As I See It #1: The Conversation

#opinion #racism #sleep #profession #writing #author #hair #blackinamerica

Author's Note: As I See It is something new I'm trying where I periodically give my opinion on things in the news, in politics, or in life. It may stem from random conversations I have with people, current events, or things I see in day-to-day life. As always, I encourage healthy debate and discussion on any topic raised here.

A few weeks ago, a social media group created for members of my profession found itself embroiled in a mild controversy.

I should backtrack: when I’m not writing, I work as a Polysomnographic Technologist. That’s a fancy way of saying that I monitor people for sleep disorders. I don’t mind it. It’s peaceful, I work mostly unsupervised, and when everything is going right, all my patients are asleep. I get much of my writing done at work.

Part of what I do involves the application of sensors and electrodes to most of the body including the face and scalp. That makes hair the bane to our existence. So when a picture of a guy who confessed to stealing packages while working for UPS circulated through this group, ready-made into a meme thanks to this guy’s wild hair, the members of my profession commented on the potential difficulty of getting electrodes to stick to his head. I had no issue with it initially. I’ve been a Sleep Tech for so long that the first thing I thought of was the hair being a pain in the ass.

A young Black woman in the group saw something different. She saw it as a commentary on blackness made by someone without the authority to do so, and a denigration of the unique characteristics therein. And it’s not a thought she pulled out of thin air. Workplaces across the country debate the “proper” way for black men and women to wear our hair, as the way it grows naturally is often called unprofessional. The damage that is done to Black hair by the high heat and chemical treatments required to make it “look nice” is real, as is the subtext that we are not good enough as we are. To put it mildly, I saw her point.

What happened after this pic made its rounds, and the subsequent call out of the inherent bias in the statement was unfortunate, and yet it’s all too common these days in social media. Accusations of racism in the group were thrown out, denials of racism were thrown back with allegations of hypersensitivity. People retreated into camps and the conversation became increasingly toxic and unproductive until the group administrators shut down the thread.

It’s worth noting that the person’s hair in question wasn’t as unkempt as you might think. His hair doesn’t grow this way naturally, and lots of effort and blow-drying went into making it look like this. It’s also worth noting that most of the group was upset by the connotations of the meme once they were made aware of it.

In simpler times, before we could have a message touch 50,000 people without leaving the couch, an exchange like that likely would have ended with one person stating why they were upset, the other person offering a form of contrition, and both parties moving on. We had conversations then, face-to-face discourse, where respect and civility were enforced by both parties involved. These days, we no longer deal with the consequences of having people disagree with us or the importance of having to defend your words in person to someone else. We form camps and ideological bubbles to reinforce our ideas as absolute universal truth and eliminate dissent. And as a result, we miss out on the larger, messier, more uncomfortable, and more worthwhile conversation.

I think that we are still capable of having that conversation, civilly, in person, without the cloak of protection granted by online anonymity. I believe we can—and should—have the conversation without the confidence given by echo chambers and bubbles of redundant and homogenous. I must believe this. Because otherwise, we can’t evolve in thought or practice. We’ll become even more disconnected from one another. And at that point, our days as a society, nation, and even species are very minimally numbered.