by Amber Ruffin
That director is replaced. Her replacement is told everything. She hears about the whole fiasco by talking to the white people who work there. They are the only people she ever speaks to. I guess she didn’t like it, because this brand-new replacement woman during her first week of employment has the guts to say out loud in a meeting, “If one more person says something to me about racism, I’m gonna slap the taste outta their mouth!” She is so tired of doing her job after a week that she has a meltdown. She has a meltdown about having to deal with race before saying one word to a single Black employee. Lacey did not stay at this job very much longer.
Although Biff was bad, he had nothing on another kitchen manager. Let’s call him Sal. Everyone warned Lacey that Sal was a legit crazy person and was not to be fucked with. They told her that he was extremely mean. Mean to the point that people would go out of their way not to deal with him. “If you complain about him, he’ll get so mad that it won’t be worth it.” Sal was the head chef. He cooked food and left. He interacted with almost no one. He was a terror, but people figured out how to work around it.
This was an independent-living home. It was an extremely expensive place to live. These people paid top dollar. They were rich. Three times a day they were served in a fancy restaurant by dressed-up waiters and waitresses. They expected everything to be perfect. And frankly, for what they paid, it should be. Lacey’s job was to keep them happy. Unfortunately, Lacey had received numerous complaints about the food. Her coworkers begged her not to, but she would have to talk to Sal.
Lacey gathered herself and went into the kitchen. Sal was mid-prep; he seemed very busy. Crap. This was a bad time but it had to be now, otherwise Lacey might never work up the nerve to come in here again. Lacey asked him if he had a second as politely as she could. He didn’t seem too annoyed. He wiped his hands on his towel and walked over to her. Lacey explained in the nicest of ways that the residents complained about his food. She stuck to the facts and made sure she used the kindest words possible. It’s Lacey! She’s tiny. She’s fun and nice; she’s cute. What’s the worst that could happen?
He punched her.
Now, not like out-and-out punched her, but he punched her. You know how people punch you in the shoulder like, “Hey, man! How’s it going?” Well, that was what he was trying to play it off as. She let him know he’d have to do better and he socked her in the arm and said, “No problem, bud.” He punched her much harder than he should have. He did this to make sure Lacey knew it wasn’t okay to talk to him like that. To make sure that Lacey fell in line like everyone else. The thing about Lacey is, she’s literally a bodybuilder. It is one of her hobbies. I’d put a picture in here, but she won’t let me. Oh my god, yes she will! Look!
And, frankly, she could whoop my ass even though I have a foot and twenty pounds on her. So Sal punches Lacey in her rock-hard arm, and as a reflex Lacey immediately punches him back, also in the arm, with everything she’s got. Lacey can throw a punch. But even if she couldn’t, she’s got enough muscle to make it hurt without any real form behind it. After she rocks this idiot, luckily, she has the wherewithal to say, “Right back atcha.” His face looked shocked. He couldn’t believe it. She had rattled his teeth. Lacey sauntered away like a cool frigging dude.
She is not a cool dude. As soon as she’s out of sight, she runs to HR. She is one thousand percent sure she’s gonna get fired. She bursts in and is like, “Sal punched me in the arm and I punched him back!” If she’s gonna get fired, she’s gonna take Sal down with her. The HR lady is used to doing whatever she has to do not to have to deal with Sal. She’s no fool. She doesn’t want her ass beat. And this woman looks Lacey dead in the eye and says, “Well…did you tell him you didn’t want to be punched?”
No one does anything and they both get to keep their jobs.
Hair Stuff or Can I Put My Whole Hand in Your Hair—Oops, I Just Did
One lovely Christmas Eve, I was in a department store getting some last-minute gifts. I was rocking my very cute afro puff and really feeling myself. I’d already had some compliments as I walked through the store, so this was turning out to be a good trip. All of a sudden, as I turn down an aisle, it feels like someone is trying to pull my hair off. What I feel is fingers going into the afro puff and pulling. I think, Is Amber filming this as a joke? Is it my daughter? Why is this happening? I then realize exactly what it was. Someone ran their hands through my hair, their hand got stuck, and they kept pulling to try to get it out. They struggled, and it’s because they didn’t know not to put your hand in an afro. You can’t do that; you can’t run anything through my hair. Not your hand, not a comb, nothing. If anything gets put in my hair or Amber’s, for that matter, it belongs to the hair now.
I feel the hand leave my hair, I turn around, and a tiny white woman is standing there. The woman happily exclaims, “Oh my god, it’s so fluffy. I just needed to feel it.” What she didn’t think would happen is that she would get her fingers tangled in it. This is why I don’t like to wear the puff—it can get messed up too easily. Amber always tries to get me to do it so we can be twins, and sometimes I do. But I will say, there are too many curious white fingers in Omaha. This lady doesn’t apologize at all. I look around and a lot of people have seen what has happened and are watching to see how this whole thing is gonna unfold. Little white lady just keeps talking. “Your hair is so pretty. I love it! You know, you people—” I cut her off right there. With as much kindness as I can muster, I say, “We don’t touch people’s hair. You don’t touch my hair without permission and I don’t touch yours without permission. Understand?” The lady nods and leaves. Nothing good ever comes after “you people.” I had no choice but to cut her off. As I walk away, I see Black people are frozen in place all around me. I say to them, “I’m just trying not to go to jail today.” They laugh and reply, “I wondered what you were gonna do.”
I also have a buncha good hair stories. Not good hair as in “our society considers my hair good”—because hahaha THAT’S NOT THE CASE!—but good hair stories like stories about hair that are good. Okay, so when I was eighteen, it was time for me to get my first job. I wanted to work at a sandwich place with my friend. The sandwich place was in West Omaha, a part of town famous for its whiteness. Mom and Dad warned me that I should get a job on our side of town and that “if something happens and you need help, no one will be there. You’ll look around and realize that you did this to yourself.” I was like, “Okay, 1957, everything’s going to be fine.” Besides, I had my friend (a white girl) working there with me. That’s when they gave me the best advice I’ve ever received: “You love your little white friends and they love you, but they have no idea what racism is or how to stand against it. If given the chance, they will leave you high and dry. Not because they hate you, but because they can’t see what’s happening.”
Okay, so how dare they talk about my little white friend like that? But I’m eighteen. I have NO EARTHLY CLUE the type of rampant racism that lies ahead in life. My parents knew I was about to find out what real racism is. They tried to save me, but it had to happen.
Side story: I never went to college—too busy trying to have a career in sandwich making. But our sister Angie, who is now a reverend, went to an evangelical college and they were so racist that she couldn’t stand it. She dropped out. The same thing happened to my niece. She got a scholarship to a very fancy rich kids’ school and they were too racist, so she dropped out. (Don’t worry, she still has a thousand more scholarships; she’ll be fine.) Finding out what true racism is when you’re eighteen seems to be the rule. Not, like, silly racism, but the racism the white people who are only ever around white people have.
Okay. So I’m at the sandwich place. It’s fine. There’s one horrible boss, Fran, and one less horrible boss, LHB. Every time Fran balances my drawer, I’m short; every time LHB does, I’m fine. Curious. The thing about Fran is she is the type of racist who sees what you have and is jealous. I had a sweet, cute kind boyfriend and I’d le
ave every night to hang out with her other employee, my little friend, without ever inviting her, and I have natural zazz. This hoe2 could not stand it.
So, one day, my friend and I are cleaning up at the end of the night when Fran frigging unloads on me. She says a lot about who I date and how I look and it ends with:
“Your braids are so gross. Why won’t you take them out and straighten your hair like the rest of you people do?”
I’m shocked. The whole thing was so venomous. It was like bullying but with racist stuff. We knew Fran was a dumpy bully, but racist? That was new. But none of that mattered. I was not alone! My little white friend would back me up, right? I’ll never forget. I looked behind me to my friend for support and she was just standing there nodding her head. Agreeing with Fran! It hurt my little feelings so bad, y’all. She was my best bud. My parents were right. As time went on, every single one of my little white friends went on to say some insane shit. Not constantly and not a lot by any means, but stuff that would not fly today. Anyway, I was fired the next day. But I am so glad I learned that lesson as a kid. Can you imagine learning that at age thirty?
And I know this book is about Lacey, but one other short story first: A few years ago I was at my friend’s office party and it was too much fun. Look, I always have a good time at office parties. Any party, really. I’m programmed for fun. I’m having fun right now, sitting in my kitchen, typing away about horrible stories that keep my family oppressed. So I’m at the bar ordering (I assume) a margarita when the drunkest girl in the world walks up to me. She’s a tiny drunk white woman who no one had ever heard speak. This woman is so drunk you can’t understand what she’s saying. Later, I would see Drunky outside waiting for a cab. She was being held up by another woman from the office while Drunky tried to kiss her and Office Woman was dodging her kisses while holding her up. Later, people reported the two of them standing next to a pile of puke. So that’s the type of drunk this woman was.
But back to about an hour or so before that. Drunky comes up to me and talks to me about how much she loves my afro. And I will say it did look especially juicy that day. But before I could move away, Drunky put her whole hand into my fro. The whole hand! Not like touched it or bounced it or patted it, but did a magic trick where she “made her whole hand disappear”! I start to tell this lady not to put whole hands in people’s hair lest she only be able to count to five for the rest of her life when—she loses her balance! Now again, we are at the bar and she tries to hold on to my hair for support, but it’s not enough. With her whole hand in my hair, she does the only thing that would stop her from falling: She HOLDS ON TO MY HAIR FOR DEAR LIFE! AND IT HOLDS HER UP! Do you remember the poster for the movie Cliffhanger? Where Sylvester Stallone is facing certain death, dangling hundreds of feet in the air, holding on with just one hand to the edge of a cliff? Well, it’s the same thing except my hair is the cliff and Drunky is Stallone. I’ve never been prouder of my hair. It literally saved someone. She is so drunk she doesn’t know what she’s done. I grab her so she doesn’t fall. I prop her up against the bar and proceed to laugh myself sick. It was truly the funniest thing that could ever happen to an afro. Better than the time a dragonfly was trapped in it while I was in line at McDonald’s and I cried until a stranger got it out. Better than when I used to do this bit where I’d hide a pencil in my afro and take it out during meetings. I still laugh when I think about that tiny woman being saved by my strong fro. My hair is a superhero.
Oh, no! This is the best afro story: Okay, so when I first moved to LA my friend wrote on a sketch show and he would put me in sketches. It was the coolest thing I had ever done! You get a cool trailer and people would come in and put makeup on you and ask what you want to wear! So at the time I had a TWA (teeny-weeny afro, and I don’t know if you’re supposed to repeat that. Probably best not to). I walk into the hair trailer and the lady is having a bad time. She tries to cover it up, but I can see it on her face. I sit down in her chair and am determined to make her feel better. I get her giggling a little bit and can see she’s starting to calm down. She then looks at my TWA and asks me what wig I’m going to wear. I tell her I’m not going to wear one. I think to myself, How rude that this lady just assumes I’m going to cover up my hair! Gross Eurocentric standards of beauty. I assume that’s gonna be the end of it, and I am so wrong. This woman freaks out. She’s so flustered. She turns bright red and is like, “What? You’re going to wear your hair like this? Like, how? How do you plan on…You mean just like this? Okay. Well, I don’t know how to…What do you usually…How? HOW?”
And then, hand to god, she starts crying. Crying. I couldn’t believe it. She looked at my afro and cried. My afro made her cry. You guys. While she sat there and did nothing, I put on a headband and called it good. I was no longer interested in her feelings. I left the trailer. It was not the last time I would have to do my own hair while sitting in the chair of a “professional.”
Okay. Next story. Back to Lacey. Once, when Lacey was young, a thousand years ago,
I’ll pinch you.
Please don’t. Years ago, it was nighttime and Lacey was taking the city bus and when she got on it, the white lady bus driver looked at her like she was disgusted. She was giving her a full scowl. Now, if you’re a bus driver in Omaha, Nebraska, I don’t know your journey or what you have to go through. So you might just give everyone that look for your personal safety, and I respect that. Sometimes I do that. Lacey taught me: “If the sun is down, wear a frown.” And I gotta say it has always worked for me. So Lacey gets scowled at by this lady and thinks nothing of it until the lady goes, “Geez! You look like you cut your hair with an ax! You look just like Gladys Knight!” She did not mean it as a compliment. This raggedy, bus-driving Gargamel was trying to burn her, but she ended up giving her a great compliment. Gladys Knight is as talented as she is beautiful, so shut your “Midnight Bus to North Omaha” behind up.
You’ll never believe this one. AS WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THIS STORY, a complete stranger came up to me and told me I looked exactly like Gladys Knight. Did he have that thought independently? Did he hear us talking about it? I don’t know. Do I look anything like Gladys Knight? No.
There is this thing where white women like to be loudly grossed out by the way Black women look. Our hair and bodies and stuff. And you can always see clean through it. Like, even though they’re not saying it, what they’re thinking seems to be, This lady gets laid? Men like this? It’s like they’re actively comparing themselves to you and their coming up short is infuriating. So they try to rag on you. It never quite works.
Pictures of Lacey’s Different Hairstyles and What They’ve Been Called
Afro—“Cornrows”
Curly wig—“Real hair”
Straight wig—“Natural”
Natural—“Weave”
Dreadlocks—“Medusa Hair,” “Worms,” “Muslim Hair Covering,”
“These Things,” “Hair Hat”
Once, when I had braids, they were called “locs” by a very woke white lady who cautioned us that we aren’t saying “dreads” anymore because that term came from Christopher Columbus calling people’s hair “dreadful locs.” Now we just call ’em “locs.” To keep ourselves moving forward. Please stop trying to educate me on my hair.
History Lessons
As we have learned, sometimes something racist happens to you and you don’t do a thing. You let people drown to death in a pool of racist thoughts and actions, as is your god-given right. You are only one person. You are not the Black ambassador to the United States. If people haven’t figured it out, it’s their problem. And sometimes you stand up and explain why they shouldn’t be doing or saying whatever insane thing they said. Here are a few little stories where, for whatever reason, Lacey decided to help.
Lacey loves to tell stories about our family. There are five kids, and some pretty hilarious things have happened to us over the years. Ooh! Maybe the next book will be the fun stuff! Like when Jimmy got hi
s head stuck in the crib bars or when Jimmy got stuck in the clothes chute! He’s probably climbing through someone’s HVAC right now. Anyway, Lacey was in a meeting talking about her life as she grew up with so many kids in the house. One of the directors chimed in and said it must have been hard on your mom being a single parent with five kids. Nowhere in the conversation did Lacey say that she was raised by a single mom, ’cause she was not. She told the director that she was raised by both our parents and that they are still married. There should have been an apology from this idiot where she said, “I’m sorry I’m such an idiot. I’ve been this way forever and I don’t know how to stop it.” Or, at the very least, that lady should have stopped speaking. Instead, she chimed in and said, “I mean usually you guys are raised by just your moms.” Lacey gave them a history lesson explaining why that’s a racist thing to say.
They hired a new supervisor at the retirement home Lacey worked at and you could tell he was not pleased when he met his current staff. He came to the directors’ meeting complaining that “there needs to be more white staff working.” That’s enough right there, but this man, in front of other human beings, said, “I’ve looked at the staff we have and some are from Africa and I don’t think they can even read. Can most people from Africa read? I mean, having more white people will just make this an easier work environment.” Lacey explained how that’s inaccurate, let them know the statistics for African immigrants and their grades, and why that’s a racist thing to say. All of which was NEWS TO HIM. Lacey immediately reported him to HR and he was fired shortly thereafter.
