I
remember being a young girl and loving blond hair. Not just loving it, being
obsessed with it. Despite having a Black Barbie, my favorite one—the one who
drove the Pink Corvette, was head of the dream house, got the guy and all the
prettiest outfits—was my blonde Barbie. Her name was Jennifer and she embodied
everything I wanted to be—everything society told me I should be. In my young
mind, the grass would not only be greener on the other side as a White girl,
the air would be cleaner, the people nicer, the cars fancier and the houses
grander. Life would be perfect.
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| Yes, Lisa Turtle was a babe, but what young girl didn't want to be Kelly Kapowski? |
It’s
no coincidence that many Black girls exposed to Western society grow up having
“White girl hair envy.” While the 90s was a great period of diversity (oh hey, Power
Rangers), the most desirable characters and the main protagonists of our
favorite shows were pretty White girls. Their hair would swing every time they
turned their heads, they could twist it around their fingers for days and boys
could run their hands through it without getting snagged. The commercials
depicted (and still do) beautiful White women as the final product: what you
should look like if you use the proper shampoos, eat the right foods, drive the
right cars and shop at the right places.
As a
young girl, I couldn’t fathom what these images were subconsciously doing to my
ripening psyche. I couldn’t have reconciled that the reason I was Team Monica
instead of Team Brandy was because Monica looked closer to the White standard
that I had been brainwashed to put on a pedestal. Growing up, I thought my hair
was the absolute worst. My mom would put my hair in these stiff African braids
that I was too embarrassed to show at school and so it was with agonizing
elation that I accepted my first relaxer. Even getting braids was a thrill for
me as I got to swing my head when I walked so that my hair would sway from side
to side like a White girl’s.
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| Me with my baby curls. |
But
if you would have told me then that I’d finally come to embrace my natural hair
texture, Jennifer and I would have laughed in your face. This acceptance is
sadly very recent. Just a couple of months ago I learned to accept—nay, love—my
hair the way it looks even after I’ve sweated out the effects of the flatiron.
Because now, I’m not alone when I walk out of my house and face the world with
my mini-fro. I see other girls proudly sporting their natural hairstyles, so
much so that Black hairstyles have even become a trend among the White
community.
“Traditionally
women would think of braids as a kind of thoughtless hairstyle,” hairstylist
Ted Gibson was quoted saying in a recent piece by the New York Times. “Now
they’ve crossed over to the fashion space.”
Last
week, the Times ran a piece about braids and the recent spike in the popularity
of this hairstyle among all women. While braids have been popular in the Black
community for centuries, the article (written by a Black woman) attributed the
recent mainstreaming of braids to its appearance on the runways of hit
designers like Alexander Wang and Viktor & Rolfe. It also recognized the
“history” of braids as being synonymous with a “bohemian flair,” citing
examples like Bo Derek and Willie Nelson. What they failed to acknowledge,
however, was that the history of braids dates back centuries, the earliest
occurrence being in Africa, according to Refinery29.
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| Me with my protective-hairstyle braids …and post-workout sweat. |
This
isn’t to say that White people are appropriating our hairstyles, but that we,
too, have hair that other races like to emulate. While we spend so much time,
money and effort into getting our hair bone straight, plenty of White, Hispanic
and Asian girls (and guys) have spent the same amount of effort trying to get
their hair curly and voluminous via methods like perms.
“I
think there’s more of an acceptance [of natural hair] outside of Black America
than there is within Black America,” says educator Kierra Bussey. Having
recently cut off almost all of her hair, Bussey’s new hairstyle has been
embraced more from her White counterparts than even members of the Black
community. After a lifetime of searing hot combs and scorching relaxers trying
to achieve a more European look, she recently decided enough was enough and
chopped it all off.
“I
come from the perspective of my mother being biracial and having straighter
hair than me,” says Bussey. “When it got wet, it didn’t kink up like mine, and
when it dried, it didn’t turn into a fro like mine. If I want my hair straight
like hers, it more than likely means I have to damage it.”
Although
her mother never wanted her to get relaxers, she’d take her to get hair
straightened frequently, not knowing herself how to care for her daughter’s
hair texture. After years of putting herself through the torture many of us
Black girls know all too well, she decided she wanted to know what it was like
to be comfortable in her own skin and describes the process of embracing her
natural hair as an emotional one (in a positive way).
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| Beautiful photo courtesy of the regal Kierra Bussey. |
“I
think we’ve become so attached to our physical appearance,” says Bussey.
“Imagining ourselves outside of that realm frightens us. It’s important to
remember that straight hair is not oppressed hair, it’s just your preference.
But not loving your natural hair is what bothers me.”
I got
rid of my Barbies a long time ago, but the caste system I created in that world
still haunted me for a long time to come and, to be honest, it still creeps up
on me occasionally. Just the other day, I spent 10 hours in the salon trying to
figure out how to style my new natural hair and all I could think was, man,
if I were a White girl, I’d just be in and out. But my hairdresser refused
to let me carry on those thoughts. She reminded me that our hair incites just
as much envy from others as anyone else’s. We have just as much to be proud of
as any other race. Woven into our hair are history, culture, struggle, beauty
and perseverance. Think about that the next time someone tries to convince you
that the grass is greener on the other side.
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