Your "hair anecdote" is funny, the exact same thing happened to me when I was in Cameroon. I'm white, two kids approached me after looking at me like they never saw a white man before (which might have been the case) and then asked the guy with me (local) if they could touch my hair.
Don't take this too personal please but I think this is exactly how privilege works: For you it was funny because it happened to you once when you were on holidays. Now imagine this happened to you over and over, hundreds of times, since you were little in all sorts of contexts, at school, uni, work, on the street, at parties, friends, colleagues, people you don't even now. I think it gets less funny pretty fast.
The point of the OPs anecdote was that if a child who really sees an Afro for the first time does this it's okay. But grown-ups (who even if they only have contact to other white people are able to read up on those things) should know better.
I agree with you 100%, I wasn't trying to argue with the OP point, just reading this make me remember a funny moment that I shared. I wasn't trying to argue or disminish anything.
I grew up with exactly what you mention - people, especially women, coming up and basically feeling up my hair or commenting on it everywhere I went. I never minded it though and I wonder why people do.
I'm white, two kids approached me after looking at me like they never saw a white man before (which might have been the case) and then asked the guy with me (local) if they could touch my hair.
Golda Meir talks about a situation just like this while visiting Africa. Children ask to touch her hair. Furthermore, the kids ask her where she's from, and she replies Jerusalem, and they refuse to believe it's a real city outside of myth.
That was unexpected but funny ahah.