I Love My Hair Too! (Well, Now!)

 

Okay, if only Sesame Street had come out with the video “I Love My Hair” thirty or forty years ago! An idea whose time came, stayed and now has arrived.

Oh my Goodness, how can I express the angst over my hair? Oh yeah, I did in the Twists and Turns of Biracial Hair. But the angst as a child is so much  harder.  Sesame Street puppeteer Joey Mazzarino and his wife (a white couple, yes it is relevant) adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. Their little girl, Segi, started lamenting her hair and expressing how she wanted it to be straight.  They expressed to her how beautiful her hair was, but didn’t really understand the hair hang-ups of a little black girl. I grew up hating my hair. I wanted the beautiful straight hair of my Barbie dolls and my friends. Blonde, red, brown, my friends’ and dolls’ hair was a rainbow of color. My thick black mane was oddly curly, thick, frizzy and not at all beautiful or manageable.

When I was a little girl, my mother had many struggles with hair. Unlike my siblings fine or more manageable hair, my hair was thick and prone to tangles. I wore my hair in thick pigtails with little puff-balls. This was the best way for my mother to manage my hair. The worse part came when it was time to unleash the tails. As my mother unleashed the pigtails, billowy coarse thick hair puffed to life. This is about the time I began to whimper because the only time the hair came out was washing time!

Washing time entailed crawling up on a dining room chair and bending uncomfortably over a sink while my mother scrubbed my head with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo! By the way, No Tears my ass! I don’t recall a time when I didn’t cry. Likely not due to the fine folks at Johnson and Johnson, but the uninformed de-tangling techniques of my mother. Though she tried her hardest, my mother couldn’t prevent my tears from flowing. My howls were absolutely pitiful.

After shampooing, out came the comb! I would sit cross-legged on the floor, my mother perched above me on the couch. This position was necessary so she had a good angle, and leverage! Those reading this post who are biracial or African-American, or have biracial and African-American children, just gasped. My hair is thick and when it’s dry, it shrinks up – the natural curl sets in. Trying to push a comb through this hair is like dragging a fork through bread dough: it resists. AND IT HURTS! You think “Linda, what happened when the tangles would not succumb to the comb?” That never happened. If it took an hour, then that’s what it took. I shrieked, cried, begged, gasped for air. My shrieks were met with “Linda Denise, now stop! It doesn’t hurt that bad!” Maybe it didn’t hurt AS bad as all the noise I made, but it was still traumatic.

Dippidity Doo Commercial – Just Dippidity Doo It!

When the struggle was over and the comb went through without resistance, out came the Dippity-Do! Mom would comb that thick viscous gel through my hair and then braid my hair really tight. I swear, I looked freakishly like Joan Rivers does now! Once the little pony-tail twists with little color-coordinated balls were twisted around the ends of the braid, I would be sent to bed: my little head aching from the comb and the tightly-braided pigtails.

 Ok, my pigtails were not blonde, but I don’t have any other pictures from childhood handy! You get the gist!

The most traumatic hair experience of my life was the vacation I had to spend with my grandmother. My grandmother, known to me as Mama, was an old-fashioned no-nonsense grandmother. Children should be seen and not heard, play quietly, not get dirty and by no means, should whine or cry unless she provided the reason! The week of one vacation, she gave me one!

It was bath time and shortly after, shampoo time. Mama didn’t have any experience with my hair.  My mother, being white, did not have knowledge of caring for biracial hair, but she had washed it several times, so was used to the challenge. Mama was not.  If she hadn’t been a devout Pentecostal woman, I believe she would have cussed! If I was crying during the washing, imagine what happened during the combing? She raked through my hair as she would her own  long, gray, FINE hair. My hair battled back! In return, Mama tugged, pulled and yanked. It was an epic battle, almost as cool as “The 400.” My shrieks were met with a thump of the comb on my scalp!

After several minutes of tugging, she decided to employ something a lady at church told her about – VINEGAR. She produced a bottle of vinegar and proceeded to generously pour over the tangle. “No Mama please, I’m sorry, Mama stop!” It smelled so bad – and it did not help! I can tell you at this point, we were both crying and praying; she for strength and me for unconsciousness!

Now before I move forward, please take note of the comment I made earlier: my grandmother was a devout Pentecostal woman. This means she took the teachings of the Bible and the church quite seriously. One of the teachings and beliefs of the Pentecostal faith is that a woman’s long hair is her virtue. Thus we did not cut our hair. My grandmother, out of breath, frustrated and clearly unwilling to give up on the tangles in my hair, clasped her hands together and began to pray for forgiveness for the transgression she was about to commit. To me, the combing had ceased so I gave the praying no thought. It was a warning. My grandmother told me not to move. She left the kitchen and returned with shiny silver shears! I began crying. Oh no, Mama is going to cut all my hair off! Mama didn’t cut my hair off, but cut out the tangle she could not conquer. A big thick clump of black curly hair lie lifeless in her hand.

Afterwards my grandmother braided my hair, and of course, one braid was much higher than the other. When my mother picked me up later that week, she looked at me pitifully as my grandmother breathlessly explained to her daughter “I couldn’t get that tangle out Charlotte Deen, so I cut it out. Lord forgive me!”

 
Curly-haired and unsuspecting of the hair drama to come!

There are more stories, but I don’t believe you, my reader, has the time to digest my many “tails” of whoa! Wiait, just one more. You’ll like this.

At the age of 12, my mother decided to investigate other options for managing my hair. THANK GOD! I was a preteen and those pigtails were not working for me. She talked with an African-American woman at work who suggested a relaxer. After consulting with our pastor (relaxing the hair would also require trimming the hair – which means cutting the hair – so we had to explain and get permission), my mother agreed to the relaxer. For the first time in my life, my hair was going to be in the hands of strangers. Of course because strangers are such a judgmental bunch, my mother decided it would be a good idea to make sure my hair was squeaky clean before my appointment. After scrubbing, de-tangling and braiding my hair, my mother sent me to bed, where I dreamt of long flowing hair.

Let’s stop: Again, readers that have had relaxers or are hairdressers with experience with relaxers gasped as soon as they read that my hair had been thoroughly washed and combed 24 hours prior to relaxing. For those of you without experience, here’s the 411. In the late 70s (and farther back than that), hair salons used lye relaxers. Lye is a powerful chemical - it is potassium hydroxide. It’s one of the strongest bases in nature and has been used for tanning hides and is found in drain cleaners. A relaxer straightens the hair, altering the cortex of the hair, thus loosening or relaxing the curl. It can burn the scalp – which even no-lye relaxers can do IF YOU SCRATCH YOUR HAIR OR WASH IT BEFORE APPLICATION. Yes, that’s right. That next day, at the hair salon when the kind hair stylists applied the relaxer, I howled louder than any coyote. When the hair stylist discovered my hair had been washed, she stroked my head and said “poor baby. I will talk with your mom when she picks you up.”  She did and my poor mother almost cried right there. My head was sore as hell and I think that was the key driver having my favorite lunch and getting a new dress.

I Love my Hair Now!

Even though I love any occasion that requires me to don a wig, I really do love my hair now. It took a long time for me to get there. It’s tough for little girls of color.  The standard of beauty throughout my teenaged years, and still even today, was straight, flowing blonde hair. I continued to envy my friends’ beautiful golden manes into my 20s. Because even with relaxers, I always struggled with my hair, sometimes appearing frizzy and unkempt in school pictures. All the boys loved my girlfriends beautiful hair and seemed to flinch at the idea of touching mine.  I admit that even now, I have hair-envy days. But I have come to love the diversity of my hair. I can wear it red or blonde or black. I can wear it straight on Monday, in an updo on Tuesday, gelled back on Wednesday and curly on Friday. I have women, black and white, approach me at stores or at the office, and compliment my hair.

What every little biracial, African-American or ethnic needs to know: your hair is what makes you the unique and wonderful individual that you are. Don’t lament the hair God gave you, celebrate it with bows, ponytails, curls, headbands. Celebrate those gorgeous strands, uniquely yours!

The Sesame Street song says it best:

“I wear it up. I wear down. I wear it twisted all around.
I wear braids and pigtails too.
I love all the things my hair can do.
In barrettes or flying free, ever perfect tresses you’ll see
My hair is part of me, an awesome part of me
I really love my hair!”