I never thought I\u2019d have the courage to do it, but here I am, publicly describing the reservations I have about my own hair. See, I have what I like to call, \u201cnappy hair.\u201d This hair texture consists of fierce, comb-breaking, neck-snapping, mama-sweating, gut-wrenching naps that make a normal black woman absolutely dread waking up to deal with them in the morning. For those of you who remem\u00adber the Imus incident, I know that you probably shuddered when you read that last statement. But \u201cnappy\u201d hair is nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, \u201cnappy\u201d simply means that I have super tightly coiled hair. Unfortunately, there are so many misconceptions out there about \u201cblack hair\u201d that no one is willing to openly talk about. This is why I started my blog, \u201cNappy Like Yo\u2019 Pappy,\u201d and why I am writing this article: to shed light on an invisible but very real issue that faces black women every single day, espe\u00adcially here at Scripps.<\/p>\n
I am at a point in my life where I am fed up with the permed ends and the awkward line of demarcation be\u00adtween my natural hair and my permed hair. A perm or a re\u00adlaxer is a chemical treatment that alters the state of one\u2019s hair to be more straight and \u201cmanageable.\u201d I had a mini nervous breakdown a few months ago because two days be\u00adfore my students for the Scripps College Academy arrived on campus, my hair decided to break as much as it could before causing me to die slowly. I cried loudly, shouted up to the heavens, and then I forced anyone who had a car to rush me over to Target so that I could find any product pos\u00adsible to stop it. My close friend Danyelle told me that it was just simple breakage, something that was normal due to my recent removal of my kinky twists, a hairstyle that I\u2019m wearing currently. I didn\u2019t want to hear it. I was convinced that my hair was falling out and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Now let\u2019s fast-forward three months. I am sitting here with an intricately twisted hairstyle known as Senegalese twists, and I don\u2019t have to worry about my hair breakage at all. But everyone should know that my hair is super curly and much shorter underneath.<\/p>\n
Most black women wear braids and other \u201cnatu\u00adral styles\u201d out of convenience and because they\u2019re simply beautiful. The most common question I am asked on this campus is, \u201cNow, is this your real hair?\u201d or \u201cHow much of this is your actual hair?\u201d To which I look astounded and an\u00adswer back, \u201cWhy does that even matter?\u201d Why can\u2019t people just acknowledge that my hairstyle is beautiful and leave it at that? And when I take my twists down and decide to proudly wear my afro, I\u2019ll get the question, \u201cWell, why did you cut off all your beautiful hair? It was so pretty and long.\u201d Statements like these leave me honestly afraid of looking too \u201cblack\u201d in a predominately white institution such as Scripps. I will become the girl who went natural: the afro wearing, peace-sign loving, Erykah Badu listening, automatically positive while still being angry, overly inde\u00adpendent black woman. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m altogether ready to deal with that pressure. Will I still be attractive in the midst of these strange beauty ideals in Claremont? At par\u00adties, what would I do? I can\u2019t fling my hair this way and that. I can\u2019t just hop right on into the pool when it gets hot; my natural texture will become too apparent. I can\u2019t deal with the silly questions I get like, \u201cDo you wash your hair?\u201d And to those of you who have wondered, the an\u00adswer is, \u201cOf course, I do.\u201d Or questions like, \u201cIs your hair naturally frizzy?\u201d To which I answer, \u201cWhat does that even mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
With encounters like these, I wonder what people\u2019s reactions would be to my natural, curly hair.<\/p>\n
This is an unrecognized battle that black women go through in a world that constantly barrages them with images of Eurocentric beauty ideals and forces them to put into question their own beauty every single day. Most people don\u2019t understand that black hair is just another one of those issues that black women have to face. As a wom\u00adan, hair is one of the standards of beauty, and for black women, there is an immense pressure to have \u201cgood hair,\u201d or hair that is straighter, longer, and arguably more white. It is a strange fact, but it is very true. And after years of straightening one\u2019s hair, the hair follicle is ultimately dam\u00adaged and left limp from the extreme harshness of these chemicals.<\/p>\n
Most black women receive their first perms or re\u00adlaxers as young as 8 years old. At that time, young black girls are keenly aware of the difference between their hair and the hair of their classmates of other races. Think about it. When is the last time you saw a kinky-haired Barbie doll? This is not by any means a new phenomenon. There are some women who walk around with their hair natural and others who walk around with \u201cnatural\u201d hairstyles, i.e. any braided\/twisted style that doesn\u2019t require chemical al\u00adteration of the texture. And then there are those of us who think that our hair is either unmanageable or too difficult for constant upkeep, so we rely on the relaxer to keep up an \u201cI have good hair\u201d image.<\/p>\n
With that said, everyone has a different hair jour\u00adney. Even while talking about the issues of \u201cgood\u201d hair ver\u00adsus \u201cbad\u201d hair, generalizations still occur because not all black hair is the same and not everyone thinks that their hair is \u201cnappy.\u201d Approaching someone without knowing certain information about how they talk about their hair can be very damaging. One reason why incidents occur and become racial controversy is that it just isn\u2019t the same when \u201cother\u201d people are labeling your texture. And while this issue is far more complex than one article can cover, the truth of it is that even something as insignificant as hair can directly define a person\u2019s experience in the world.<\/p>\n
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