True Lice

With the new school year, it's time to once again expect stories about an outbreak of head lice at some school or other. But have you ever noticed that these epidemics never seem to strike black students? It may be a little difficult to appreciate in a relatively integrated town like Seattle, but in many other school districts around the country the fact that head lice prefer predominantly white schools is obvious, although many people seem surprised to learn this.

Common Cootie I don't know if anybody has ever proven conclusively why head lice don't assume residence in the hair of black people. Some uninformed sorts believe that it has something to do with the type of hair care products used by African Americans, but this is obviously not the case. Immunity from head lice is the one thing that all black people seem to share, unlike the use of hair care products. Another idea is the tiny bugs' poor little legs can't get a good grip on black people's hair because of its oval shape, compared to the round cross-section of Caucasian and Asian hair. I prefer the theory that black people's scalps produce oils that make it impossible for the lice to attach their eggs, called nits, to the hair shafts.

The presence of this small but valuable genetic advantage puts black people in the position of being able to do their itchy white brethren a good turn. What if, somehow, this trait for oily hair and scalp could be transferred to Caucasians? Schools across the Western world would be save much lost time, little white kids would be spared the ordeal of de-licing, and a great bond of friendship would be forged between a grateful white race and their benevolent black benefactors. Afrophile whites could even wear dreadlocks without finding their heads transformed into feeding troughs for ugly little insects. I'm sure something like this is possible. We just have to let the scientists work out the "bugs."

But why stop there? Think of other ways in which the African genetic treasure could be exploited to the benefit of poorly-adapted whites. Blacks might provide a means to drastically reduce the rate of skin cancer. In this case the chemical largely responsible for protecting black people from the sun's harmful rays, melanin, could be transfused directly into the white population on a regular basis - call it "melanin maintenance." Whites receiving the beneficial compound would find themselves with the dark skin tones many consider the sign of vigor and health, while living without the fear that every small mole or other imperfection could be the starting point for a serious illness. Good looks matched with good health. Who could refuse? The transformation might initially upset less enlightened neighbors, but they'd get over it.

On what would seem to be the purely cosmetic side, in recent years some whites have decided that their lips weren't full enough, even going so far as to have them surgically pumped up to achieve the pucker of your typical black person. Black people have large lips, one theory holds, because they have dark skin. There is a supposed evolutionary advantage to having lips that are prominent and highly visible, which would account for the darker color of white lips relative to the rest of their skin. Since black people's lips could hardly have been made darker, they became larger. I'm not sure how valid this thesis is, but at least the fashionable preference for heavier lips seems to reaffirm what might be interpreted as a natural human attraction to lips, the bigger the better. Black lip genes could bring happiness to millions of whites.

There you have it: The basic outline for a better, happier tomorrow in which black people extend their contribution to humanity in ways heretofore unimagined. Thanks to black people, whites can look forward to a bright future.