White People Dreads SUCK

While reading Phoebe Robinson's chapter "From Little Rock Nine to Nappy Hair, Don't Care in Eighteen and a Half-ish Years" (fantastic title by the way, really made me laugh), I was reminded of an opinion I will hold until the day I am lowered into my grave. White people dreads SUCK. I can't remember a time in my twenty-one years of life that I looked at a white person with dreads, box braids, cornrows, any other similar style without a sense of disgust. Robinson explains her childhood woes with her hair, and I've heard similar stories from friends, and I just can't imagine why we (white people) feel so entitled that we can't even be grateful for having a preferred hair type (or "good hair"). My biggest hair scars from my childhood are 1) when I did ballet and my mom burned my ear with a curling iron and I couldn't cry because my makeup was already done, and 2) when in 8th grade I decided straight bangs would be a good look on me (very wrong about that one). Also, I cut the bangs myself but unfortunately I don't have a picture. That being said, I'll never be picked over for a job because my hair isn't "professional," and I'll never have to endure strangers coming up asking to touch my hair. I don't like anyone touching my hair unless I'm paying them to, so I can't begin to imagine how upset I would be if someone came up to me on the street asking to touch it.
Back to white people dreads and why I (as everyone should) hate them. My first thing, they really just don't look good. When white people have dreads or any of the styles I mentioned earlier they're seen as "edgy" or "trendy" but when black people, whose hair is meant for those styles, wear the same ones they're put down and even ignored employment??!?!?!! My best friend, Chevelle, used to do a style where she would twist her hair and then wrap it in yarn, essentially looking like yarn dreadlocks, and I LOVED it. All the time when we'd be out at the store, or anywhere really, people would do one of three things: complement it and keep it moving, ask how she got it like that, or a combination of complementing and reaching for her head. I imagine this is similar to strangers touching your baby, it's uncomfortable for the parent (parent being the person the hair is attached to). I could go on forever about white entitlement and other things, but I'll end with: keep your hands to yourself please. It's really as simple as thinking, "hm, I really wouldn't like a stranger touching my noggin out of the blue, so why would I do it to someone else?" and then, problem improved!!! (I was going to say solved, but nothing is really that simple.)