{"id":32487,"date":"2013-07-21T19:39:28","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T19:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32487"},"modified":"2013-07-21T19:39:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T19:39:28","slug":"weeding-out-the-riffraff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32487","title":{"rendered":"Weeding Out the Riffraff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weeding Out the Riffraff<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\nHome & Garden
\n2013-07-17<\/p>\n

Penelope Green<\/a><\/strong>, Editor<\/p>\n

At Home With Sheila Bridges<\/em><\/p>\n

Sheila Bridges<\/a> played the cancer card only once, when a state trooper stopped her for speeding on the Taconic Parkway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time, Ms. Bridges, the interior designer Time<\/em> magazine once celebrated as one of America\u2019s best talents, was already notable for her race (as a black woman in a very white field, she stood out), her distinctive design style (a sensual and witty classicism) and her clients (music moguls like Andre Harrell, best-sellers like Tom Clancy and, famously, Bill Clinton). But she was not used to getting so much attention for her hair, or lack thereof.<\/p>\n

In 2004, Ms. Bridges, now 49, was at a career apogee, juggling a television show, product lines, type-A suitors and high-maintenance clients, when her hair began to fall out. The diagnosis was alopecia<\/a>, an autoimmune disorder. And as she recounts in \u201cThe Bald Mermaid<\/a>,\u201d her sharply told memoir, out this month from Pointed Leaf Press<\/a>, rather than struggle with wigs or weaves, she decided to shave her head…<\/p>\n

…Which takes us back to the speeding ticket Ms. Bridges dodged on the Taconic a few years ago. There she was, as she put it, \u201cdriving while black\u201d in a Range Rover, when she was pulled over. While she steeled herself for the inevitable \u201cWhose car is this?\u201d challenge from the trooper, she noted his confusion at her baldness. When he asked where she was going in such hurry, she answered honestly that she had an appointment at Columbia University Medical Center (it was a dentist\u2019s appointment, but she didn\u2019t mention that). And in a response that had become frustratingly familiar since she shaved her head, the officer clocked her as a cancer patient and waved her on.<\/p>\n

It is a rare day, Ms. Bridges said wryly, that she is not mistaken for some sort of patient. Last month, in line at the post office, a man tapped her on the shoulder. \u201cI thought, \u2018Here it comes,\u2019 \u201d she recalled. \u201cThen he asks me when I\u2019m having kidney dialysis. To constantly have to engage in conversations about my appearance is exhausting. A natural boundary is erased when you don\u2019t have hair. I was in a restaurant and a guy reached out and put both his hands on my head. I realize I\u2019m a trigger for other people\u2019s fears, of mortality, losing a loved one. But it creates all these other issues. I think I look great, and a man asks me if I\u2019m having dialysis. Is that how men see me? No wonder I\u2019m single.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Bridges is a lively memoirist, habituated since childhood to navigating a familiar sea of misconceptions and prejudices with a tart wit and the \u201cdouble consciousness<\/a>,\u201d to quote W. E. B. Du Bois<\/a>, worn by so many African-Americans.<\/p>\n

Although she grew up in Philadelphia, the child of a dentist and a teacher (a k a \u201cthe black girl\u201d in her small Quaker school), she was nonetheless required to arrive at Brown University her freshman year a week early to attend its Third World Transition Program. There was a plus: because she moved in before her roommate, she was able to snag the bigger closet. \u201cAll the better,\u201d she writes with characteristic humor, \u201cto hang my Masai<\/a> headdress and lion\u2019s tooth necklace right next to my collection of polo shirts from Saks.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same week, she was also asked to join a biracial support group. (In those days, she was feathering her light brown hair in homage to Farrah Fawcett<\/a>). \u201cBiracial? I\u2019d never even heard the word before,\u201d she writes. \u201cAround Philly, we adhered to the one drop rule<\/a> when it came to determining race. Or as my mother used to say, jokingly, \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter how much milk you put into your coffee. Coffee with milk is still coffee.\u2019<\/strong> \u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weeding Out the Riffraff The New York Times Home & Garden 2013-07-17 Penelope Green, Editor At Home With Sheila Bridges Sheila Bridges played the cancer card only once, when a state trooper stopped her for speeding on the Taconic Parkway. At the time, Ms. Bridges, the interior designer Time magazine once celebrated as one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8,20,25],"tags":[2640,15266,15267,2327],"class_list":["post-32487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-new-york-times","tag-penelope-green","tag-sheila-bridges","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}