“She hath more hair than wit.”
--William Shakespeare
“The Two Gentlemen of Verona”
is your hair still political
tell me
when it starts to burn
--Audre Lorde
Recently, a white friend and I were discussing racial stereotypes, and she mentioned one about black folks hating to swim. “I don’t know about that one,” I said. “I can wade just as well as anybody else. My hair, on the other hand, has issues with water.”This stereotype, like most, embodies a kernel of truth. When I was a freshman in high school, I had to take swimming for a semester. While Kate, Beth and Kristy were frolicking in the pool, I was watching by the water’s edge. I loved swimming, but hated wearing a latex cap. It made my already big head look extraterrestrial, and further enforced the notion that I was “different.” Rob, a cute Italian kid with a crooked nose (whom I was secretly crushing on), shined a spotlight on my discomfort. “Why don’t you get in the water?” he asked. “Is it because your hair will get really messed up, and it will take a really long time to fix?” My blonde and brunette classmates glanced at me with pitying smiles, as if I had a hair handicap.
Most black women with chemically processed or straightened hair struggle with The Water Issue. Rain, perspiration, even steam from a cup of herbal tea can derail the “every two weeks” maintenance schedule. At age ten, I underwent the black girl's rite of passage - a home kiddie perm – and with few exceptions, have been wearing my hair straightened since then. As a woman who likes to consider herself conscious, I’m constantly reminded that straight hair connotes conformity with European standards of beauty. bell hooks believes that since sisters have such a variety of natural hair choices available (dreads, ‘fros, locks, etc), straight hair should be worn only in times of emergency. “Practically speaking, a lot of black women learned to prefer straightened hair, to see it as better because it took less time,” hooks says. “Is this another ‘survival strategy’ carried over into contemporary black life that is no longer needed?" But more on hair politics later.
The Water Issue has me in the midst of a coif crisis. In January, I took my first Bikram yoga class and loved it. Despite the nausea and headaches I suffered from doing asanas in a room heated to 105 degrees, my body was getting a much-needed detox. I wasn’t too worried about the copious amount of sweat that Bikram produces because I had a hair appointment the following day. However, if I decided to do “hot yoga” on a regular basis – which I had been seriously considering – what in the world would I do with my ‘do?
Black women have to get creative with ours. We don’t wear hairstyles; we perform them. Maybe this is why so many sisters skip the gym in favor of the salon. Any woman who has ever spent upwards of three hours in a beauty shop, to be fried, dyed, and laid to the side, looks askance at any activity that would mess up her mane. Hair as performance art aside, I know that I need to exercise, to break a sweat for at least 30 minutes each day. To combat The Water Issue, I’ve been weighing three options:
1. To Weave or Not to Weave?
Even though I went as long as I could without “selling out,” I got my first weave when I moved to California in 1996. A woman named Angel, who boasted Toni Braxton and Janet Jackson as clients – performed the three-hour process in the basement of her South Central home. I had fourteen inches of some poor Indonesian woman’s tresses sewn into my real hair (discreetly braided underneath), and I was grinning in the mirror as if I’d just discovered the next best thing to the hot comb. I was instantly in love.
Weaves are back with a vengeance – longer, bolder, bulkier. Sisters sport them with pride, like neo-Afros in search of a revolution. Although I might have my stylist glue in a track or two for “special occasions,” wearing someone else’s hair presents a whole nother set of enigmas for me. For one, long hair is still privileged in our society, as evidenced by cover girls Beyoncé and Tyra, and the video vixens who populate your garden-variety rap video. Although I don't want to buy (no pun intended) into this mindset, I can’t deny the “benefits” I received with extensions hanging down to my bra strap: Men open doors for you and zip across three lanes of traffic on the 405 to holler. Once when I was idling at a stoplight, two Latinos pulled up next to my car. The passenger leaned out and told me my hair was beautiful. I wonder if he’d have the same sentiments about my real hair.
I can’t knock another sister’s hustle, but a weave – and her silky cousin, the lacefront wig -- represents an escapist fantasy for me, a Third World Rapunzel locked in an ivory tower. Some purists might argue that the straightened, highlighted tresses I now sport are also escapist and as ideologically removed from my nationalist beliefs as bleaching cream. This brings me to my second hairstyle option.
2. The Braid-y Bunch
I must admit, The Water Issue became a non-issue when my hair was safely ensconced in cornrows or twists. I could fulfill my tribal obligations and walk in the rain at the same time. When I vacationed in Hawaii a few summers ago, I even surfed.
The downside of wearing braids: I hate the way I look. My forehead feels naked and lonely with cornrows, and I get lost in the synthetic jungle of individual braids. On a purely superficial level: I get less play from the brothers. On one dating Web site where I posted pictures taken of me in Oahu, one man commented that I was “incredibly average” with braided hair. Not that his words should be taken to heart, but that’s exactly how I see myself. I don’t feel an affinity toward the Motherland when my hair is braided. At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, braids are more functional than familial, a trendy token of nationalism, like green, black and red medallions and kente cloth.
At the most, I could wear braids for a month to jumpstart my exercise regimen, but they don’t represent the real me. That leaves my third and final option.
3. Shorn Again
At age 11, I spent the entire summer indoors. The reason? A botched relaxer caused my hair to shed in clumps. Being the pragmatist that she is, my mother cut off all but an inch of my hair and gave me a jheri curl. June, July and August were wasted behind my screen door, as I moped about wearing a plastic cap like an extra from Car Wash. When school started in the fall, my classmates taunted me for looking like a boy, and I swore I’d never wear my hair short again.
Never say never. The fab 90s found divas like Jada Pinkett rocking cropped, texturized ‘dos, and showing the world that short is sexy. I did my part in the style revolution, albeit with a cute Halle Berryesque cut. Although I was still clinging to the straight texture like a badge of honor, I had to give myself props for finally parting with my shoulder-length tresses.
Cutting my hair off, and letting it grow out naturally, is a style option I have toyed with for a long time for several reasons. One, it symbolizes rebirth and renewal. It also connects me to an enlightened body of womanist warriors whom I admire and whose footsteps I strive to walk in, among them Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Pearl Cleage, Nikki Giovanni, bell hooks, and Ntozake Shange – all of whom wear natural styles.
As India.Arie sings, I am not my hair. I shouldn’t be my hair, but I am my hair. The more I try to untangle myself from my tresses, the more they become interwoven into my identity. So what if I keep an umbrella in the back seat of my car in southern California where it never rains? So what if I have to spend three hours at home wetsetting, mousseing, manipulating, braiding and unbraiding my hair to evoke a “natural” style? So what if some white women “pet” me whenever I rock a new look, and ask how often I wash my hair? I wouldn’t trade in my naps for the world.This is the option I have chosen to combat The Water Issue: Grudgingly, I will wrap my pressed hair in two scarves, like I’m on my way to do day work, and go hit the StairMaster. The scarf does a sufficient job of protecting the ends of my hair, but my roots always get damp. As a result, I’ll be walking around with two different textures until my next appointment. I haven’t decided what I’ll do about Bikram, though. No amount of head wrapping will prevent pressed hair from morphing into a baby Afro in the sauna that is hot yoga. I guess I will have to create my own style. Yogi Hair. Yes, I’ll definitely have to look into that.
