My hair does not dictate who I am
Jeahlisa Bridgeman
Contributor
In December 2011, after two and a half years of relaxer-free hair, I considered giving the “creamy crack” (lye relaxer) another chance.
With a new year approaching, I wanted a drastic change and since dyeing one’s hair lighter during the winter months is a fashion faux-pas, I decided that straight hair was the way to go.
After a week of contemplation, I announced my decision to a few friends and family members.
A handful of them simply didn’t care what I did to my hair. Hair is hair and what’s the fun in having it if you don’t switch it up now and then; this was the attitude I received from many women.
Of course, I got the obligatory scolding about the perils that lay ahead if I started applying hazardous lye relaxers to my scalp—perils like chemical burns, hair breakage, and bald spots. I had watched Good Hair, a documentary by Chris Rock, and frequented enough Black hair blogs to know that sodium hydroxide, the main ingredient in perm, could burn through a soda can. That didn’t impede my resolution to relax my hair.
However, nothing prepared me for the negative comments from my natural friends and family who accused me of being a “traitor,” reverting back to a “slave-like mentality,” and complying to the “white man’s ideology of beauty.”
I admit during my “napptural” journey, I had succeeded in convincing many of my girlfriends to begin growing out their perms and rocking teeny weeny afros (TWAs) and dreadlocks. But I don’t recall ever accusing anyone of trying to be white if she preferred relaxer or hair extensions. Even I wore braid extensions all the time, especially when the kinks in my hair frustrated me.
The only Black women I criticized, and still openly criticize today, are the ones who choose hairstyling alternatives like relaxers, texturizers, braid extensions or wigs because they hate their hair texture.
While you don’t have to grow out your perm to discover a love of self, it’s important to respect and appreciate all aspects of yourself, afro-textured hair included. There is absolutely no reason to believe that you can’t be fierce with your hair in its most natural state.
I have never articulated that Black women with permed hair are on some unspoken quest to be closer to the white race, just as I have never said that women with natural hair are more “Black.”
Then again, what does it even mean to be Black?
“Blackness is a social construct. And because society differs from one region to another, so does this ideology of Blackness,” says Dr. Kamala Kempadoo, York professor in both the Department of Social Sciences and the School of Women’s Studies. “Blackness cannot be restricted to one definition because it is expressed in different ways in different societies and different time periods.”
For example, in the ‘60s, the afro was seen as a form of resistance and a symbol of Black power in a time where African-Americans were struggling for their civil rights. However, does an afro still solidify one’s Black identity today?
July 5, 2009 was the day I took a pair of scissors and cut off the seven inches of relaxed hair that I’d been holding onto for dear life. I didn’t decide to go natural to embark on some soul-searching journey back to Blackness. I did it because I wanted thicker, luscious hair, plain and simple.
After the chop, I didn’t experience a surge of confidence or perceive a sudden liberation from the oppressor’s construct of beauty. And I sure as hell didn’t feel any more in touch with my African heritage than I did 30 minutes prior to my big chop. To be quite honest, I saw a Black girl with about four inches of dry, tangled new growth on her head and a tuft of straight hair in her left hand.
Frankly, I felt kind of ugly. After a few weeks of stalking natural hair blogs and dabbling in products that catered to my new hair texture, I learned to love my hair. To this day I have yet to feel this epiphany of Blackness that is so often associated with natural hair.
By the end of December 2011 though, I decided to keep my natural hair. But don’t think that those hardcore naturals influenced my final decision. Black women are still trying to find their identity in a society that views us only in terms of stereotypes and caricatures. A good friend once told me that there seems to be an undeclared notion that in order to be deemed truly Black, you must fulfill certain criteria and shun others. But hair should not be included in these criteria. Last time I checked, the way you style your hair should be a manifestation of your individuality, and not some socio-political statement about your race.
The woman with the waist-long locks shouldn’t be considered more Black than the sista’ with a 12-inch Remy weave because when all is said and done, we, as Black women in North America, are subject to similar prejudices regardless of how we wear our hair.
