A crime against hair
Scott at Jupiter was cutting my hair this evening, and he spun my chair around so we could watch the Krewe of Morpheus roll by. I was telling him about my ongoing education on black hair. Most of what I’ve been reading is that a black woman’s hair instead of being a source of pride is a source of misery. And that everything in the world is being done to burn it right off of the their heads – relaxers, color, straightener – you name it. They don’t want “the puff” as BG calls it – but I really like the puff – even though BG is right, it’s whatever is in fashion and right now or for a while now straightening is all the rage – Q.E.D. The first lady and the first two daughters.
I’ve read a lot about how older people in the black community judge a child’s parenting by how their hair looks down to whether the parts are straight or not. And I’ve also read black writers bemoan how their mothers fell down on the job of teaching them how to do their own hair. Scott told me it’s a whole generation – not just blacks – that skipped teaching their children how to do their own hair. Hence, the ubiquitous ponytail or clip.
None of us women know how to do hair.
Here I’ve been thinking that I would like to be able to help low income people learn how to eat right and stretch their grocery budgets for healthy food – maybe I should be learning how to help all women have a good hair day.
Who knew?