by Issa Rae
Determined to make an impression, I swung my braids back and dropped to the floor on all fours, arching my back in the literal bad-bitch position. My hands on the ground, pumping my butt to the beat, I heard the cheers, the gasps, and the laughter behind me. And then came the flash of cameras. My heart stopped. The flashes could only mean one thing—someone was going to capture this moment and share it with others to further humiliate me beyond this evening. Because what could be more humiliating than feeling compelled to get on all fours just to gain social credibility?
When the song was over, I got up, ashamed and mortified on the inside and yet boastful on the outside, as Maurice moved his humping elsewhere. Monique approached me dying of laughter. “I got that shit on camera, HAHAHAHA!”
I don’t remember how long we stayed at the party, because I kept replaying that moment over and over again, wishing I could be teleported to the future when all was forgotten.
I was so afraid of what was to come. Relieved the party was over and that the truth was finally out there, I still had to deal with the consequences the following Monday. I started to think of the excuses I could give.
Maybe I could blame their inevitable lack of appreciation of my dance moves on cultural differences. “That’s how we dance in Senegal. I was trying to put you on game,” I could snap with much ’tude.
Or perhaps I could blame my moves on dizziness. “Y’all know I suffer from vertigo. That’s why I had to get low.”
I practiced my “take me seriously” face in the mirror as I prepared for school.
But when I got to class, my fears were never realized. Instead of being called out for not being able to dance, I became known as “that smart girl who dropped it to the floor at Lakira’s party.” People who went to the party only talked about how much fun they’d had, leaving people who hadn’t made it to regret missing it. Not only had I made a huge deal about how my dancing would affect my social reputation, but I had also neglected to realize that a lot of my fellow students weren’t even invited. My invite automatically made me cool! My moves didn’t kill my rep; if anything, my antics only served to briefly boost Lakira’s popularity as an excellent party thrower. All order was restored. I had paid my dues and completed my black-girl rite of passage. Recognizing this, and the anxiety this whole ordeal had caused me, I decided I never had to attend another high school dance party ever again. Not even prom. Now, whenever I’m peer pressured to show off my moves, I politely bow out, “I don’t fit the stereotype.”
* * *
4 Black people of all shapes, sizes, and personalities value the moisturizing product known as body lotion. Lotioning alleviates ashiness. To be “ashy” is to be unkempt. Lotioning is the very least one can do to be socially presentable and physically acceptable. Cocoa butter, shea butter, and aloe vera are black-people essentials; some treat the moisturizing process as a meditative ritual. Some use only as much as necessary to cover the ashiest areas (knuckles, elbows, and knees). But all understand its importance.
Hair Hierarchy
It took me a while to embrace my natural hair. Sure, it helps that natural hair is in now, but even before natural hair was all that, I had, after years of struggle, learned to appreciate the autonomous locks that rest atop my head.
I didn’t always have a grievance with my hair. When I was younger, our love-hate relationship was 70/30, in favor of love. Hate entered the picture only when my mother would style my tender-headed scalp, rushing to comb my kinks out with a fine-tooth as we got ready for school. The hate should have been directed at my scalp for being so sensitive, but in my eyes, my insubordinate hair was to blame. I’d witnessed the white girls in my class manage their hair with ease, the comb flowing through it, as though slicing through water. Even the Jewish girls, whose hair was “white-girl curly,” had Moses strands that seemed to part for the comb to pass. Why did my hair choose to be so difficult?
It didn’t help that I had to sit on a West African woman’s floor for six to ten hours at a stretch as she braided my hair for the convenience of my mother (and, as I grew up, for my own convenience). This long length of time would be bearable if every damn West African woman that took me on as a client didn’t marathon the Lifetime Channel. If only the sensitivity and empathy these women shared with the overly dramatic characters on-screen translated to how they braided their client’s hair as they twisted and pulled every inch of my scalp with their rapid-fire fingers. Still, until I went to high school and found out how important “edges” are to the black female community, the two to three months of hassle-free hair almost seemed worth the time and pain.
What love I did have for my hair stemmed from my elementary school—an environment that embraced difference. Being among an ethnically diverse group of friends was great for my self-esteem. I was celebrated for being different, for having superhero hair that defied gravity and recoiled with lightning-speed elasticity. My hair texture was the subject of awe, confusion, and probably envy. I loved it. The desire other kids had to touch my hair didn’t bother me at all. Instead, I felt special. Original. Sure, their hair was easier to deal with, but everybody and their mom had that type of hair. I was different. And in elementary school, different meant “better.” Part of my identity was tied to the uniqueness of my hair and I was proud of that.
Until I moved to Los Angeles.
Moving from a predominantly white elementary school where I had an abundance of like-minded friends to a predominantly black junior high in L.A. where I knew no one was already an eye-opening experience. But nobody prepared me for the “hair hierarchy.”
If you don’t understand how it works, the hair hierarchy rates worth by length and texture of hair. The longer, silkier, and more European your hair, the higher your worth. The shorter, kinkier, and more African your hair? Kill thyself.
I was taught this caste system by a trio of mean girls in middle school who found glee in taunting me. To them, my insistence on wearing my hair in an Afro puff made me an easy target. “Watch out for Jo-Issa,” one girl mused, “she might take something out of her nappy hair and throw it at you.” Middle school girls are cruel. Clever but cruel. Even now, almost twenty years later, I harbor resentment toward these girls, but I’m also impressed by how funny some of their quips were, as if they used middle school as their comedy lab. In fact, one girl is now an actress/comedian who actually reached out to me on Facebook a couple of years ago and asked to be a part of my web series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, when it started to gain popularity. I looked at my computer, thinking, BITCH, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHTXLHHA! BOW DOWN TO THE NAPPY PRIESTESS, MUTHAF$#@&%!
It wasn’t just that I suddenly found myself in the company of mean girls. It was also that it was the mid-nineties, and styles were changing. Long, flowing hair was in and weaves, though still the butt of many jokes in the black community, were rapidly becoming the norm. And as my luck would have it, braids with burnt ends, a hairstyle I frequently donned, were just going out of style. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the hate and ridicule I’d receive for wearing my hair in its natural state. Despite whatever was trending, I couldn’t understand why people were so concerned with how my hair looked when it grew out of my scalp. Why was it so offensive?
Of course, my sixth-grade brain didn’t really know to ask those questions or fully understand the history and social implications of my natural hair, so I just handled it the best way I could—by hiding it. Over the course of my middle and high school years, I hid my hair through braids, scarves, thin, flat-iron presses, and hoods—anything just to avoid showing my real hair in public. My hair, once a source of confidence, became my burden of shame.
My mother was disgusted by my insecurity.
“Why do you keep covering your head?!” she would yell, frustrated.
“Because you married an African, MOM! AN AFRICAN!” I would cry-yell, Full House style, in my hea
d (because I knew better).
She just didn’t get it. For one thing, my mother was “light-skinned,” and though she wore her hair naturally at times, her softer-looking texture differed from mine. Furthermore, she and my aunt, whose hair was that “good, silky Indian” hair, grew up during the sixties and seventies, when natural hair was a statement of pride and militant activism. The only source of judgment she faced was from my Southern grandparents, who couldn’t fathom why their daughters wouldn’t straighten their wild Afros. They didn’t have to face throngs of straight-haired middle school girls, or endure the public shunning of cute high school guys. I mean, sure, they were ostracized and brutalized for their skin color in general, but tomato/tomahto. My mother didn’t know my struggle.
I begged her to let me relax my hair like the other girls at my school. In fact, it was at the suggestion of some of my black girlfriend allies that I got a perm. My mother warned me repeatedly that my hair was too soft to handle the chemicals in a relaxer, but I insisted. Perhaps my pleading eyes moved her to let me do it. A few weeks after rocking my fresh relaxer, I noticed that my hair started to break off at rapid speed. I tried to defend my jagged, rough edges to my friends at school.
“Dang, your hair is so short,” one girl snapped.
“That’s ’cause I had cut it . . .” I lied, as I twirled a strand that came off on my finger.
After the deed was done and my hair fell out, I’m pretty convinced that my mother just wanted to say, “I told your bald-headed ass so.”
I soon realized that I was worse off than when I started. The sad fact that I was willing to damage my own God-given hair before wearing it out in public was not lost on me. By college, I knew that I had deep-rooted hair issues and sought to come to terms with it by experimenting with natural hairstyles. But when I went home to show off my twisted locks, my little brother was quick to tell me that, aesthetically, my hair “didn’t look right.”
After college, I moved to New York and started experimenting with weaves. It was like cheating. I could achieve the coveted top tier of the “hairarchy” while keeping my natural hair hidden underneath. Still, the difference in reception to “my” new hair was astonishing. Guys who had never and would never talk to me before were suddenly attentive and girls wanted to befriend me. Having a weave even inspired me to start dressing differently and carrying myself more confidently. Still, the disrespect to my former kinks was blatant.
When I moved back to Los Angeles and reunited with my friends, they too were impressed with my new New York look. “Girl, you look fly!” Even my younger brother who had dismissed my college twists paid me a compliment, the first ever, directed at my physical self. “Wow, your hair looks nice,” he said, as he opened the door to let me in.
A mere change of styles was changing my life socially and opening all kinds of doors that had previously been shut. I became hip to the life in which I had been so desperate to participate.
It lasted but a moment. One evening, while unraveling my weave, I noticed the damage done to my actual hair. Not only was my hair thinning from all the under-weave braiding, but I also had about nine different textures going on in my hair at the same time—curly patches, dry patches, straight patches, thin patches, long patches, short patches. My hair was having an identity crisis! And that was the last straw for me. Who was I trying to fool?
Oh, him. I had started dating the man of my dreams back when I had braids. He had been begging to see my “real” hair for some time. Black men, I discovered, are just as obsessed with hair as black women are. His dating history included various ethnicities, many of whose hair could have been packaged and put on the shelf at a Korean beauty salon. That silky shit.
In a flashback to my middle school days, I was worried that by revealing my hair texture, I would drive him away or somehow make him appreciate me less. Having listened to many of my male friends express their desire for girls with long, flowy or curly hair, I determined that my hair was not desirable, which made me insecure. If I were to wear my natural hair around my new beau, I’d be vulnerable, at the mercy of his distaste. I wasn’t ready for that yet. So, I passed off my weaves as my real hair. He seemed happily unaware. When I finally decided to stop pretending and show him my true texture, I realized I couldn’t. My hair was damaged and uncooperative.
Then one day when I was in a music-video-watching mood I saw that Natalie Stewart (of Floetry fame) had released a new solo music video. In it, she was bald. And she looked stunning. Beautiful. Gorgeous. But most of all, she seemed so free. I had seen plenty of bald women before, but for reasons I can’t explain, her look made the deepest impression on me at a time when I was already frustrated with the hold my hair had on my identity. If only I could do the same.
I first expressed my desire to cut off all my hair via Facebook. The response was all but encouraging.
“But what if you have a lumpy shaped head?”
“HAHAHAH you’re gonna look so busted!”
“Don’t do iiiiiiit!”
“OMG, if you do, take pictures!”
With so many strong opinions, the stubborn girl in me was insistent on going through with it. However, before I made my decision, I briefly discussed it with my boyfriend.
“I’m thinking about cutting my hair,” I told him over the phone.
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of it. I want to start over and grow it out again.”
“I don’t think you should do it.”
He changed the subject to something else, but I had already made up my mind. Two weeks later, on a crisp October Friday evening, I drove myself to the salon down the street and walked in.
“Hey, is your barber in today?” I asked upon entering.
“Yeah, but he’s backed up. Whatchu want done?” the receptionist asked, her back turned to me.
“I want to cut off all my hair.”
She turned around. “You want to go bald?”
“Yes.”
“You going through some Waiting to Exhale shit?”
“No. I just want to start over.”
“Okay. Go see Keith over there.”
I sat down next to three men, who were also waiting as Keith lined up a customer. Recognizing that this was going to take a while, I texted two of my dearest friends.
ME: I’m doing it. I’m at the barber now.
JEROME: Nuh-unh! I just got off, I’m coming.
DEVIN: Me too!
My friends joined me within the hour and stayed with me as I sat, bursting with excitement and anticipation. Two hours later, Keith was ready for me.
“So you just want me to cut it off?” he asked, unfazed.
“Yes. All of it.”
“Cool.”
And with that, he swiftly took the cutters to the front of my head. Bzzzzzz. As he started to George Jefferson me, I watched my locks fall down to the ground with a brief moment of panic. Was I doing the right thing? I could stop now and just wear a hat for months. But before I could complete the thought, half my hair was gone. It was time for me to accept my decision. I watched my friends’ eyes for any sign of horror; none so far. When it was over, the ladies in the salon and the barber all looked on with smiles.
“Wow, bald looks good on you.”
“For real. You got a cute-shaped head. Not a lot of women can pull that off.”
I turned to my friends.
“It actually looks . . . beautiful,” said Devin.
“You look gorgeous. Not gonna lie—I thought you’d look ugly as $#&%. But, wow,” Jerome marveled.
I smiled and held the mirror up. There I was.
Initially, I’d decided to cut all my hair off as a way to start over and to take a break from the stress that my hair was causing me. Yet in doing so, I found it liberated me in ways I could never imagine. Not only was it a lazy person’s idea of heaven, but hav
ing no hair showed me how stupid and trivial my insecurities about hair were. Where Samson found strength in his locks, I shed them to find mine. It was one of the best, most life-affirming decisions I’ve ever made.
Now, my hair and I are best friends. We’ve formed a new relationship and a mutual respect for each other. I’m learning to take care of her and am no longer afraid to introduce her to my friends. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world to be comfortable in my own healthy hair. Though my boyfriend initially hated my bald head, the sixth-grade me would be pleased to know that, contrary to what those middle school bitches thought, he appreciates me as I am.
ABG Guide: The Hair Advantage
For the masses, the hair of the Awkward Black Girl (and even Boy) is an enigma. Though not generally known, NASA is even examining strands of our hair for space research, as its gravity-defying properties are key to missing answers in the field of aeronautics. Its buoyancy and ability to shrink when exposed to water is also rumored to be studied by scientists interested in underwater living.
It’s not just appealing to science; entrepreneurs see opportunity too. Every day more and more products appear to cater to the diverse spectrum of our hair. Each new product claims the ability to tame our hair in a way that other manufacturers don’t understand. Subscription boxes, forums, online videos, community meet-ups, and conferences are all dedicated to the mastery of hair. It’s a billion-dollar industry.
For the Awkward Black Girl, it is important to view hair as the ultimate form of expression, an opportunity to be noticed and/or to be understood. Complete strangers can become allies or even friends due to respect for each other’s hair. This can be positively promising. But there remains a sensitivity with our hair when others express unwarranted opinions and questions.