My girl Nadella Benjamin-Riley post this thing on Facebook that had me so vex, I thought my head was going to explode:"Today someone told me that my son's hair looks bad."They said it three times in front of him, looking at him, even though they were addressing me. They said it needs to be trimmed to make it less 'uneven' and neater. That it looks dirty and unkempt. They went on and on about the reasons why it should be shaped and cut."It took massive strength for me to remain calm and rational. You see, Cuba has my hair type. I explained as best I could that we have a mixed heritage and this is how our hair is. And will always be. We were BORN this way. We have a mixture of straight, curly, coily, wavy, kinky, dark brown, dusty brown, black and red (proper rogue strands of bright RED/orange) hair.
No matter how you cut it or trim it, shape it or style it, press it out, apply heat or chemicals our differing hair strands are going to bend back into their natural happy curving (delicate curves or phone cord coils)."She better than me. I would of tell that man in my best Bishop's accent what to do with he opinion so he wouldn't of even know is cuss he get cuss. Because hair is a funny thing with me and my family and when it come to people telling me about my children hair, I doesn't eat nice at all.My big girl is now 20 and the little one is 13. Both of them have natural hair; I myself have natural hair right now because every few years I does chop it off and start over with the hair God put on my head. I find it ent have nothing wrong with my hair or them hair, or Nadella hair or she children hair neither.Black people have a range of "normal" hair and all of we might be different but that don't mean something wrong with we hair.When I was first working in the newspapers, when I was in my early 20s, is a good thing nobody never put God out their thoughts and tell me to comb my hair. I was going through a no-comb phase at the time and rocking a big nappy afro. When it grow out, like how it is all now so, I used to leave it out and it would roll up in a ball of fuzzy curls.
When I was small, my mother beat me to make me go and comb out them self-same curls, and I hear she flip out a time because my big sister put she hair in "picky plaits," as my mother used to call them. That shame of being too black is the root of all this nonsense about having your hair "neat." Respectable black women used to straighten their hair or wear a wig and a man would either grease he hair down, straighten it or shave it off. But them days long gone.Nobody can't tell me nothing about my hair, nah. And worse yet my children. Every Saturday when they was small we used to wash and air-dry we hair, going and doing whatever we had to do with we hair open.As far as I concerned, people who have straight hair doesn't make no fuss about whether they have their hair in a bun, hanging loose or in a braid. Why I must take on a burden that them ent studying?
I find to tell children they have to have their hair "neat"–meaning straight, grease down or tie up–in this day and age is one of the most backward things anybody could do. We didn't fight that fight 40 years go? We mother and father didn't have big big afros to make a point about black hair being beautiful? So why, Lord, we still hearing this rubbish from people?Nadella write in she post:"I don't support looking unkempt. I do encourage personal care. And above all I insist on loving yourself. Each and every part. Each child deserves that much. And most adults."And the people around them, that supposedly love them will just have to accept them as they were born. And not try to make them feel they must change what is natural and God-given to appear more of anything to anyone. Just be your true self. And rock your 'fro."
Right on, sister.
