So when I was poking around on Roosh’s Return of Kings blog the other day I ran across a guest post from someone calling himself Samseau accusing feminists of using racism to exploit men – that is, of expertly manipulating men of different races to fight one another instead of standing firm against the evil feminists and their evil agenda.
The post, while purporting to be somehow “above” the issue of race, is a muddled mess full of “white men have it worst” nonsense like this:
[R]acial infighting between American men wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the political consequences.
Women, if you haven’t noticed, do not fight with each other over racial conflicts. They might get angry over the past, but they are able to resolve all issues by agreeing on a scapegoat: the white man. Colored women will gladly forgive their white sisters, since, after all, it was the white man who oppressed women and minorities.
White men are the big, bad, evil masters, and as such, all females of different colors can agree to put aside their differences in order to bring the white man down.
Yes, he did indeed use the term “colored women.” Oh, but there’s more.
The election results show that decades of brainwashing young American boys has been an unqualified success. Rather than have boys be loyal to their gender, boys have instead been trained to be loyal to their race.
Little non-white boys at the tender age of 9 years are fed lies about how white male oppressors created their poor living conditions, while white boys are taught that they need to correct the injustices of their forefathers lest they be guilty with the indelible sin of white privilege. Female teachers use the appropriate shaming tactics on these young minds to imprint the intended desire for conflict.
All according to plan.
And more:
Men are pawns in the race game. Thus while American women feed themselves government largesse, jobs, university degrees, their husband’s money, and child support money, American men fight each other over table scraps.
But my favorite thing about this article is the little graph that Mr. Samseau made up to illustrate the REAL issues men face today.
Yep. Race is the least important issue, while “getting laid” is number one.
It’s a pretty revealing little chart, huh?
The comment section for the article – wade into this swamp at your own peril – is (predictably enough) filled with angry racists trying to explain why race really does matter. Others, meanwhile, seem upset that all this racism is getting in the way of the regular woman-bashing. Still others suggest that men of all races needed to understand the “root cause” of all our “multicultural problems.” That being … teh Jews.
My favorite comment of the bunch, though, has to be this, from Caliente, combining an astounding ignorance of history with some half-digested evo psych:
Btw the reason why there are practically no racist women is simple.
Males of mammals are territorial.
They naturally base they identity from bottom up: family,tribe,nation,race.And naturally react negative to males of different “tribe”.
Females at the same time are receptive to have sex with any males as long as they are alpha enough.
In 19 century whites fucked all the black women because they were alpha and they had recourses,just look at Brasil.Nowadays a feminist will be cheating on her white beta herbling with some black fitness coach because that is how her brain assumes alphaness.
Wow.
Glad we got that all settled!
Also, do you know how to do twists when your hair is wet? If you want to encourage the wave or curl that’s a great, low-effort way to do it.
When I had long hair, I used to plait (braid for my American cousins) it at night, often when still slightly damp. Gave it a rippling wave.
mxe, sorry, I was off-line! drst pretty much covered it – dry hair, like mine, pretty much never gets oily, but will easily get brittle, develop split ends and break. Mine gets so dry that I can rub a thin coat of lotion in it and it’ll basically disappear instead of making the hair oily, and I sometimes coat it in olive oil overnight to let it soak up some oils and heal. Shampooing as rarely as I can without my scalp getting icky, and conditioning frequently with conditioner for very dry hair, are my friend.
The other extreme is my best friend’s hair, which will get oily if she doesn’t wash it every day. She needs to shampoo every time she washes, and can skip conditioner occasionally, but there are conditioners for her hair type, too.
And then there’s the lucky folk in the middle! Usually people are at least a bit on either the dry or the oily side, but not everyone is as extreme as my friend or I. If you’re really unlucky you get a mixed bag where hair near your scalp gets oily quick but your tips dry out, but that can be dealt with by combing regularly (to distribute the oils from your scalp down into the tips of your hair) and sticking to the “shampoo on the scalp, conditioner on the lengths/tips” rule.
Curly/wavy hair is more likely to be dry, straight hair more likely to be oily. It’s not 100%, but a good rule of thumb. Curly hair is also more prone to damage and brittleness because of its structure.
@clairedammit – or you can be as paranoid as I am, and pretty much only detangle your hair when it is wet and covered in conditioner. It’s very easy then! I hardly ever brush or comb my hair anymore – brushing is death for dry curly/wavy hair like mine, and fine-toothed combs just get destroyed. I am trying to get back in the habit of combing, very gently and with a very wide-toothed comb, to get whatever oils my scalp does produce into my poor dry hair. But right now, aside from detangling it when conditioning, I just sometimes detangle it as needed with my fingers. It’s a giant mess of big hair anyways when not tied back, and doesn’t look much more orderly after combing, so why bother/further damage my hair?
@Argenti Aertheri – aw, thanks! With hair as dry and demanding as mine, and being (to be honest here) as vain about it as I am (it’s a big part of my identity), I guess I kinda had to learn some stuff about it. I do still commit some hair sins – I don’t always have the patience to deal with how long my hair takes to dry if I just pat it, so I often will wrap the towel around it and wring/squeeze after all. Gently, and at least I don’t rub (heaven forbid!).
Having dry hair, and being broke/stingy, I find Herbal Essences “Hello Hydration” or “Totally Twisted” and Aussie “Moist” decent conditioners for the (low) price, and if I feel like “splurging”, I get Dove’s “Intensive Repair”. I gotta check out this “Organix” line, too! It sounds great. I wish I had the spending money to get actual good product!
Embarrassing story about coconut-scented products: I used to use a coconut-scented shampoo from The Body Shop (when they still made that, and I had enough money to buy it), and it smelled uncannily convincingly like coconut. Every time I used it, I has to remind myself that no, it would not taste good, it just smelled as if it would. I am an adult, I understand how scented hygiene products work! Even if it smelled *mouthwateringly* good… After many weeks, my resistance finally broke down. There was no was it could smell so much like coconut and not taste like it. I was just going to dip my tongue into a tiny bit.
…it did not taste like coconut. At all. Bleh.
I have coconut soap (Pre de Provence), and it does indeed smell edible.
Another tip (one I had to find out the slow way): even when you’re growing your hair long, keep getting it trimmed. I always thought cutting the ends of hair – which is dead after all – for its health was a hairdresser-inspired urban myth, but it really isn’t. If nothing else, the hair looks bulkier when the ends have a clean edge instead of getting wispy. You don’t have to get them done often. I get my layers trimmed about every three months (every third colour), partly to stop the hair getting so long the curl falls out and partly because the colour fades at the ends and it’s better to neaten them with a trim than put too many layers of colour on. Layering was really the trick for me to get my hair bulking up and curling; it was very half-and-half before, neither really straight nor wavy enough to have much body.
@Kitteh
Everyone I know has been telling me to get my hair trimmed every once in a while, so I’ll definitely do that. I’ll also consider layering my hair when it gets long enough. I just hope that it doesn’t look too feminine if I do that because I’m also trying to make sure that it doesn’t upset my religious family members.
Not upsetting religious family members = treading on eggshells for the rest of your life.
I’ll stop treading on eggshells once I move out of my dad’s house and become financially independent.
Sweet. 🙂 I was taking a longer term view that perhaps you were hoping to never – at least intentionally – upset those family members. I spent in excess of 35 years trying to do that, and failing, until I gave up.
mxe, I hear you on that it’s easy to say “just be yourself” when looking at it from the outside and not having to deal with depending on others for room and board and financial support. You have your own safety and survival to think of. Just know that we’re all rooting for you and are looking forward to the day when you are in a position to not worry anymore and show the world the woman you already are. In the meantime, good luck with starting with long hair!
Ditto to what Neurite said, mxe! Your safety’s first. Being trapped financially sucks even when you’re not in an oppressive or actually dangerous situation (my mum and I have never had the money to live separately and never will – it’s a good thing we get on pretty well). Being in a situation of having to hide who and what you are is more horrible than I can hope to understand on a gut level. I really hope your own life away from the family isn’t far off.
At least these hairstyling tips can go in the reference files. 🙂
That whole long-hair-is-only-for-women thing is so dumb … never mind that so many (most?) cultures at least in European and Mediterranean history often featured long, elaborate hair for men, but just on the Biblical front, what about Samson, hey? When was JC ever portrayed through centuries of imagined portraits as having a buzz cut? Consistency, they do not haz it.
Wow, I stay off the internet for three days and look what has happened…
1. Thank you for all the welcomes and the internets. =)
2. Yep, I’m definitely a woman. Funny how after I mention at the end of my post that I know how to friggin’ read, Demarq comments on but doesn’t friggin’ read what I wrote. READING COMPREHENSION FAIL.
3. Again for Demarq: Being autistic does not make one exempt from being creepy. Autistic DOES NOT equal stupidity or inability to ever learn. Stop it.
4. I’m loving the hair conversation! Yes to what everyone said about conditioners (yes please!) and towel drying (don’t do it!).
Have any of you tried henna-ing your hair (which also sounds like it should synonymous with herbling…)? I do (not as often as I probably should!) for strength, to make my hair appear thicker, and to make my teensy tiny coils a little more defined when I wash-and-wear my hair (as opposed to twisting and untwisting or heat-pressing). And for that surprising blast of red that appears when it’s very sunny outside. My clumsy self always winds up with slightly tinged fingernails from the rinsing out process… *sigh*
I love surprising people with my curly-coily hair… When my hair is in its wash-and-wear state, it looks QUITE short (about 4 inches and anti-gravity at the top). When I twist it, it looks to be about 7 inches long. A couple times a year, I will press it and everyone is stunned (or has forgotten!) that my hair is well past my shoulders when it is straight. I don’t press it often because my hair loves moisture so much that it will suck as much of it from the atmosphere as it possibly can. By the end of the day, my hair winds up looking straight, but HUGE. Think Tracy Turnblatt in Hairspray. I’d rather it be coily and big! It’s a better look for me! =D
Much respect for anyone who dreds their hair! When it looks good, it’s a lot of maintenance no matter how you look at it. I am much too fickle and in love with how my hair currently feels to do that yet. I might in the future, though. I suspect it would look BOSS.
@Kitteh
Fortunately, I can get away with growing long hair down to my shoulders; I’m not a Muslim anymore, but as someone who still needs to follow Islamic rules for the sake of not getting into trouble, I’m not actually breaking any Islamic rules by growing long hair. I don’t expect my conservative family members to understand that, though, and even if they do end up leaving me alone regarding my hair, they are probably going to pressure me to grow a beard (which is obligatory for men in Islam) and mustache in order to make me look more masculine. I do look rather androgynous currently with my hair (which isn’t even close to being down to my shoulders yet), so I really won’t be surprised if they do so.
Clarification: Islam forbids men from having hair past their shoulders.
RE: mxe354
Trans guy here, and feeling your pain. Good luck hanging in there until you can move out; I’ve had to pretty much cut ties with my family for various reasons. I had the reverse hair issue; they were always so sad when it got cut short. They were never hardcore about it, but I got neurotic about it anyway.
My apologies, mxe – I didn’t know you were Muslim, I was making default assumptions that you come from a conservative Christian family. My bad. 🙁
Well, if fundamentalists have anything to say about it…
Ermargerd, this is worse than Rule 34 – if it’s stupid enough, some fundie somewhere will have believed it!
::facepalm::
RE: Katz
Brain shut down out of self-defense trying to read that. I sense that some Bible scholars would howl in fury at the sight of it.
(I still got a ‘sinful homosexuals’ pamphlet immortalized around here somewhere. I’ll need to find some way to incorporate that into the bedroom somehow.)
Next thing you know, the fundies are going to convince me that Jesus was Swedish in facial structure/hair colouring…
What a pack of maroons, honestly. I suppose they thought he wore shirts and ties and grey flannel suits, too. After all the whole world evah was 1950s America.
YAY FOR REAL HISTORY AND FASHION AND MEN WITH LOVELY LONG HAIR
Kitteh, luckily it’s a systematic sort of stupidity. Just take a contemporary conservative talking point, assume that life in Bible times was just like it is today, and conclude that people in the Bible would have agreed with you.
So:
Men with long hair are femmy! Jesus couldn’t have been femmy! So Jesus must have had short hair!
Or:
Free-market economics is the only way to go! The social structure of 1st-century Israel was just like it is today! Therefore Jesus taught free market economics!
(Follow that link…if you dare…)
I dursen’t, I dursen’t! 😀
Is it blasphemy that I just imagined the standard Blonde Jesus with a chef’s hat on and speaking in Muppet Swedish?