You Can't Touch My Hair

by Phoebe Robinson

  Because getting a perm at a hair salon is a long process that eats up many hours on a Saturday, I learned that having a weekend was a white thing. My white classmates would regale me with tales of doing things like going to the movies, playing in the park, eating fast food. Then it’d be my turn: “Well, I went to the hair salon for most of Saturday. And it was mostly boring except for every once in a while a mom would say to her kids, ‘Sit your black ass down and act like you got some sense.’”

  “Oh . . . cool,” the white kids would respond with looks that were a combination of disappointment and confusion, like when a recent college graduate’s parents come to visit but don’t bring any groceries, so the grad’s like, “Uhhhhh, I don’t get it. Why are you here?” Fortunately, we were middle schoolers with the attention span of, well, middle schoolers, so this moment of awkwardness would quickly pass, and we resumed caring about nothing but raging hormones. Except, over time, I slowly began to care more and more about my hair. While I never used the term explicitly, I would sit in class and determine which girls had “good hair.”

  First, there were the black girls with the thick, long majestic manes. No matter how straight my hair got, I knew my hair was never going to be like theirs. My hair was always going to be fine. Not like “Ooooh, look at Oscar Isaac. He’s fiiiiiiiiiine.” I mean, “fine” like thin. Not sturdy. What Sally Fields’s bones would be like if she wasn’t taking hella amounts of Boniva. And then there were the girls with baby hairs. If you’re unfamiliar with the expression, Google baby hairs’ most popular ambassadors, Rozonda Thomas, aka the C in R&B supergroup TLC, and Jennifer Lopez when she was still Jenny from the Block. To me, baby hairs hit that sweet spot of being straight enough to be easily combed, yet ethnic enough that I didn’t feel like I was turning my back on my blackness. I definitely lusted for that. But there was this one classmate who seemed like the perfect representation of “good hair.” Her skin was the color of light brown sugar, and her hair color matched. It looked so silky smooth that I bet she was able to do her hair in the time it took to heat up a Pop-Tart. But the best part? Every once in a while, she would have flyaways—you know, when an unruly few hairs stick out from the rest of your hair? I envied that, because no matter how much I relaxed my hair, I knew that in its natural state, it could never do that. I would never pause a game of indoor volleyball to quickly tuck a flyaway behind my ear. Nor would my hair ever move effortlessly in the breeze; instead, it would stand still like a villain atop a building, surveying Gotham City. Its rigidness was a reminder that my hair was not the good hair that a hairdresser could easily comb through; mine would have to be tugged along like a Real World/Road Rules Challenge contestant being dragged across the finish line. This light-brown-sugar-colored black girl with her hair seamlessly pulled back into a ponytail? No gel to slick down the sides? Man, I thought she was the cat’s pajamas. I wished I was her. I wished I had her good hair. Why?

  I figured life would be easier if my hair wasn’t kinky. I hated that I had to change it in order for it to be considered good in the first place. I hated that the process to change it hurt. I hated that no matter how many relaxers I got, my hair never looked as good as the light-brown-sugar girl’s hair. I didn’t want to have to spend my time worrying about whether my hair got wet, lest the nappy hair multiply like Gremlins do when they are exposed to water. But even more than that, I assumed that if I had better hair, I would finally get my first boyfriend. That people would think I was pretty. I know, I know. It makes me cringe to type that, but it was my truth at the time. The fact that I did not look like the light-brown-sugar-colored girl + I did not have her good hair + I did not get the attention she got = I must have not been pretty. Damn. The math we tell ourselves sometimes. This “good hair” obsession became glaringly obvious once I started attending Gilmour Academy, my predominantly white private high school.

  During my four years at Gilmour, there were only two black girls in the entire school, and neither were in my grade. Being the only black girl in your high school graduating class is . . . weird. Oh, you probably thought I was going to make a joke to lighten the moment. Not this time; this time I’m being completely sincere. Being the only black girl in my grade was fucking weird. I mean, I made friends. I was a bit of a class clown. And what do you know? When I wasn’t being a complete slacker and turned in my homework, my teachers actually liked me! Huh. Still, despite those positives, there was always a tinge of loneliness that colored my high school experience. I didn’t have a mirror, a soundboard, someone who knew the same things I did because we were from the same cultural tribe. Someone who knew the extent of the lie that was my permed hair. Someone who felt they had also been set up to fail because their straight hair was never going to be straight like the white girls in class. Someone who every six to eight weekends lost their Saturday to a hair salon.

  Above all, I wished I had a friend who could help me make sense of how my brother had the completely opposite high school experience than me. See, my brother was a senior when I was a freshman at Gilmour, and he was Mr. Popular. All the teachers loved him—and yes, I know, it’s because he did all his homework and did it well, but shut up—he was in all of the clubs, and importantly, every girl loved him. On the other hand, no one wanted to date me, lanky with my stupid Little Rock Nine hair. Sure, I made the boys laugh, but high school boys do not pitch a tent in their pants because of your flawless impression of your algebra teacher. Instead, they give you a four-year, all-expenses-paid trip to the Friend Zone, which includes having riveting conversations about how the chicken tenders at lunch taste, watching girls who are objectively way better looking than you command their attention, and not going to your junior prom, which took place on a boat, which you use as your excuse for not attending, when in actuality, you freakin’ love boats, BUT NO ONE ASKED YOU TO THE PROM AND DAMN IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE ONLY BLACK PERSON AT THE PROM WITHOUT A DATE AND WATCH ALL THESE WHITE PEOPLE BE ALL IN LOVE AND LUST WITH EACH OTHER WHILE YOU SIT BY YOURSELF OR WITH THE WAITSTAFF ON THE BOAT, WHO WILL ABSO-MOTHERFUCKIN-LUTELY BE OLD-ASS BLACK DUDES WITH OLD-ASS BLACK DUDE NAMES LIKE REGINALD OR VERNON OR HAYWOOD OR ANYTHING THAT REMINDS YOU OF TREES AND SHARECROPPING. Damn all that, so my alibi was I don’t like boats.

  But I LOVE boats. They are so opulent, so fanciful! When they pick up speed, and your hair gets tossed around, you can pretend to be Beyoncé! And if you move your hand up and down and pretend like you’re singing, you get to be Mariah Carey! That’s right: You can be Bey and Mimi in the span of a few seconds! I also love that when other people see you on boats, they think your life is literally cunnilingus from unicorns, and even though that’s not the case, you’re still like, “Yep! Pretty much!” And oh! I haven’t even mentioned my number one reason for loving boats: the “Jenny from the Block” music video. You remember that moment in the video when she and former fiancé Ben Affleck are chilling on a boat? She’s lying down like a queen, and he’s rubbing on her booty and gives it a tender peck like the kind Charlie gave his golden ticket before he went off to visit the Chocolate Factory. I mean!!!!! A hot dude rubbing your booty the way Bobby Flay puts spice rub on a slab of ribs, and then kissing your donk as if to say, “I know I do not deserve any of this or you, so I’m going to literally kiss your ass and then metaphorically kiss it later on” was and continues to be #RelationshipGoals, #BoatGoals, and #LifeGoals for me. Who cares that J. Lo and Ben broke up? The point is boats are all about fantasy, and as a lanky black girl with not-perfect hair, I fell in love with fantasy. I needed fantasy because real life was not as fun or fabulous. Being the sole black girl in my class who no guy, black or white, thought was pretty or worthy of special attention was a lonely, seemingly never-ending experience—and it was all my hair’s fault, I was sure of it.

  Yep. I truly thought my hair was why I wasn’t special, and why I didn’t have a date to the junior prom. But who could I tell this to? I didn’t have that black girl sitting beside me in class every day who wou
ld understand my insecurities. And sure, I probably could’ve talked about this with my mom, but to the teenaged brain, talking about feelings with a parent is a fate worse than death. So, yep, I told myself I don’t like boats. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. And, lovely reader, not only did I say I don’t like boats, but I further buried my feelings by acting snooty about junior prom with my classmates. “You know, prom just feels like really a thing for seniors.” “I mean, if you go to junior prom, then doesn’t it make senior prom less special?” “What could possibly be gained from a junior prom?” And then I laughed and laughed and laughed all by myself and all the way home to my bedroom, where I could escape into my TV.

  Movies and TV shows were my friends and where I first saw the not stereotypically “cool” girls and women have infinitely cooler lives than me. It’s where I witnessed C. J. Cregg, the brainiac White House press secretary, kick ass at her job on The West Wing, with no shortage of men who were interested in her. It’s where I watched Living Single’s Maxine Shaw with her awesome braids be a successful lawyer and kick it with her awesome black bestie girlfriends who always had her back. It’s where I saw Felicity Porter on Felicity find her true passion in life during college (art), while also watching her be at the heart of a love triangle between two guys who couldn’t get enough of her awkwardness. Sure, all three of these women are pretty in their own right, but they did not lead with the pretty. People loved them because they were awesome. Because they said the smart thing. Because they said the funny thing. These ladies and many more gave this lanky black girl hope. And then during my senior year of high school, that hope turned into a game plan, when I saw a music video for the song “They-Say Vision” by a singer named Res.

  As soon as I saw Res, I was like, who is this kick-ass woman? This bare-midriffed, dark-chocolate-colored beauty who sang a hybrid of rock/hip-hop music all while sporting the most magnificent dreadlocks. Like what the what? She was alternative. She didn’t fit in. She wasn’t trying to fit in. And best of all? She was really fucking pretty with her natural hair. I knew that it was possible to rock the natural look; I had seen women like Brandy and Lauryn Hill do it in the mainstream media. But to me, those women always reminded me of the extremely pretty and popular girls in high school. But Res? She never got the praise or attention that she deserved, despite being gorgeous and talented. She became an underdog hero to me.

  Oh, I can do that? I thought when I looked at Res. I mean, there was another way? I didn’t have to go get a relaxer? I didn’t have to hate my hair? I was just so bowled over by Res. I immediately bought her debut album How I Do and studied the CD booklet that accompanied it. The most striking image in it was a black-and-white photo of her looking over her shoulder as she was walking away from the camera. When I go to college, I’m going to look like this. I’m going to have dreads, and I’m going to look over my shoulder like this whether it is necessary to do so or not. I was set. It was time for me to love my hair like Res loved hers. Bye-bye, relaxer!

  It was at that moment that I made a choice: I was not going to start the next chapter of my life in New York City feeling horrible about my hair and the way it looked. I was excited, but also a little nervous, to tell my mom that I was done straightening my hair. Considering she had either straightened my hair for me or paid someone else to do it for eleven years, I was worried that she would think it was a rejection of the way she raised me. But she didn’t. She was #DoYouBoo before #DoYouBoo was a thing that people said in the world. Mama Robinson was on board and agreed that after I graduated high school I could stop perming my hair. I was relieved, and I think my mom was, too. After all, I had not proven that I was the most responsible teenager, so she was probably thankful that I wasn’t going to have to find a hairdresser on my own and get to the salon every eight weeks between studies and work. And I think there was a small part of her that was happy that I was making my own decision. She and my dad raised me to be an independent thinker, and there’s no way she would have wanted me to straighten my hair to make her happy.

  A few months later, I found myself at the hair salon again with my mom. I told the hairdresser that I was going off to college in New York, and I was going natural. The hairdresser congratulated me, and told me the first step was that she had to cut off all of my processed and damaged hair, of which there was quite a bit. In fact, there was so much damage that what was left of my hair was not strong enough to start dreads just yet. But in the meantime, the hairdresser told me, I could have some fake hair braided into mine to rock cornrows for the summer. I was ecstatic. Wait. Like Queen Latifah in Set It Off? You’re telling me that I’m going to look like a badass, which is something I have never been in life up until this point? Sign me up! Who knew that I could be this happy to see my own hair?!?! I had seen it processed all these years and felt like a fraud. But seeing my hair in its natural state? Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude. I might be just as cool as Res. DUDE! I’m going to be looking over my shoulder AF all the time. I’m going to be that cool-but-people-haven’t-hipped-to-how-cool-I-am-yet cool. I’m going to keep leading with my dope personality. I’m going to be underrated and still carry on because I know how dope I am. I’m going to like my hair because it feels authentic. And that’s when that equation in my head, that value I placed on myself, started to change. It became: Me, the lanky brown-skinned girl + my real and good hair (good because it’s a part of me) + giving a middle finger to societal standards of beauty = I might be pretty. Sometimes the math we tell ourselves checks out.

  It took some time, but at the age of eighteen, I finally got acquainted with what my real hair felt and looked like. And it’s held some surprises. My curls coil tightly, and when I angle my head just right in the light, a few streaks of strawberry blond and red hair can be seen on one side of my head. That’s something that was passed down to me from my dad. I learned that my hair is also kind of hard to comb through sometimes, which can be annoying, but I like it. It’s not easy, but I’m not easy, so we match. I can do lot of things with it: braid it, dread it, ‘fro it, curl it. I can establish a kinship with other black people who wear their hair this way. Our hair becomes a language that only we speak. It took some time, but I realize I have been fluent in it all this time. And now I have so much more to say. It started as “I think I might be pretty” and “I think I might not hate myself anymore,” and slowly the “might” fell away—and I do mean slowly. But finally, I love myself and my hair, and when I look over my shoulder, I’m not doing it like Res anymore. I’m doing it like me.

  A Brief History of Black Hair in Film, TV, Music, and Media

  Black people are everywhere these days! On TV screens and magazine covers, headlining concert tours and dominating sports, making history in politics and being a definitive voice in the world of science (go, Neil deGrasse Tyson, go!). But what’s really important is that black people’s myriad hairstyles are everywhere. Lupita Nyong’o’s go-to do, a low fade or a much chicer version of the Gumby side-part, is lusted after. Mary J. Blige is known for her signature platinum-blond locks. And the Weeknd’s hair looks like a Museum of Modern Art installation piece made up of twigs and used pipe cleaners from a Halloween costume. Clearly, the options are endless, which is inspiring for a whole new generation of black kids.

  This wasn’t always the case. When I was growing up, there were typically three options for black women’s hairstyles depicted in the media: 1. The bank teller style, aka shoulder-length, chemically straightened hair, 2. very long and very straight Pocahontas hair, or 3. if it needed to be clear that a character was real black, meaning they weren’t a token black friend for white people, but had actual other black friends, a natural hairstyle like short dreadlocks was often paired with asexual clothing to show that this character cared a lot about Black History Month stamps and not much going to the bone zone. And before any of you black male readers laugh, things were just as dismal for you. Your options were the Old School Steve Harvey, a tightly groomed high-top fade t
hat glistened like a homemade Styrofoam-and-glitter Christmas ornament, and the New School Steve Harvey, also known as the Bald As Fuck. Sure, Bruce Willis and Kojak are known for their cue balls, but black men continue to have this look on lock.

  Now, thankfully, we’re in the middle of a moment when there’s less strict adherence to white Eurocentric beauty standards. As a result, black hair is less likely to be viewed, especially when in its natural state, as a political reaction to or rejection of white beauty. Witnessing this acceptance over time has encouraged me to embrace my own natural beauty, which I have wholeheartedly done. Ever since I told that hairdresser that I was going natural as a college-bound eighteen-year-old, I’ve been bald, had dreadlocks, a baby ‘fro, a frohawk, Moesha braids, Senegalese twists, big, long fluffy hair that went down to my boobs, a regular-sized Afro, fauxlocks, and Janet Jackson Velvet Rope hair. It has clearly been quite the hair journey, not just for me but also society, so in honor of all the progress made, I want to take a look back at some of the most influential and most memorable black hairstyles in film, TV, music, and media.

  DOROTHY DANDRIDGE, 1954

  With her light complexion (she was the daughter of two biracial parents), her European-looking features, and her straight hair, Dorothy Dandridge, alongside fellow singer/actress Lena Horne, was promoted by Hollywood as an acceptable face of black beauty during the industry’s Golden Age. For black women, she was aspirational, and that was never truer than in her definitive role as the titular character in Carmen Jones. Dandridge played a heartbreaking vixen with short, dark cropped hair—a striking contrast to actresses like Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Grace Kelly, who were the look du jour with their flaxen hair. Dandridge stood out while letting the world know that black is beautiful.