Sometimes, it's like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.

The image of an invisible hair irritating the cheek captures how certain troubles—often prejudice, anxiety, or a persistent worry—can be both hard to name and impossible to ignore. The speaker suggests a paradox: the more you try to locate and remove the source, the more attention you give it, and the irritation continues. As a metaphor associated with Marian Anderson’s life and public role, it can be read as describing the low-grade but relentless abrasions of discrimination and social hostility: not always overt, not always easily “provable,” yet continually felt and requiring constant, wearying self-management.