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21 year old Black Feminist
Gender and Women Studies/Sociology
Waitress
Posts tagged black hair
They have that transitioning movement site and I’ve heard decent things about them before. I bet they’re expensive, but if it’s worth it to have a product or two for my hair then I’d definitely think about it.
Thanks for your patience while I was gone <3 Let’s kick off the new week with my “Health & Beauty” feature on the new Carol’s Daughter site, Transitioning Movement. Today we’re discussing the fundamentals of growing healthy natural hair.
(via waitful)
I’m kind of surprised at how my decision to go natural is being met. I’ve been going to my aunt’s hair salon for as long as I can remember. I’ve been getting relaxers there since the 4th grade. When I announced that I was going to go natural the reception was lukewarm at best. After I took my braids out in early March I’d only come to the salon one time, and she immediately pressed the few inches of natural hair. I decided then that I’d space out my visits and wash and condition my hair myself. The benefits of having her do my hair is that she does it for free (and will until I am done with school). But, I don’t think the savings in cost is quite worth the potential damage to my natural hair that I haven’t even been able to become fully acquainted with yet. Today is the first time I’ve been back since mid March. And the woman who works with my aunt washed my hair and asked me “so, what are you going to do with it when it grows out” and from her tone I could tell she wasn’t feeling my decision either. When I said that I plan on cutting off the relaxed ends when I’m comfortable with the natural hair length I’ve achieved and just wear it she just looked at me like “…really?”. I mentioned all the natural hair styles I’ve found and my excitement to try them out and she asked if they’d work with “my texture” as if I were looking at photos of curly haired White women and hoping my hair would look like that. I just told her that there’s a huge natural Black hair community with women with hair like mine and with even tighter curls than mine(based on the few inches of curls I have).
But, then I looked around at all the women in here. My mom’s got a jheri-curl like style, which is chemical. My aunt had just finished washing the relaxer out of a young girl’s hair. Another woman had a cute pixie cut, clearly relaxed, and another lady was sitting letting the relaxer cook a bit before getting it rinsed out. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. I’m just saying that looking around it’s clear I shouldn’t be surprised by their incredulity and apprehension of my hair journey.
From the article I just linked to
“I have a fetish for certain things,” she said. “I have a fetish for bald heads, for long hair, and for funky hair.” She delivered this response with such a huge smile, a proud self-contained gladness at having deftly dodged a sticky racial situation, that I could imagine her giving herself a mental pat on the back.
“What is funky hair?” I simply had to know.
“Hair that’s not, like, blonde and straight and normal like mine.” The self-congratulatory look on her face was intensified with what she thought was a brilliant and illuminating response. She continued to stand there, waiting for me to turn around with my newly purchased drink and a newly open mind, ready to forgive and forget and let her play around in my afro. This was not to happen.
smh. When I read that last paragraph it made me wish I could laugh straight in that woman’s face. “Hair that’s not, like, blonde and straight and normal like mine”. And the fact that she thought she was delivering a good non-offensive answer. So sad.
Last night, while I was trying to catch the bartender’s attention just a few minutes after last call had been announced, a girl I didn’t know wedged herself between me and the next partygoer and said, “I just love your hair!” I smiled, thanked her, and kept my eyes on the prize. Just then she asked:
“Can I touch it?”
Here’s the thing: anyone who’s had more than a few inches of afro-textured hair growing out of his or her scalp has probably had someone try to touch it. Sometimes they ask, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the request is made by another black person considering “going natural,” but more often than not it’s made by a non-black person who wants to treat you like a stuffed animal. It’s rude and weird and frustrating. Either way, dirty sweaty hands on my carefully sculpted naps is not a good idea, and more than anything, I have no desire to be pawed at by a stranger who thinks that what naturally grows out of my head is “cool.” It’s just not happening. So, I flatly told her no.
The funny thing is, this person was not at all interested in waiting for the answer to her own question. Her humid little hand was already only a few inches away from my hair by the time I even had the chance to respond, so the tail end of my “no” was punctuated by a head-to-toe bodyroll of hair-touch dodging. It was as if she had no intention of waiting for my permission — permission that she was certain she would get. And when she did not get that permission and noticed that my catlike reflexes kept her from getting what she wanted, she responded with a gasp followed by a “hmph.” Here was a perfect stranger who asked if she could touch my hair and got offended when I told her no.
I swear that my hair is not that interesting, but this is not the first time that this has happened to me and every time it does I have the same bothersome reaction: a pang of guilt and the need to explain myself. I’m not sure if that guilt comes from the sad faces of the poor, clueless souls who think it’s appropriate to want to touch another person’s hair because it’s “cool,” or from the part of me that knows I’ve just made it seem as though I have a racial chip on my shoulder and have instantly fulfilled the “black girl with an attitude” stereotype just by asking for respect. Therefore, I’ve become pretty good at quickly explaining why damp hands on my hair is not ideal while also throwing in the fact that it’s rather insulting to be objectified just because I am black and my physical blackness is fun to you. I’ve let violation lead to education and schooled every person who has ever tried to touch my hair on the proper way to behave. But not this time.
Maybe I was walking around with a current events-induced bad attitude last night, but instead of playing the racial understanding role, I decided to treat this girl as if she’d just said something completely ridiculous…because she had. I realized that, much like explaining how things work to a man who has just asked a woman if he can touch her breast and then balking when she says no, I could not be bothered to explain to another adult why my body belongs to me. When it comes to my hair, or any part of my body, if the answer is “no” that is something that you need to accept. Period. And I am not here to explain those basic facts of life to you.
Jamila Woods. WATCH!
“I had a perm once, then I cut it off, and my hair is still beautiful, and my hair is not more black, but still black”
Etymology of a Beauty Shop. Love this piece. I’ve posted it before, a different video though.
GOD SHE IS SO GOOD. I’m over here trying to focus on this Fem Theory project and then I listen to one of her poems and now all I want to do is find as many as possible and just listen to them all. Must find Apocrypha. My favorite of them all.
Probably going to read this over and over again for awhile. Especially with my braids out, I’m just in that not-a-good-look part of the transition. A good amount of new growth. Thankfully I have some SUPER thick fabric headbands, but other than that I do not know what I’m going to do.I also think that when I go to see my aunt and she does my hair then it’ll be easier to stomach, but right now it’s like..so blech.
