Black Hair: "Touchy" Subject

Llexxi Young: A Black Woman

The people have spoken and I have listened. Here it is.

Black hair, now what’s so controversial about it? Why is it always brought up? And why does it matter? 

Well, let’s comb this out. And to prefix I’d like to say I’m going to keep this short and simple, I’ll have you in and out in no time. There is obviously a lot of history and discussion on this but I want to stick to a certain topic that doesn’t get brought up too much in my opinion.

Black people and most Black women have been dealing with this topic since slavery. It’s a big part of history and culture, it’s how we identify, relate, connect, care, and more. Black people have gone as far as using our hair to escape slavery, after slavery Black people have used updos to help signify class, jobs, and just on a more personal scale we had the freedom to do so. But obviously, in a Eurocentric society, this wasn’t understood. Hair updos started getting banned, we were forced to cover our heads and even pushed to shave them. But one thing I love about my people is we PERSERVERE. In protest, Black people wore scarves, headwraps, and durags, in all sorts of patterns, colors, and ways.

During our freedom and protest of the beauty standards we even wore braids, wigs, and different styles that started becoming popular.

Things haven’t really changed, Black kids are having their locs cut out at school, and Black women are told what hairstyle is “professional” and “appropriate” If anything things have just become more elevated. Now non-Black people are wearing Black hairstyles and headpieces. When will this irony end!!!

Now that you’re all caught up on the last I don’t know 500 years, let’s talk present.

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Why do White people touch Black people’s hair?

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I’d like to say, I’m adopted so my dad(adopted dad, but I don’t think of him like that) is White. So I grew up with a White man in my house. Not once, ever, did that man touch my hair like how a White person has. I’ve also been natural all of my life and actively wear my afro, so it’s just a constant comparison to a sheep’s coat.

It’s a malicious thing, almost as if I’m a dog or a pet to them. 

They know what they're doing, they're doing it on purpose.

It’s a way to demean, put down, “other”, and out someone. It’s a microaggressive act and I’m not getting this from some other “professional” source, this is coming from me, it’s how I feel. The problem isn’t the touch but how they touch it as if it’s a “dirty thing”, more so for me. They pick it up, with the tips of their fingers, inspect it, make a grimace, and when they see me notice throw a fake smile at me and hurry to drop it. It would be comical if it didn’t hurt so much. I HATE THIS, I hate how it makes me feel, how it makes me look at my hair differently, and now I hate how damaging that was growing up.

As a child it was a different story, I tried so hard to hide it, I’d wear braids, get silk presses, crochet, whatever I could so I didn’t have to wear my natural hair outside. Not to say I didn’t love those styles, it’s just back-to-back styles, that cause a lot of tension on your scalp and no breaks in between can be damaging.

Personal Story

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In my preteens, my family took our normal scheduled trip to Philadelphia, my Mom’s home city. There I went to my Aunt’s hair salon and got my usual silk press. But this time, it was different, this is where my faith in Black women and the salon shattered, and my hate for blackness started here. She cut my hair into a bowl cut, claiming that my hair was damaged and uneven, neither my Mom nor I gave her permission. Mind you, before that I was seeing a hairdresser regularly, and not once did she bring up my breakage. I can remember sitting in that chair crying as I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, while my Mom stood solemnly, and my Aunt was smiling, trying to explain herself. What made matters worse was that I didn’t know the upkeep of this hairstyle, so when I sweated it out, I always looked like a hot mess. My hair was long at the top and all of my kitchen(back of the head) was shaved. The nightmare didn’t stop there, when I went back to school, it became a living hell. The shame and humiliation I felt on that day is something, I never ever want to experience again. I know I can never forget that day but I’d like to keep it to myself, never written and never spoken, one of my many secrets.

After that, I never went back to the salon for years, the trauma of that moment spoke volumes for me. So I became natural-natural, not “straight” natural. That’s when I noticed more of the hair touching.

I think that’s why I started incorporating more hairstyles on my hair. This continued all the way after high school, I started wearing wigs in college. Yes! I did love the styles and my natural hair but wearing more Eurocentric styles felt a little freeing, it toned down my Blackness, and made me more palatable. I noticed this big time so it became a norm for me, back-to-back wigs or even ponytails/buns. Just to escape the weight of my hair I ended up damaging it.

The trauma of dealing with my hair, the stress of it all has caused me to neglect the one thing that is so uniquely me.

Let’s bring it back, I found ways to incorporate my natural hair into different styles, that way I have less stress on my scalp but still have my natural hair out. The freedom I have now comes from the freedom to wear my hair however I want.

As an adult Black woman, I do not get people touching my hair as often anymore, I do get the comments and looks but no one’s touching my hair like they used to. It was easier for them to terrorize a little Black girl, no one listened or cared. But as an adult, they can’t get away with being in someone’s personal space. That’s why when they do they are overtly trying to assert themselves. They don’t have to do too much to a child but a grown person they have to be more domineering and forceful.

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL   

I love it when black people touch my hair. It’s admiration, growth, love, and community. We have been made to be ashamed of our hair, skin, noses, and even as far as our gums!

I love my hair and that has taken me years to get to, but I really do love my hair. It is so uniquely ME, everyone’s curls are different so you may have a similar texture but your curl pattern is not an exact copy of mine. And that’s what makes us magical.

Throughout my life, I’ve had conversations about our hair with my friends, family, hairdressers, and more. I’ve even brought it up in my college lectures, have written essays on it (some during high school), and have made video essays. This is one of my Roman empires if you want to look at it that way.

(if you know where this is from, good looks!)

There was a short period in the 1970s when ‘Black is Beautiful’ became a popular phrase that started spreading during the Black Consciousness movement to help our people accept our culture and identity. This didn’t last long, though. During the 1980s and 1990s, this movement slowly started to die.

Don’t despair, Black people are resilient and persevere through anything. We’ve started reclaiming our hairstyles, embracing our natural curl patterns through understanding different types, and focusing on our health.

(the same with this)

I’ll leave you with some good sources, just some stuff worth checking out.

Black is Beautiful

NPR Black is Beautiful

NPR WATTSTAX

Wattstax: An Excerpt on the Opposite Sex

I Am Not My Hair

Lastly, I’d like to say this is all African American history, our connection with our hair is different. It’s not to say we didn’t get our culture from our ancestors who came from Africa. For example, headwraps/scarves are a normal part of African culture, it’s accepted and embraced. We were forced to cover our hair so our acceptance comes from the fact that we made something out of nothing. We learned to become creative with the tools we had. Remember African Americans were taught to be ashamed of their Blackness so all of the things we were forced to do we’ve accepted and even reclaimed it, making/using it for our own creativity and love.

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I wrote all of this while procrastinating detangling and twisting my hair. Hey, it’s better to write about doing your hair than actually doing your hair.