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PEOPLE & ARTS Thursday 21 december 2017
Online game to players: Don’t touch black people’s hair

By NOREEN NASIR tached to your head?” to
Associated Press “so fluffy!”
WASHINGTON (AP) — YouTube video blogger
Art director Momo Pixel Chelsea Nicole said she
moved to Portland, Ore- couldn’t stop smiling while
gon in 2016, and confront- playing.
ed a challenge she had “I imagined myself in the
never experienced before: game swatting away
Strangers reaching out hands — something I wish
to grab or stroke her long I could actually do,” she
braided hair, often without said.
her permission. Tul Elsiddig, 22, a commu-
“I would be walking down nity organizer in Chicago,
the street visibly mad,” Pix- said he experienced peo-
el recalled. ple touching his hair a lot
One day, she told her boss in college, primarily from
about it. In trying to mimic South Asian and Arab peo-
that scene, he playfully ple. He would be greeting
ducked imaginary hands peers and then feel some-
coming toward him. Pixel one’s hand rubbing his This image released by Wieden+Kennedy shows a scene from the Hair Nah computer game
remarked that it would afro. designed by Momo Pixel.
make a funny game. “Every single time, that in- Associated Press
With the support of her em- furiated me,” he said.
ployer, advertising agency Elsiddig said he perceived tentimes, people get upset Pixel said she now has plans “Respect peoples’ space.
Wieden+Kennedy, an on- those instances as an ex- at the result of the issue in- to develop the game into Don’t touch them. This is
line game, “Hair Nah! “ was tension of disrespect for stead of getting upset with an app with the same mes- not hard, people.”q
born. Since Pixel shared it black people’s bodies. the issue.” sage:
on Twitter on Nov. 15, the “Why do you feel com-
game received more than fortable touching black
51,000 likes and 27,000 people you don’t know,
retweets and caught the when you wouldn’t touch
attention of celebrities in- a white person you don’t
cluding television producer know?” he questioned.
Shonda Rhimes and Black The game also reveals the
Lives Matter activist DeRay lack of diversity in the world
Mckesson. of video games.
Pixel, 27, called the game “There is nothing out there
a light-hearted attempt to like this that talks to us,” Pix-
address personal space vi- el said. “We’re not the pro-
olations masked as curios- tagonists of games. We’re
ity about natural hair — a not even in games.”
struggle that black people Tia Tyree, a professor at
know well. In 2016, R&B Howard University’s De-
singer Solange Knowles partment of Communica-
addressed the issue in a tion, Culture and Media
song titled, “Don’t Touch Studies, agreed, and not-
My Hair.” ed the mainstream media
“I had it happen to me landscape could learn
once 10 times in a day,” from “Hair Nah!’s” viral suc-
Pixel said. “So to some cess.
people, this game is exag- “Whenever you see your-
gerated. But when you’re self in something, you un-
the person and people derstand that you are im-
are invading your space, portant,” Tyree said. “For
it feels like it’s all the time.” those who have typically
“Hair Nah!” has a vibrant been excluded from a
‘80s aesthetic and begins crowded marketplace like
with a black woman as the the video game arena,
subject, allowing the play- when you see yourself, you
er to select from various see that someone cares
skin tones and hairstyles enough to represent you.”
and a travel destination. Pixel said the response to
The player needs to help her game has been gen-
the character make it to erally positive, but there
her destination by swat- has been pushback, too,
ting away white hands mostly from people who
that emerge from all sides question the prevalence of
of the screen, trying to this action or why it is a big
touch her hair. The reach- deal.
ing is punctured by voiced “The game would not exist
phrases that strangers said if there were not a prob-
to Pixel herself, from “is it at- lem,” Pixel said. “I think of-