Hair flowing Hair beautiful Hair....
As our country competes in the Olympic games, there have been stories of triumph, of tragedy, of overcoming adversity, and of not living up to expectations. However, I never in my life expected to read a story about a teenage girl's hair. Gabby Douglas is an amazing athlete. She's in a place that millions of little girls in leotards dream of being some day. She's got a mother who sacrificed more than many parents will ever know, in order to fulfill the dreams of her daughter. And she's being criticized over her hair.
Really? Really. Being a Black woman with a dubious ancestry, I've had to answer a million questions about my hair. My parents are black. My grandparents are black. My great-grandparents were black. Somehow through the genetic mish mosh of Spanish, French, African, Native American, and Caucasian that is in my DNA, I don't have typically "black" hair. I get asked all the time.."what are you?". "What are your parents?" It's amazing how many people ask me if my hair is real, or ask me if they can touch it. I normally oblige and tell people the truth, but it's amazing to me the misconceptions about hair.
Some hair is coarse, some is fine. Some is naturally curly, some is straight. It's all hair. I remember being little and hating my hair. I wanted long, flowing, beautiful blond locks like Rapunzel. Or Kris from Charlie's Angels. I used to do exactly what Whoopi Goldberg did in her stand up routine. I'd take a tshirt and put the neck around my hairline and wear it down my back and pretend it was a gorgeous mane of flowing locks. My mom, bless her heart, was never the best at doing hair, so she was at a loss most of the time with my bottom length braid. She got so irritated one day when combing it, having to listen to my incessant whining, that she took a pair of scissors and lopped of the whole braid. Yep. She had a tail the length of her arm that she'd cut off my head, and I thought I was going to DIE.
My aunt used to come down in the summer time and braid my and my sister's hair. I'll never forget watching ABC soaps and feeling my butt go numb from sitting for so long. She'd braid our hair in corn rows so tight that we'd have to massage our hairline and temples to move our eyes back into the anatomically correct positions. When I was in high school, Halle Berry came out with this FIERCE haircut and I swore that would be me. I went to the salon and told them to cut it. I was met with "are you sure??" and with visions of a sleek chin length bob swimming through my brain, instructed the poor woman to take 19 inches off of my hair. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men..... I do believe that I have destroyed just about every picture of me from that dark period. Instead of doing what I was meant to do with my hair, I tried to follow the dictates of society. I relaxed it when I thought I should. I left it natural when I thought I should. I tried to color it jet black and figured out quite quickly that THAT wasn't a good idea.
It took me until my 30's to realize that I have to do my hair the way I see fit, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says. I do my hair the way I do it because I like it. I color it because I want to. Not because someone says that I should.
Gabby Douglas is exactly what she is supposed to be. A young black girl. She sweats. She works her ass off. She burns more calories before breakfast than most people do all day. And no, she didn't have a weave put in, or sit under a dryer with wrap lotion that makes your hair so crunchy that it defies gravity, or braid it in intricate rows. She left it the way she wanted to. And I don't see her hair at all in the photos on the Internet, or while watching her amazing grace and athletic ability on television. I see a girl with the most amazing smile representing our country and kicking ass.
Really? Really. Being a Black woman with a dubious ancestry, I've had to answer a million questions about my hair. My parents are black. My grandparents are black. My great-grandparents were black. Somehow through the genetic mish mosh of Spanish, French, African, Native American, and Caucasian that is in my DNA, I don't have typically "black" hair. I get asked all the time.."what are you?". "What are your parents?" It's amazing how many people ask me if my hair is real, or ask me if they can touch it. I normally oblige and tell people the truth, but it's amazing to me the misconceptions about hair.
Some hair is coarse, some is fine. Some is naturally curly, some is straight. It's all hair. I remember being little and hating my hair. I wanted long, flowing, beautiful blond locks like Rapunzel. Or Kris from Charlie's Angels. I used to do exactly what Whoopi Goldberg did in her stand up routine. I'd take a tshirt and put the neck around my hairline and wear it down my back and pretend it was a gorgeous mane of flowing locks. My mom, bless her heart, was never the best at doing hair, so she was at a loss most of the time with my bottom length braid. She got so irritated one day when combing it, having to listen to my incessant whining, that she took a pair of scissors and lopped of the whole braid. Yep. She had a tail the length of her arm that she'd cut off my head, and I thought I was going to DIE.
My aunt used to come down in the summer time and braid my and my sister's hair. I'll never forget watching ABC soaps and feeling my butt go numb from sitting for so long. She'd braid our hair in corn rows so tight that we'd have to massage our hairline and temples to move our eyes back into the anatomically correct positions. When I was in high school, Halle Berry came out with this FIERCE haircut and I swore that would be me. I went to the salon and told them to cut it. I was met with "are you sure??" and with visions of a sleek chin length bob swimming through my brain, instructed the poor woman to take 19 inches off of my hair. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men..... I do believe that I have destroyed just about every picture of me from that dark period. Instead of doing what I was meant to do with my hair, I tried to follow the dictates of society. I relaxed it when I thought I should. I left it natural when I thought I should. I tried to color it jet black and figured out quite quickly that THAT wasn't a good idea.
It took me until my 30's to realize that I have to do my hair the way I see fit, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says. I do my hair the way I do it because I like it. I color it because I want to. Not because someone says that I should.
Gabby Douglas is exactly what she is supposed to be. A young black girl. She sweats. She works her ass off. She burns more calories before breakfast than most people do all day. And no, she didn't have a weave put in, or sit under a dryer with wrap lotion that makes your hair so crunchy that it defies gravity, or braid it in intricate rows. She left it the way she wanted to. And I don't see her hair at all in the photos on the Internet, or while watching her amazing grace and athletic ability on television. I see a girl with the most amazing smile representing our country and kicking ass.
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