(My) Kinky hair
Nakandi:
I do not know how I finally got to a point of examining my relationship to my hair as it is a conversation I have been intentionally avoiding.
When I was younger I did not have much say in how to wear my hair as the schools demanded very short hair. During the school breaks I had more of a say, but the anti-African I was back then too wanted the illusion of flowing hair so I would often opt for a braided variant. Since I was considered to have 'good' hair*, my cousins and the saloon ladies would see to it that it was constantly in a protective hairstyle when it wasn't braided. The focus on 'protecting' it made me grow up with the idea that I could lose it if I did not follow specific steps, and I would get 'bad' hair. So I would be dark skinned and small with bad hair.
*In Uganda good hair, munyerere, is the soft type that can easily be brushed. Bad hair, kaweke, is like the that of the Khoikhoi people.
At 13, now in Norway, my hair was relaxed for the first time. Mum used to do different hairstyles with my natural hair, but I always suspected that she felt it beneath her to be doing hair. She befriended a lady who did hair and put the fate of my hair in the lady's hands. I still did not know how to handle my hair, so I too trusted the lady. Besides, I wanted silky hair like my classmates so I did not object to relaxed hair. From 13 to 20 my hair was either relaxed, relaxed and braid or relaxed and weaved. At this point all I knew about it was that it was "too big" like my paternal grandma's and that it took too much time to set. And depending on what comb could be painful to comb. Like my complexion, it was a source of so much conflicting feelings. As I straightened the relaxed hair with curling irons I felt like I was rejecting myself. The worst kind of rejection I have ever known.
Since it was bringing me so much pain, I resorted to 'detaching' myself from it. I decided that as much as it was a racial marker, it was 'just hair'. I experimented with cutting it, used white hair products, blowing, curling, etc. This did not last long as it brought more sadness than relief. At this point I was also interacting with very snobbish white people who I was trying to fit in with, but knew I would never. I decided to 'go natural'. I felt like I just had to accept the bad hand of cards I was dealt.
For the three years I had unloced natural hair, I did not take the time to learn it well. I was concerned with learning about the products that made it softer, less kinky, more curly and that would make it grow long and thicker faster. I remember using the products of "Mixed Chicks" during the first year. It was a bitter-sweet relationship. I disliked that the saloon lady (the one who gave me my first relaxer, who also used to give me free bleaching creams and later gave me slimming pills) recommended them, and I disliked that I wanted to distance myself from Africanness through my hair with the help of these products, but I still used them. It quickly took me back to how I felt when I flat ironed my already relaxed hair. I stopped using those products. I adopted other ways to alter my hair. I flat ironed it, did twist outs, head wraps, anything to avoid seeing my natural kink. I did not know that that is what I was aiming for then, I just knew that I was not comfortable with my unaltered hair.
Length has always been at the centre of talks about African hair and my expectations were no different. I had been used to my hair making leaps in length due to the braiding and unbraiding that I expected to see those leaps everyday when I had gone natural. I had not fully understood the phenomenon of shrinkage. All I observed was hair just becoming like a forest month after month, and it seemed to actually lose length. Like its growth had stunted.
I was so disappointed to learn that there are variations in (mono-racial) African hair, and I with my 'good hair' was on the kinkiest part of the spectrum. My locs would grow along the nature of my kink. About a year into my loced hair journey I decided to 'detach' myself from my hair again. "At least it is natural", I told myself. It would no longer be a source of self rejection. That wasn't true.
As I watch the 'natural hair movement' today, I wish my hair weren't loced. On further analysis I see that the emphasis is on curls not kinks and on length. It is not necessarily about accepting or being comfortable with oneself in the body they present. There isn't much information readily available about the different hair types, if it is not about how to alter it. This got me thinking of how even on the continent people do not know much about African hair. They have expertise on how to alter it, but not the hair itself.
A few weeks ago a lady I frequently interacted with in my teens said that she has never seen my natural hair. Then I thought, I do not think I have been around Africans with their hair in its most natural state over a long period of time. It is only last week that I thought to myself that my hair is a part of my body that I need to 'reconnect' with.
I am still struggling with the idea that hair plays a big enough role in self acceptance. I feel that it becomes political, and I am not comfortable with African hair being political. Is it political? What role does it play in racial identity?
Ayinde.:
I requested that Nakandi post this topic here for discussion. I am inviting all who have access to this board to participate.
Leanna:
After reading this post I had a reasoning with Mr H. and coming out of that several things came up. In addressing hair issues I must first state that my approach is coming from a more privileged position.
I too have made observations of the natural hair movement and their preference for curls and not kinks, and their focus on growing long hair. However, because my hair type is what the natural hair movement caters to and I can find several of the popular and most subscribed to natural hair youtubers with a hair texture similar to mine, I was able to take and dismiss certain things they were presenting. This may have been easier for me to do coming from this more desired position. I do not buy into the hype of products and things to make my hair long as that is not what I am about.
Since I have always been more comfortable than most with my hair I could then look at the techniques and information being offered about growing your hair long or on altering your hair and focus mainly on what I consider useful information about understanding the structure of kinky or curly hair and also general hair care practices without making length my focus but rather on the health of my hair.
leslie:
Growing to appreciate one’s hair, especially kinky African hair, is one that many of us have to go through. There was a time when I absolutely HATED my hair and was happy to receive a chemical hair straightener after I begged for it for years. Within four years of straightening it, however, I made what I think was my first important political decision: to grow my hair out and cut away the straightened ends. This was after reading history and understanding how our colonial past influenced me hating what was mine, including the colour of my skin. Of course, that did not mean liking my hair texture over night; it just meant that I was going to deal with it because I understood the root of the self-hate.
While for me, my natural hair was/is a political statement, I know that many try to distance themselves from that. One often hears that “embracing natural hair” is not about reclaiming African identity. Most who decide to “go natural” suffer damage such as breakage from the chemicals and decide to grow their hair out in an attempt to save hair length or manage their receding hairlines. In fact, many of these natural hair “youtubers” as you noted do as much as they can to achieve long hair and manipulate their strands to gain hair textures associated with mixed hair. Many of them also flaunt their white boyfriends and husbands who “love them the way they are” along with their mixed race children, so natural hair is not necessarily about black pride. Further, many of them claim to wear their hair in so-called protective styles which, a lot of the time, consist of wigs and weaves.
I also hear another argument which states that kinky or curly hair is what grows out of our heads and, therefore, should not be politicised. While it is understandable that one may not want to politicise something that one was born with in the way that white folks have the privilege of not doing, in this current dispensation where non-African hair, followed by mixed race hair in order of waviest to curly types are preferred, then choosing to grow one’s kinky African hair can be political if one views it that way. That could only come with an appreciation of one’s history and a deliberate effort to appreciate one’s body in its natural state.
When speaking about hair, I, like Leanna, also have to speak from a place of privilege…texture, yes, to some extent given that it is not the kinkiest hair type, but more so its fullness and especially its length. Thus, despite the struggles with my hair, I feel that I need to be at the background of such discussions. Yes, I can give my history when it comes to hair, but less and less do I share my hair routine with people out there in society, some of whom may genuinely admire it (partly because it is in-your-face and you can’t not notice it), but mainly because it is long and thick. Most of them don’t see my hair as a political statement. But then again, for them to know this would mean me saying so to whoever I meet or by me wearing a t-shirt spelling that out.
I feel proud, given my past, which included dreaming myself as someone of a different race with long (or longer), flowing, straight hair, that I have learnt to embrace what is mine despite some difficulties still in managing it. I also had to learn that not all who stopped chemically straightening their hair do so for political reasons. But for me, many of the things I do and the decisions I made or make are political. To me, that is a source of pride because it means that I deliberately made some decisions which required a lot of thought, reasoning and courage.
Makini:
I find it interesting that in different societies “good hair” is so relative. Nakandi, how you describe your hair as being considered “good hair” would not be the case in Trinidad. There is so much diversity in hair texture that your kinky hair, even if it was soft-textured would be considered on the bottom of the desirable hair type range which starts from straight to wavy to curly and then to kinky in that order.
Seeing school girls in Kenya with shaven heads brought to mind the ideas that hairstyles, hair texture etc. is a sort of badge, image or status that parents project through their children, more so in the West. Additionally, children themselves prefer more mixed or straight/straightened textures/styles if given the choice. In primary school, in particular, I remember the more popular children had “nicer” hair as in mixed race or straightened hair; if you were dark skinned, you would have had to “at least” have “good hair” to redeem you.
Hair length is also a topic of discussion here in Trinidad. This is so because long hair is still strongly ascribed to femininity. Thus, darker-skinned, kinky hair females with sometimes comparatively shorter hair, are seen as less feminine or less beautiful. From my observation, this is part of the motivation for many females to grow locks. A lot of hair length bias and beauty issues were instilled in me from visuals in many television cartoons and movies; Walt Disney’s Pocahontas and Jasmine were particularly impactful to my young mind, as well as the absence of popular images of African beauty.
There are definitely many layers to hair issues and racial identity. My hair texture is in between Leanna’s and Leslie’s, but being around many other part-European, mixed race persons; many Indians with straight hair; and many douglas (one parent African/one parent Indian); I also wanted to have “more curly” hair, or “naturally” curly hair. I did not want the kind that was only curly when wet, when products were added to it, or when physically manipulated. Nor did I want hair that, after all the aforementioned effort, frizzed after a while. This was not only from my idea of how I wanted my image to be perceived, but from the endless comments and feedback I have gotten from others throughout the years.
I also agree that often, when persons comb your hair, they manifest their own covert racial biases in the styles they chose and in what products they use. However, experimentation with hair products is not a bad thing in itself if persons are informed and their motivation is unrelated to physically altering hair texture temporarily or permanently to gain more European or mixed raced characteristics. Relatedly, words such as “manageable”, “groomed” and “neat” are used to disassociate one’s self from one’s genes and used as an excuse to “tame” what isn’t actually “wild” but natural to many African hair types. In other words, such language denotes Anti-African discrimination or rejection of African identity. After beginning to develop, and after a lot of reasoning, I started to redefine what was manageable hair for me, which is something that I am still developing. So my hair definitely has been very important in defining racial identity from my experiences.
I was also referred to Youtube and various Facebook pages as a source of information on hairstyles, but only after beginning the process of trying to understand colorism and becoming more conscious of the many ways it manifests itself. For me, it was quite quantitative. Colorism can be clearly measured on these sites because lighter skinned females with curlier, wavier, or straighter hair get far more views as well as likes, compliments and shares than darker skinned females with less mixed race hair textures. However, volume and length also show up as being desirable. Very dark skinned females with kinkier hair get the least views, with size also adding to the discrimination. This is also somewhat more glaring for photos on Afrocentric Facebook pages. I agree with what Leanna said about gleaning the useful information, but at the time for me, I could not or did not want to work through the discrimination and racism to get to the useful points. Generally, I preferred reading articles on hair which reduces some of the visual cues, physical features and behaviour that are normalized, petted or praised.
Once a Xhosa South African friend with very kinky, short hair asked me how she could get her hair to be like mine: curly. She wanted to know what product I used for her to achieve a similar result. Of course, it was not a product, but I understood her interest as a longing or desire that I also shared toward persons with curlier or wavier hair than mine in the past. She told me she spent 800 pounds for the human-straight-hair weave for her wedding to her white European male. She said that it physically pained so much to put it into her hair but “it was worth it.” At that time, I was looking for hair products and I remembered I could not fathom spending 16 pounds for a container of hair grease.
Years after, reading the post “Fake or Free”, I began to understand aspects of my own hair privilege, similar to Leanna and Leslie. I learned that my not strongly desiring altered hairstyles like straighteners, braids or weaves, was associated with my curlier, more socially-desirable hair texture. At the time, my not spending large amounts of money on hair products was not because I had a better worked-out position, but because I had less societal pressure to present my hair in a socially-acceptable manner (internal pressure is another story). With this realisation, I also saw my older brother’s choice to Jheri curl his hair (which was markedly kinkier than mine) while in secondary school, in a different light. At the time, I was now forming ideas in my head that repeatedly chemically altering my hair was not a healthy self-image. Looking back on that time, I appreciate Mr. H’s comments that having African content, and more history content on a whole in my school curriculum, may have helped me to better form my ideas of why straightening my hair was a form of rejecting my African identity. Now I can truly appreciate that choosing to stop straightening my hair at 16 years old was a political decision.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page