Thank you for posting this. I had forgotten, probably because I was so distressed by the strange reversal when I moved to FL, but when I was a little kid growing up in a tiny farm town in Lumbee territory (eastern NC) the only kids brave enough to be nice to me were black girls.
“Not from around here”, neither white enough nor obviously black, AND autistic; I might as well have been a Martian. I admired them on so many levels-not only brave enough to be kind to me, but living in a town where despite it really being the late 1970’s jim crow was still evident and feminism wasn’t even a word but they didn’t let anyone push them around. I always wished I could be beautiful like them.
Being farm kids we all worked on someone’s farm as did a lot of the parents so I don’t know if maybe some had natural hair just because of no time to do hair, but I always thought it was so much prettier than white girls hair that just lays there all flat and boring (or mine that somehow managed to be unmanageable and unkempt looking while laying there mostly flat and boring as well, lol)
They showed me how to make different kinds of braids and during recess and lunch they’d all braid one another’s hair, and put cool beads and stuff in. Being aspie I was always too uncoordinated to braid well enough, but that they showed me how and let me try left a big impression on me. I hope all those girls made it thru their teens with their self respect and confidence intact. It never occurred to me til now that they would have had the hair put downs on top of the everything else:-(
Because of them, and my awesome Native Mom when people would talk or write about black girls wanting to look like Barbie I thought it was crazy-barbie is so yechh looking compared to them.
I wanted to have hair like the women in the pictures in this post-living, vibrant, regal. I remember seeing the grown up women with hair like that back then and they always looked like princesses, or queens to me-just like my mom you knew looking at them not to try them or it would suck to be you:-) They were obviously proud of who they were no matter what colonized society had to say.
I don’t have hair like that but a few years ago I had a friend who was promoting the idea of everyone going totally without chemicals on hair-not even shampoo.At first I couldn’t imagine it-I thought if I didn’t shampoo every day I’d be gross.
But the funniest thing happened when I had to choose between shampoo for me or cat food. I followed that friends instructions about vinegar etc and my hair started acting and looking more like my Mom’s and my friends’ hair.It finally looks alive-when I look in the mirror it looks right, like its really me instead of just being frustrating or depressing.
When I told my husband how amazed I was he said “See? You decolonized your hair” 🙂
The topic about Black American women and OUR hair issues keeps coming UP; so might as well go ahead and open it up for discussion…Again! Hang on tight though because I’m truly on 1 & going to write it out as I ride it out>>
Viola Davis: ‘I Took My Wig Off Because I No Longer Wanted to Apologize for Who I Am‘>>
Viola Davis recently said this & when I heard it? My eyes filled UP with tears! I didn’t realize until that moment that IS exactly what WE are doing anytime WE don’t wear our natural hair…And? That includes relaxing it. Even IF it’s a mild relaxer; which by the way would include ME. Oh, but this is such a personal topic..>>
First things first..The word NAPPY was not created to describe Black hair..That, sadly enough, is something Blacks did on their own. Using the word…
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Spirit In Action 