By Abigail Asare, Psychology Major, Student Staff Member
Don’t worry. It’s not human. I never had enough money for that. My room was cluttered with excessive bags of synthetic beauty supply hair, so I had to get creative. I put any leftover or new packs of braiding hair in this random empty suitcase I found lying around. I haven’t opened it in months, though. I stopped getting my hair done altogether because I became increasingly fed up with each hairdresser I went to. All the people I went to did hair in their garages, kitchens, or basements. Some had their cosmetology licence, others did not. They all had the same supplies, carts, and cabinets full of hairspray, mousse, pomades, and gels. When I meet them, I show them the style I want. Whether they follow it, I do not know. The aunties will go through the packs of hair and slowly take them out. They brush it out, then separate it into smaller pieces for the individual braids. After about 10 minutes of this, they will roughly blow out my hair, even though I already did before the appointment. The whirring of the machine always overwhelms my ears, and my head bobs from side to side to match the trajectory of the brush. After about three rounds of this, they can actually start.
The stylists always make several remarks about my hair. They’ll talk about how thin my edges are, how my hair is very hard, and ask about the possibility of relaxing it. After hearing the same thing and always being disappointed by the end of a 7-hour hair appointment costing over $180 (not including the hair I bought), I was over it. So last October, I took out my braids, and I just stared at myself in the mirror. I thought, “Has my hair always been this thin? My hairline receding?” I had to come to terms with the fact that I probably had traction alopecia. I had small bald spots on my hairline, and my ends were damaged. I was scared to wear my hair out, but I knew if I didn’t start, I was going to end up bald. After the second week of embracing my natural hair, I started getting flashbacks to my younger self.
In first grade, I remember playing on the playground during recess and falling hard. I fell so hard that one of my braids loosened and landed on the mulch. My friends’ shock alerted the recess monitor to come over and check on us. In the best way my six-year-old self could explain, I told them it was no alarm, and my hair was fake. Using my small hands to make the gestures and motions of braiding. I demonstrated to them that I regularly had my real hair braided in with extensions. The white recess monitor gave me a confused look with a bit of disgust. She claimed I was too young to be doing that. In retrospect, she was right. It didn’t make sense not to wash my hair for a month because I didn’t want to ruin my braids. It was unusual that my mom started letting me braid my hair with synthetic hair as young as four. And it was even more unusual that I was now twenty with an entire suitcase of hair extensions. But I remembered something else, the reason why braiding felt like my only option.
The first time I was ever misgendered was the year prior, in kindergarten. One day, a classmate came up to me and asked me a question.
“Abigail, I never really knew if you were a boy or a girl because your hair is so short,” she snickered. I do not remember if I said anything back. I was just deeply confused about why she had told me this. The measly strands on her head did not grow past her shoulders either, but for some reason, mine confused her concept of the gender binary. My six-year-old self deduced that it must be because my hair was different and not in a good way. The last time I can recall being misgendered was in my junior year of high school. It was one of those weeks between a hair appointment, so I had to go to school with my natural hair. I was in the gym waiting for my flu vaccine when I got called up by an older black lady.
“Excuse me, young man, please get into line,” she bellowed across the gym. When I got down from the bleachers and my face got closer, she awkwardly shifted her gaze from mine, realizing her mistake. Even with a ten-year difference, these experiences are identical. A reminder that if I wore my natural hair, I was losing out on my femininity. I wish I could say I was misgendered when I had braids in, but that never happened, not once. Long synthetic hair always confirmed my femininity; it never failed me. These experiences do not even include the ridicule I faced because of my dark skin, large nose, and other features that distanced me from whatever a pretty girl should look like. I could never rid myself of that inherent shame. If it happened at school, I came home to the same comments. It followed me everywhere, came from anyone, especially those who looked like me. I could never become confident when everyone and everything reminded me to be ashamed of my appearance. This made me deeply uncomfortable in my own skin and disappointed whenever I looked in the mirror.
Not only do braids, wigs, weaves, sew-ins, etc., hide natural hair for enhanced femininity. These styles symbolize class. Earlier, I mentioned that the suitcase I found was just lying around. It actually belonged to my mom. She brought that suitcase with her when she left her home country years ago. It carried a few clothes and nothing else. In my American privilege, I filled it with plastic extensions. However, I think that’s what she wanted. She knew that hair, especially for black women, signified class. It was a reflection of the life she could give me. She wanted a daughter who had a choice in how her hair looked. One who had the money to get her hair done. One who didn’t have to be forced to cut her hair low from primary to secondary school. A daughter who could ascribe a higher social status than she held in her youth. She needed to teach me to look the part, and the easiest way was with my hair. That is why she started so early; she needed to teach me that I would be judged for my appearance. Every time she roughly combed my hair, she was teaching me that beauty is pain. That beauty for young black girls is distorted and contingent on compensating for overtly black features when needed.
When my mom used to relax my hair in elementary school, she would always tell me I looked so beautiful now that my hair felt softer. When she went to sleep, I would sneak into the bathroom and take a wide-tooth comb and run through my hair over, and over, and over again. Not once did that comb ever glide through like all the TV ads I saw. After all the chemicals, heat, and brushing, it resisted endlessly. I have always known my entire life that my hair would never fit into whatever beauty standards there were. I tried so desperately to ignore this. I wanted to look beautiful. I was already too dark, and I didn’t need short coily hair to add to it. I tried to find solace in needing my hair done. However, it never resolved those mixed feelings I had, the ones I have been carrying for the past sixteen years. I was tired of the back-to-back hair appointments and of all the hair that shed onto my bathroom floor. I just didn’t want to feel bad about myself anymore.
For my college essay, I wrote about the same sentiments I’ve shared in this post. I remember my high school teacher left a singular comment on my paper. You just wrote about your hair? I always wished that it could just be hair, but it never could be. Hair never meant anything to my teacher because she didn’t grow up with the threat of a hot comb. The simple act of combing hair never became a sensory overload. Her hair was probably never policed. And I can guarantee she did not have an entire suitcase of hair. Black people have never had the luxury of it just being hair. From the slaves who were forcefully shaved to dehumanize them. To the various institutions globally that continue to have mandates on acceptable black hair dating back to the colonial era. How race and class operate is deeply entangled in appearance. Appearance dictates what features are less than and how to treat people according to such standards. Most systems of oppression are thinly upheld by the simple belief that someone’s appearance dictates their place in society. I receive microaggressions from classmates depending on how my hair looks. I have to manage my facial expressions so that I constantly look happy because someone told me my dark skin always made my face look upset. These beliefs have been internalized across generations. That’s why when I go to church or family functions, the first comments my aunts make are about my hair.
“Your braids are old. When are you getting them done again?”
“Have you thought about getting a wig installed or sew-in?”
“You really walk around like that?”
And you know what, yes, I do really walk around like that. There is nothing wrong with coily hair. I hate wearing braids and wigs. I hate that I have been hiding my hair for years. I like how short my hair is. I like that it’s lightweight and that it shrinks. I like that it’s sort of water-resistant. I like my hair because it’s mine. I love my hair because it connects me to all the people who’ve come before me. I love my hair because it’s resilient. I’m resilient even in a world that makes me feel ugly sometimes. The mere existence of coily hair is a form of resistance; just being yourself is resistance. So, I am truly moving past that dark green, tropical, late 90s suitcase. I wear my natural hair to class, to work, to formal occasions, everywhere. I am still getting used to it, and I haven’t deconstructed all the negative beliefs that I have about my hair. Nor have I properly learned how to take care of it. My hair is still falling out, but it will grow back with time. I really don’t want to open that suitcase again. So I am making sure it stays in my closet, buried under the church dresses I no longer wear.