be a tailor who makes bespoke suits, right?
The “ethnic hair” industrial complex is a $9 billion business. There are products for silky hair and products for natural hair and products to give you more hair (in the event that you lose some from all the chemical treatment). There are weaves and perms and and braids and locks. Oh, my. Thorny cultural and aesthetic issues aside, clearly this is a specialized industry where some expertise is needed.
So, assuming Aldrich is an upstanding human, it sort of makes sense that he would plead ignorance regarding black hair. And maybe it’s just as well for Fisher. I’m sure he didn’t want some whitey brush cut, anyway.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2010.
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I think the barber should have let the customer decide if he wanted him to cut his hair. A public business is supposed to be open to everyone.
Cathy,I have to agree with OV and Julie. We aren’t complaining that this isn’t a ‘hard news’ piece. We’re complaining because, even as a opinion piece, this offers no redeeming insight into the event that occurred. She makes up a motive to assign to the barber and then crafts an elaborate explanation based on that imaginary motive. There are plenty of lessons to draw from this event, and the ways of crafting an opinion piece based on it are also numerous. Lauren decided to place style over substance and offered a fluff piece that does nothing to advance the conversation.7 Days publishes fine pieces of hard news and commentary. Lauren’s article did not rise to that high standard.
“Ober is ENTIRELY CORRECT: “Oh, you gotta love Vermont and its knee-jerk PCness.””Oh, but wait. Lauren, I thought *you* were PC?
Oh, for the love of pete…the barber is an old-timer living in the not-so-booming-metropolis of bellows falls. give it a rest. yes, forms of racism exist…in many, many communities across our country. What the heck are we going to do about it? You can’t change the older crew, you just have to focus on building a strong foundation with the younger generations. And yeah, Lauren writes snarky blogs – that’s her thing. If you don’t like it, why do you choose to read it?Tell me, is a high-horse or a soapbox a better investment? Seems like y’all have already chosen…anyone care to opine?
Ober is ENTIRELY CORRECT: “Oh, you gotta love Vermont and its knee-jerk PCness.”
Cathy– two issues:(1) I’m aware that this is an opinion piece. My primary concern with this piece is that it makes claims of fact which are demonstrably false. My secondary concern is that it’s condescending and patronizing.(2) Your response echoes its condescension and patronization. Instead of treating concerns that people have with the piece and its tone with any sort of seriousness, you basically accuse people of having misunderstood it and act like they’re morons enough to require an “opinion” tag on pieces that are opinions. Not all opinions are equal and not all opinions are based on logic and evidence. This piece wasn’t just an absurd opinion. It’s based on misrepresentations or misunderstandings. To be clear: I don’t know if the writer wrote this piece with malicious intent or out of sheer ignorance, but it seems very clear that it was either one, the other, or both.
Cathy, I think that everyone understands that this is an opinion piece. Most of the objection seems to stem from the cavalier, snarky and condescending tone that Olber uses to address a serious subject. Of course, her argument that anyone who disagrees with her is “uber-PC” and ignorant of the subject matter didn’t win her any points either — especially since it’s so obvious that Olber is ignorant of some pretty basic facts of the situation (like the barber’s frequent use of word “negro” and his blaming racism on black people). Her opinion isn’t the problem. The problem is her offensive attitude towards practically everything and everyone that she writes about & her tendency to insult her audience directly (“Oh, you gotta love Vermont and its knee-jerk PCness.”)A lot of us have come to expect a higher standard of writing and thought from Seven Days. Olber consistently drags that standard down. -OV
Hi all. Seven Days web editor Cathy Resmer here. I’m one of the editors responsible for this blog.I’m making a packaging change, based on peoples’ reaction to this post. From now on, when one of our writers contributes a blog post that is clearly filled with commentary, rather than original reporting, we’ll categorize it as “opinion.” In the future, we’ll create more visible headers that clearly state whether a post is “news,” “politics,” “books,” “food,” or “opinion,” etc. — rather than relying solely on the categories listed beneath the posts — so that readers are less confused about the content they’re viewing. I think everyone here thought it was clear that Lauren’s post was an opinionated take on an event. Obviously, we were wrong! Some people seem to have been confused about what they were reading — or maybe disappointed, because they expected reporting rather than commentary from her post. We provide both on this blog, on our website and in our newspaper. This new categorization scheme is an attempt to be clearer about which is which.Someone pointed out above that this post was categorized under “weird stuff.” I’m responsible for creating that category — I’m the one who designed the (organically evolving) categorization scheme for this blog. We chose to categorize this post that way because, until now, that was the catch-all place to put posts about unusual news events. Often, the “weird stuff” posts do not contain original reporting, as this post clearly did not. The categorization was not meant as a comment on the subject matter. Now that I’ve created the “opinion” category, I’ve removed the “weird stuff” tag from this post. Sorry for any unintended offense that caused.You can find the kind of “header” tag I have in mind for our posts on the Stranger’s Slog blog, which was the inspiration for Blurt. At the beginning of the title of each post, there’s a little one-word header that acts as a visual sign-post, letting people know at a glance what it is they’re reading.Hopefully that will help alleviate any confusion around posts like these.Look for that change soon, and thanks for reading.
“But let’s assume for the sake of argument that Aldrich is a stand-up guy who loves all people regardless of color, creed, political persuasion or sexual proclivity. Then this story makes a lot more sense.”WTF??!?! How on earth does that (completely unfounded) assumption make a lot more sense than the alternative? Someone reading this article without a critical eye would be easily mislead by the way Ober chose to present the information. This post is honestly just mind-boggling. It reads like a bizarre propaganda piece that aims to erase any possibility that Vermonters could ever be racist. And I agree with the other posts–how does Seven Days let this stuff get published? I would like to believe that not all Seven Days staffers feel similarly to Ober, but if that is the case, they need to realize that everything that gets published on this blog or in the paper is a reflection on the paper as a whole. It’s not a good look for you, Seven Days.
and you must have known that your black roommate from college wasn’t going to ever read your blog, cause her AND her mamma would have had to drive 3 hours to come and set your silliness straight!!!! ask for the I Spy, next time, the I Spy.