In Hair News

Twice recently black hair has shown up unexpectedly on television in interesting ways.

First, on "Reed Between the Lines" Traci Ellis-Ross and her head full of curlies tried to teach her TV daughter a lesson when the daughter straightens her hair. Initially, the straightening is about a role in a play; they give her a knotty wig to wear that looks terrible, so she decides to flat-iron her own hair instead of wearing the wig because the character is supposed to have long, flowing hair. But when her crush sees her and compliments her, she decides that she should wear it straight all the time. Ellis-Ross finds the daughter just before she applies a home relaxer and tries to get her to see the error of changing something she likes about herself in the name of pleasing some guy. Then a rather "Cosby Show"-esque skit ensues when both parents pretend to be a 1950s-ish June Cleaver, man-pleasing couple. The daughter's crush is over for dinner and seems to think this kind of man-catering is a great idea, at which point Malcolm Jamal Warner (just realized that these people have a lot of names--Anna Maria Horsford is on the show, too!) takes him into the kitchen to correct his ideas about gender. Eventually, the daughter just decides that she likes her hair and starts wearing it curly again, telling crush boy to like it or leave it. It was a surprising way to engage black women and hair. Hmmmm.

The second instance was even more surprising. Olivia on "The Waltons" (which my family has renamed "Mommy's favorite show!) is bent on making a change in her mundane, routined life. She settles on changing her hair and gets hooked up to one of those hair-curling monstrosities that you only see in books--with a thousand hooks and cords that descend from the ceiling and look like they would rip every hair out one-by-one. Unfortunately, she hates the permanent wave that results and her whole family laughs at her. So she goes over to Birdie's house because she's heard that her people know how to straighten curly hair. Well, Birdie laughs at her, too, and tells her that the women in her family don't know nothing 'bout straightening no hair because they've always worn it natural. I was pleased at the shout out for natural hair, even in the 1920s, and kind of glad that the one black person on Walton's mountain didn't end up, in this instance, simply serving the random needs of this family. But it was also kind of funny to me that Olivia seemed so desperate to learn the mysterious ways of black folks' hair.

As usual, I don't really have a take on these moments, but it's interesting to me that black women's hair is so pervasive an issue that it finds its way into stories all over the place.

Hair It Is

So, I'm working on this hair thing. I've tried twist outs, wash and gos, and last night I tried a Curlformers set. That last one didn't work out so well. It's frizzy and poking in every direction. I've never worn it this short, so it's hard to change my mind about what's pretty and feminine. I mean, for my whole life, long and soft and shiny and flowing and straight have gone hand in hand with what's beautiful. What I'm working with now is short and tight and coily. And while I talked a good game about Naomi Wolf's beauty myth and bell hooks' oppositional gaze, when I looked in the mirror, I just wanted wavy fairy tale hair. It is taking some serious mental and emotional shifts in my own concept of beauty. Some days I feel like a little boy. Others I feel like a sassy, hip chic from the 70s (which is clearly the decade where I belong!) It's also not just that I have to change the way I think about how I look. I also have had to reject many of the things I thought I knew about black hair. Grease, for instance. What little brown girl hasn't taken her seat on the floor between her mother's feet, having her scalp oiled? Or sat in the kitchen, holding her ear, trying hard to believe that "it's just the grease melting," that she wasn't actually being set on fire? Only now does it make sense that that hair is essentially being fried like a piece of catfish. But I'm glad that I'm taking this journey.

Even if my own hair days are up and down, it's forced me to learn enough to do a better job with The Babydoll's hair. I've gotten pretty good at braiding it, and it's much better moisturized than it used to be. And when we saw "Imagine That" last summer, she immediately wanted to wear twists like the beautiful girl in the film. So I YouTubed it and learned how. It was a transformative moment for a brown girl. When she looked in the mirror, she saw herself in a whole new way. But, clearly, we'll have to keep evolving.

Not long ago, she was harping about this style that she wanted. She said that when she saw it on TV again, she would show me. I'm thinking that it would be a picture of a girl who looks like her. But, oh on. It was freaking, fracking Barbie. And not just Barbie; it was Barbie with stick-straight, Beyonce's wind machine, platinum blond hair. The Barbie in the picture above.

Now, what am I supposed to do with that?

New Things

So, I'm at a turning point in my hair transition. I finally took out the kinky twists, so that now the only thing on my head is the hair that grows out of it, unchanged. I washed and conditioned it, then looked in the mirror.

It was jarring, this knotted/knotting puff with no definition.

I went to the stylist who has been helping me transition and she put in two strand twists. But . . . they are small and tight and close to my head. I'm having a hard time with it. I think I'm going to take them down and try a couple of the styles that I keep seeing on the (many) hair blogs that I've been lurking around for months. So, wish me good hair days. Please.

On a semi-related note, I'm two classes into swim lessons. Having my hair exist without the chemicals makes getting in the pool easier and I'm excited, if nervous. It's kind of hard to make my body do these unfamiliar tasks, just like it's proving difficult to fully make this paradigm shift about my hair. Two important observations: perhaps "dead man's float" isn't the best choice for teaching beginning swimmers--hello!; the teacher told me in the first class that I, like she, have a dense body type that makes it harder to float. Where was this information when I was a child, thinking that something was deficient and weird about my body that kept me from being able to swim?! And one more thing: I know I'm not supposed to swallow the pool water, but it happens. What I want to know is why I can taste it in the back of my throat all flippin' day?

Don't Mess With the Hair

There seems to be a lot going on with Black women's hair this week.

First, there is Justin Bieber and his lack of education about indiscriminate touching. He reaches out to touch Esperanza Spaulding's hair during an interview with her. This is a bad move. As I am continuing my own hair evolution (I'm rocking kinky twists now) I can attest that most Black women I know--and actually, some Latina women I know as well--do not appreciate when white people, especially men, touch our hair. That goes double when they don't even ask. It feels like petting. A dog. I often wonder why the thought even arises. Is it because my hair's just so "weird" or what? What will touching it tell you?

Then there was Iyanla Vanzant's return to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" after her abrupt departure 11 years ago. One of the most intriguing revelations to me was that Barbara Walter's folks immediately demanded a change to Iylana's ethnic hair styles (and her clothes) when they produced Iyanla's show. "It's too harsh for TV" they told her. Of course, it had not been too harsh for the months and months when Iyanla was turning into a star on Oprah's show. So she let them straighten it in order to curl it. Even Iyanla admitted that this was a foolish move.

Then there's this weirdness about Beyonce Knowles, who is being accused again of lightening up. I can't attest to its validity, but it's disturbing.

I'm not sure I even have a comment about all of this, but I think it's all worth a second thought.

A Few Things

• In the spirit of lament, I just realized that I'm losing another dream. When I turned 30, I made a list of things I wanted to do in my life. One of them was appear on Oprah. Now that her last season is starting to air (and I assume that they have all been taped already) I seem to have missed the boat. This, despite the fact that I lived in Chicago for a year. I really suck for letting this pass me by.
• I changed my narrative assignment for my classes, partly because I've found it difficult to receive heart-wrenching story after sad, difficult story. I made the assignment much more broad and a little less personal. Still, students want to write about their pain. Maybe the next batch will be a bunch of happy tales about how Pollyanna their lives have been. I won't count on that, though.
• Had a productive day alone, researching and revising. I'm really trying to make publication a priority this year. Let's hope something pans out. Pretty please.
• Autumn is finally rearing its head in the south. The oppressive heat of the summer is being overtaken by the crisp, cool air of the fall. Now we can actually go outside in our new yard. And I can stop sweating out my newly unrelaxed hair. :)

This and That

*Look! The children and I planted a tomato plant and there's an actual TOMATO on it! Yippee!! Right behind it, to the left, is the basil plant that is also doing quite well. Of course, we just returned from my grandmother's house, where the tomato plants were much more prolific and as tall as me, and they had already cooked up a batch of fried green tomatoes. But that doesn't dampen my extreme excitement over my little tiny tomato.

*The Baby Boy has announced that he wants to be a pumpkin when he grows up. I have no where to go with that. I guess I'll just be proud.

*I really thought that summer at home with the children would be fun, with lots of activities and outings. But I'm spending a lot of time thinking about articles I want and need to write and the fact that it doesn't really look like all of those plans are going to happen. It's almost July already. That makes me sad. Then I think of how the children may very well have memories of a distracted and annoyed mother instead of a carefree, creative summer playmate. Also sad. It's really hard to do both, even in the summer. I have only a few weeks to get myself together before a whole new semester starts.

*The hair transition is very sketchy. I'm at a point when it's hard to comb it, but the curls from the set have basically fallen. I'm trying products and hair ornaments, but it's all very sketchy.

Just watched Aaron McGruder's latest animated "The Boondocks" episode. He's totally loony and awesome. This was a kicking-butt-and-taking-names kind of episode. Fabulous!

Hairy Situations

So, I've started this new hair plan: I'm going to stop relaxing my hair.

For an African American woman, this is a pretty major move. As Star Jones used to say on "The View" "Women don't obsess about their bodies; white women obsess about their bodies; black women obsess about their hair!" And we do. It's a primary source of pain and pleasure, a focus of beauty standards, and marker of race. The other thing is that we have so many choices about it. When I think of the black women I know, the hair ranges from weaves to wigs to Afros to braids to twists hot presses to letting-it-do-whatever. In fact, I discussed my hair care decision with some female students this semester, and many of them were in the process of an alternate hair decision themselves. One was in the middle of going natural and underwent "the big cut" (cut off the chemically relaxed hair down to the 3 or 4 inches of natural new growth). One had been natural all of her life and usually wore spirally curls or blew it out straight. One had stopped relaxing it but had it hot pressed regularly. One wore twists. One wore a weave (I think). It was a perfect setting to solidify my decision. They were excited and vowed to hold me to my promise to myself to change my hair style. Of course, I told them that I was not going to come to campus every day while this process unfolded. Who knows what my hair is going to look like with half relaxed hair and half new growth? No, I told them, I'll start this process in the summer when I don't have to stand up in front of people every day.

So I've just skipped my first touch-up. Normally, this is when I start to run to the salon for some chemicals. And when people start to ask when I have a hair appointment. My roots are thick and it's harder to comb my hair. The curls from my roller set won't hold very well anymore. But I'm trying to stick to the plan. After each of my babies, my hair fell out in scary amounts. I know that it was normal, especially since my hair was so thick and full and shiny while I was pregnant. It had to end, right? But after the shedding I expected, it just kept right on falling out. Until I was practically wearing a comb over. All around my hair line I was completely bald. With my daughter, I went crying to my hair stylist, afraid that the hair loss that older women in my family had experienced had been jump started by my pregnancy. "You need to go to the doctor, now," my grandmother told me. So I did; I made an appointment with the dermatologist forthwith. It helped, and the hair did eventually grow back, but it took about a year, and by then I was about to be pregnant again. I was really afraid that I was going to be bald. Now, with my hair all unpretty as it is now, I'm feeling a little panicked again.

This weekend, another interesting hair situation came up. The Babydoll graduated from preschool--so exciting by the way, there was a cap and gown and everything--and I noticed how much trouble the moms had gone through with the four-year-olds' hair. Many of them had straightened it or had curly braids put in. I wondered if I should feel guilty because I had not gone to such lengths. We had been cautioned not to put ponytails on the top or sides of the girls' head because the caps wouldn't fit if we did. So I put two thick braids in The Babydoll's hair and left the ends loose, thinking that it would look festive and cute and sort of grown-up. She likes that style, so she had so complaints. But I still wondered if I should have taken her to the salon for curls and hot combs and let her wear it hanging loose like a grown up. I think maybe I just wasn't ready to let go of her little girl-ness, even in her hair. I'm guessing that most of these girls will be getting their virgin relaxers in a year or two. And they'll probably keep doing it for the rest of their lives. That was basically my experience. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm going to try a different way. If I can learn to handle my own hair, I can teach The Babydoll to do hers, too (although her hair is thicker and more compliant than mine).

A big part of the weirdness is that I don't really know how else to handle my hair. But even though I've decided to stop forking over hours (and hours and hours) of my time to sitting in hair salons, and goo-gobs of my money as well, I'm just sort of standing around confused. Ultimately, I'm probably going to keep visiting the salon until I can figure out how to take care of it myself on a much more regular basis.

So, here's my new hair journey. It feels rather risky and I'm not a risk-taker. At all. Maybe I'll go completely crazy and put some pictures up. Maybe.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful that, contrary to my expectation, my hair appointment did not the require the more expensive service. Thus, I skipped the fast food lunch and treated myself to Panera Bread. (It's a little thing, but a big thing, ya know?) On the way out, the fall wind was crisp but not cold, and I had a brand new appreciation for the way autumn leaves dance across the ground like brightly colored potato chips.

Thoughts inspired by Chris Rock's Good Hair

1) Nia Long should sooo play me in the movie of my life.

2) I had the culture of hair on my short list of dissertation topics in the beginning stages. If I had stayed with that, maybe I'd have been in Chris Rock's film.

3) What was Barbara Walter's issue on "The View" this morning? She asked a question about black women's hair that Whoopie answered about 5 times. Then she immediately asked Chris Rock, who gave her the same answer.

An addendum: Thoughts about my crappy day that should shock teenage girls into using birth control every single time:

1) I've actually had poop in my hands today. Twice.

2) Yesterday my son sat on the toilet and peed a straight line. Onto me.


*And happy, happy birthday to The Diva!