Paging Rachel Dolezal

So today I was thinking about Rachel Dolezal. What did she do when nasty little white kids made fun of her "natural hair" which in her case was not really "natural hair" but bear with me here. This is my life we are talking about because today, for the first time in a long time, nasty little white kids made fun of my hair.

Now admittedly I have unusual hair for a white chick when I let it go natural. I rubbed a handful of coconut oil in it yesterday and let it air dry. The result is a great cloud of fluff around my pasty white lady face. When I first beheld the results, I began to doubt for the first time in my, er, puff. This is madness, I thought. I am having a DNA test. Surely someone on my American grandmother's side was lying. Someone--my great-great-grandmother?--was 'passing', and it has come out in me. I have been robbed of my heritage. Whom do I sue?

"Oh my God," cried Hipsterka when I met her at her latest favourite café. "Your hair is just crazy! In a good way, though."

I had totally forgotten all about my hair, having tied it into a very high pony-tail, concluded sadly I looked like Sideshow Bob, and rushed out to catch my bus. And, after Hipsterka's astonishment subsided, I forgot all about it again, for I was intent on composing a begging letter to a priest in Poland with Hipsterka's help: Drogi Ojcze Pawle, Szczęść Boże! Me need place to stay. Me cannibalize Polish tango song to write this email. 

But today I just went to the village shop, not even bothering with the high pony-tail, having forgotten all about my hair, and lo. Loud mockery by ragamuffins in sloppy primary school uniforms, all of them little indigenous (i.e. white Scottish) girls. Afro! Afro! Crazy hair!

What would Rachel do?

I was terribly tempted to ask them if they were racist, and if their parents were racist, too, and if they didn't want mixed race people in their neighbourhood. It would have been a great satisfaction to see if they turned even whiter and looked horrified that they had committed the sin of all sins, or if they would dig their social graves deeper by renewing their attack with vigour against racial minority lady. (Technically, if stupidly, I count as one, being Canadian.)

However, that would have been tantamount to a lie, and as yet I have never deliberately passed as mixed race, so instead I merely turned and glared at them. This shut them up for a moment before they renewed their cry of Afro! Afro! Crazy hair!

The politics of hair! Oy!