[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img] The character Irie, in Zadie Smith’s book White Teeth, posed the one question that black women most often ask their hairdresser at the end of a marathon session.
“Is it straight?”
In the last two weeks, I’ve spent a total of 13 1/2 hours getting my hair done. And that’s just a fraction of the time I used to spend years ago when my vanity was greater than my pocketbook.
Whoever wrote that a woman's hair was her crowning glory was not black. I've heard this phrase bandied about, but never before thought to identify its source. The Gideons (I'm in a hotel as I write this) were able to provide a quick answer.
Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering. (1 Corinthians 11:14-15)
No, the writer was definitely not black.
As I wiled away my time in the hair salon last week, I remembered what I'd clearly forgotten: the politics of black hair.
Ask any black woman. Her hair has a history. Mine was natural until I was about 3. Then came the weekly press and curl from mother until the age of 8, when I first got a Vigorol perm. Vigorol is a sulfur smelling “natural” relaxer that’s supposed to be safe for children. The little box never tells you that your hair will smell like rotten eggs every single time it rains outside – winning me no friends. When I was 13, my mother allowed me to get a straight-up chemical (lye) perm that I renewed every 6 weeks for the next 13 years. I spent much of every other Saturday at the beauty parlor, getting a wash and blow dry or a touch-up.
Choosing a Shortcut
In 1997, I very publicly (in a newspaper essay) announced that I was done with relaxers, and I shaved off all of my chemically straightened hair. For the next 11 years, I had a short afro. No fuss, no muss—truly wash and wear hair.
I’ve been growing my hair out, ending the days of carefree hair. But I refuse to go back to chemicals or even natural hair straightened with triple heat—a blow dry, dryer and flat iron—often with a little hot curling iron action for body. I tried that recently for two weeks, but this visit to foggy San Francisco (which brought me to the hotel) has cured me of that. The battle against frizz was hard fought, and my natural hair won.
As I had my hair braided over the last two days, my hairdresser and I laughed over all the different chemicals black women have been sold and tried over the years. But when we sobered up, we both realized that we couldn’t think of anyone in our respective immediate circle who still had chemically straightened hair. Everyone we could think of had left lye behind for variations on the theme of natural.
Then the news came on, and we saw one woman who could answer a resounding yes to the question, “Is it straight?”
Our First (black) Lady – Michelle Obama.
More than having the first black President, I think it’s interesting that we have the first black First Lady—a position usually reserved for white women who marry rich, ambitious white men. Then we got Michelle Robinson Obama, a woman who is unapologetically black.
Almost.
I love the idea that a strong, black woman will have influence over the President of the United States. Just the thought of a woman like my mother or grandmother having a proverbial seat at the table warms my heart. Mrs. Obama is outspoken in her speech and bold in her dress.
But every time I see her sporting straight hair, I want to scream.
Was This the Intended Change?
Early on in the campaign when Michelle Obama and her kids were in Iowa, they still looked like little black kids I see every day, wearing cornrows and pony puffs. Then Barack Obama got popular and all their hair got straighter.
It is nearly an unshakable axiom of African American life that for one to be accepted, or at least not perceived as militant and “scary,” black women have to straighten their hair. The Obama women fell right in line.
(And if you don’t believe me, have a second look at the controversial New Yorker cover in which the illustrator adorned Michelle with the three “A’s” of any black American revolution: an automatic, ammo, and an afro.)
Certainly, having natural hair and a job in corporate America mix like oil and water. Many of the black women I’ve worked with over the years bought straight haired wigs for job interviews and continued to wear them every day at work along with their suits, heels and pantyhose. If I had a fraction of the money so many black women spend on wigs, perms and weaves in order not to intimidate their bosses and colleagues with their “ethnic” hair, I’d be a millionaire—not unlike the salon owner in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.
We’ll do anything to make sure it’s straight.
In her short White House tenure, First Lady Obama has made some strong statements. She’s shown the controversial bare arms. She’s talked thoughtfully about eating well and really taking care of our children. Throughout it all, though, her hair is bouncing, and behaving and straight. And the way the President keeps his hair shorn, you’d never know there were any curls up there.
I fantasize that Michelle will show up at the next White House function sporting braids, or dreads, or a short natural hair-do—maybe even twists.
Then, not only would she be outspoken like the women I know, she’d look like them as well.
That’s the kind of real change in which I can believe.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. She's a reformed lawyer, and full time novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course.This will mark the debut of our newest, and perhaps most charismatic, weekly essayist. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com.
