"I Am Not My Hair"

Written by: luminoUS, Editor at Large

“Look, girl! She got that good hair! It’s all curly and stuff…” “Your hair is just nappy! I hate trying to comb your hair… You need it pressed or a relaxer!” I’ve heard both of these phrases one too many times during my childhood and even still today as an adult. What eXactly deems one’s hair as “good” or “bad”? Does good hair obey rules? Does bad hair stay out all hours of the night and wreck havoc on society? Too many times people place connotations upon hair that it could never live up to.

Being spoon fed images of beauty by the hands of Lady Liberty and the children of her nation, African Americans have been groomed to believe that the “s” curl pattern of their locs is no less than horrid. Our hair was deemed down right dreadful during the days of slavery by the Europeans who forced us to inhabit the foreign shores of this once distant land simply because it was different from their thin, flowing tresses. Unbeknownst to them, our hair was our crowning glory and protection against the heat and other elements indigenous to Mother Africa. Thick like lambs wool and coiled into a perfect “s” shape, our hair cushioned and insulated our crowns from the heat of the sun. But, when in Rome, many tend to do as the Romans, and before long we as a people began to take on the ideology that straight, thin hair was the only form of beauty when speaking in the realm of cosmetology.

I was forced to sit in front of the hot stove every Saturday evening. Whose turn was first or last did not matter because the procedure was always the same. Grandma would sit upon her stool with a slab of Blue Magic grease upon the back of her hand. She would part the hair, apply grease to the scalp, then remove the hot comb from whichever eye of the stove that it rested upon and dead press your hair until it was silky and flowing. Once she was finished, she would roll your hair with sponge rollers or pieces of a brown paper bag and come Sunday morning, we would all have a head full of curly, bouncy hair.

To see more 'Nappy Roots', click the link:
http://etmmagazine.info/future/2009/09/articles/2009_09_nappyroots.html