By now, you’re well aware of how amazing my parents are, but let me tell you about my brother, Phil Jr. Like my parents, he’s imbued with a deep sense of community. He has spent much of his career working at various nonprofits and is now a state representative in Ohio. He’s passionate about education, gun control, LGBTQIA+ rights. Basically, anything that’s predicated on what will best serve the masses, he’s a staunch supporter of. As far as my parents are concerned, you already know they’re introverts and don’t spend that much time with other people, but that doesn’t mean they’re #IsolationNation. Almost every business they started when I was growing up was rooted in, yes, money, so as to provide a better life for my brother and me, but also to provide a service to others. They understood the value of showing up. Whether it was them taking odd jobs to help pay for my high school education or my dad homeschooling my niece during Covid because he knew that would not only help lighten my brother and sister-in-law’s workload, but that he could be a supplementary educational figure for Olivia, they know it’s not about being a martyr. Caring about the collective and what’s best for everyone instead of what would be best for himself (I’m sure my dad would love to just be straight chilling in his sixties) means that he’s choosing to strengthen our collective, which will, by default, also strengthen him. He gets special time with her while also helping mold a citizen. And when my mom is not swamped with her day job, she’s reading and playing with my niece and nephew as well. Taking them to the park so they can explore nature, painting with them to nurture their creative side, and so on. To my parents, their children and grandchildren are their community, because if they nurture and raise us right, they know we will pay it forward, and so on and so on.
Seeing how my parents and brother operate is all the proof I needed to suggest that perhaps it’s time for me, and for all of us, to take a beat from modern-day self-care. For far too long, we’ve all been conditioned to focus on the “I” to the point that doing something that puts others first instead of the self is often met with suspicion. These efforts tend to be labeled as “virtue signaling,” and while there is some of that, there are equally as many, if not more, people who genuinely want to contribute to the collective, but might not know how to get started. While some of that wariness is because we’re an “iNation,” I believe that much of that is because of the trauma all of us have lived through.
#MeToo. The Donald Trump presidency. The rise of technology and social media that makes it possible for us to see global atrocities in real time. The lives lost to the coronavirus. We are inundated with toxic behavior, violence, death, and fear, so self-preservation is understandably at an all-time high, which means that yes, a face mask does feel like taking care of oneself. It feels like it is a remedy in the face of a litany of information and destruction that is too much to process all at once, never mind actually do something about. And I think the only way out of that is for society to reprioritize the collective good, link arms, and figure this shit out together.
Ya know, this reminds me of one of U2’s biggest hits, “One.” Please bear with me because I’m not bringing them up arbitrarily. Although, don’t tempt me because I’m down to talk about U2 all the time, anytime. Anyway. Inspired by the band’s fractious relationship following the global success of the Joshua Tree album and the concert film Rattle and Hum not being received by the public in the way the band had intended, they returned to work on their album Achtung Baby and were flirting with the idea of breaking up. After months of trying to record in Berlin, “One” came together, by all accounts in a thirty-minute burst of inspiration, and rejuvenated the band. They then used this song as the centerpiece to build the rest of the album around. In the book U2 by U2 (even if U2 isn’t your favorite band, if you’re into creatives openly and honestly talking about their process, I highly recommend this book), the band talked about how people interpret the song completely differently than U2 does, which explains why it’s often played at weddings. Bono elaborates:
“One” is not about oneness; it’s about difference. It is not the old hippie idea of “Let’s all live together.” It is a much more punk rock concept. It’s anti-romantic: “We are one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other.” It’s a reminder that we have no choice. I’m still disappointed when people hear the chorus line as “We’ve got to” rather than “We get to carry each other.” Because it is resigned, really. It’s not: “Come on everybody, let’s vault over the wall.” Like it or not, the only way out of here is if I give you a leg up the wall and you pull me after you.
I mean, if this song and the idea of showing up for one another saved the band, then why can’t the idea save the world? Okay, that was a little cheesy, but I couldn’t help myself! In all seriousness, we, you and I, are in this thing called life together and we’re each other’s only hope in making things better.
So let’s get radical again. More than that, how about someone or someones in mental healthcare and politics get radical with us and help us save ourselves by moving away from capitalism and quick fixes and only focusing on self-soothing and not enough on the community and moving toward a society that cares for and about us? A society that shows us they care by making mental healthcare as accessible as charging stations for our phones. A society that listens to and believes people of color who, like Audre Lorde, want to take control of their health. A society that encourages us to push past surface-level pleasures and dig deep, all the while ensuring that they will be there on the other side of the pain and discomfort, waiting for us. If we could have that, maybe, just maybe, we all could get on the road toward becoming happier individuals. And . . . ?
Okay, fine, we could also buy a candle and a notebook because even though a candle isn’t self-care and a notebook isn’t therapy, they sure do look lovely in our homes. What can I say? I like pretty, unnecessary things, which I will be unpacking with my therapist right after we discuss my allegiance to yacht rock. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I love me some Michael McDonald and so does literally every Black person, so I guess we all need some ther-ther. ’Kay, probably not what the Black Panthers had in mind when they advocated for free healthcare for all, especially Black people, but let’s roll with it.
4C Girl Living in Anything but a 4C World: The Disrespect
Folks will say, “People who do CrossFit are so strong,” and I’m like, “Suuuuure? Yeah, they can do legless rope climbs and handstand walks, but call me when they’re able to detangle 4C hair after it’s been in mini two-strand twists for three weeks without their hands getting tired; otherwise, I. Am. Not. Impressed!” Similarly, I remember after the premiere of The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries about the legendary Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan was praised for his mental fortitude. I mean, I guess? Don’t get me wrong, leading a team to six NBA championships is no small feat, but has he ever spent a morning as a Black woman trying to emulate Solange’s thick and wavy Afro only to end up looking like Frederick Douglass on a Black History Month stamp and, as tears welled up in his eyes, let out a deep sigh and resigned himself to give off Freddy Dougs’s “Y’all done messed up when you taught me how to read” energy everywhere he went that day? No? Then I’m not that blown away by what Michael Jordan achieved.
And when people go on and on about Apple’s innovation under Steve Jobs, all I can think about is my vast wig collection, as well as the natural hairstyles I rock that allow me to look like a different Black woman every day. On Monday, popping on a pixie cut wig means I’m giving you vintage Toni Braxton. Tuesday is when I’m switching it up with a beach-wave shoulder-length bob like I’m Kerry Washington on the red carpet. A giant curly wig on Wednesday has me living out my Tracee Ellis Ross fantasy, while Thursday, I’m serving you bone-straight Naomi Campbell, and by the weekend, I’m wig- free and sporting Fulani braids à la Issa Rae at the Met Gala in 2018. To do all of that in one week? That’s ingenuity, bitch.
Look, my intention isn’t to minimize the achievement
s of others; rather, I hope to shine a light on what’s being overlooked. I understand that to some, Black hair is too inconsequential to be regarded as anything noteworthy, but I beg to differ. It’s not just hair, and what we have done and continue to do with it is anything but unimportant. It’s culture defining, influential, and often one of the many outlets we use to express ourselves. Why else would societies work so hard to ostracize and shame Black people and their hair if they and it didn’t contain an awe-inducing level of confidence, glory, and power, which in the eyes of the insecure is seen as a threat? Just take a look at history.
Before colonization was rampant in Africa in the fifteenth century, each tribe had their unique set of hairstyles that would represent financial and marital status, religion, age, and more. So, in a glance at someone’s hair, one practically got all the information they needed about a person and the beliefs they held. Fast-forward to the transatlantic trade. Knowing the significance of and how much self-esteem was rooted in African hair, owners of enslaved people shaved their captives’ heads so as to dehumanize them and erase their identities. Because of or in spite of (take your pick) this degradation, enslaved people, as they had always done, found ways to be resourceful: cornrows.
The average person, when they hear the word “cornrows,” may think of them as the foundation for a protective style to be placed on top or for a fun, easy on-the-go ’do, or may remember that brief and embarrassing time the media tried to “rebrand” them as “boxer braids” because white UFC fighters such as Ronda Rousey sported them in the Octagon. What in the Alicia Keys on the cover of her debut album Songs in A Minor was that white nonsense? Thankfully, the term “boxer braids” died a quick death and didn’t overshadow cornrows’ historical importance: Enslaved people braided escape routes in each other’s hair as a means of communicating with one another without getting caught. Enslaved mothers would also braid seeds and rice into their children’s hair, so that they could have something to eat when (and usually if) they got separated from their parents at slave auctions. Then there’s the tignon laws in Louisiana, which were passed in 1786 by Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró to stop the rise of interracial relationships by preventing Creole women of color from drawing attention to themselves in the streets of New Orleans. As Virginia M. Gould (author and lecturer at Tulane University) noted in an essay in The Devil’s Lane, the governor hoped that forcing women to wear a head covering would control those “who had become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who competed too freely with white women for status and thus threatened the social order.” And as we all know, the discussion, hatred, and imitation of as well as being intimidated by the beauty of Black hair is not a historical relic. It’s an ongoing issue that’s prevalent in today’s workplace and beyond.
In July 2019, California became the first state to pass the CROWN Act, which updates the definition of “race” in the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and the California Education Code to be “inclusive of traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.” Thanks to this act, employers and authority figures at schools are prevented from enforcing discriminatory rules of grooming against people of color, like in 2018, when a sixteen-year-old New Jersey high school wrestler named Andrew Johnson was presented with the following ultimatum by a white referee before a match: cut his dreadlocks because they didn’t “conform” to the rules or forfeit the match. We all know what was really being said: The locks were a symbol of Johnson’s Blackness, so really, the problem was that, to the referee, Johnson himself did not fit within what the ref defined as acceptable, so like most Black people, Johnson had to make a choice: either reject a part of himself in order to participate in a world that doesn’t want him OR suffer unfair consequences simply for not obeying white, patriarchal authority. What a choice to be thrust upon anyone, especially a teenager. He made the painful decision to have his locks cut, which, I can imagine, was because he didn’t want all his practice and training to be for naught. If that wasn’t bad enough, this wasn’t done in private. Instead, a white female trainer for the team cut his hair off in front of the entire gymnasium, a cruel and intentionally humiliating act. And we all know that trainer gave zero fucks about making sure his hair looked presentable when she cut it, but instead had him out there looking like Zahara Jolie-Pitt circa 2009, before Brad Pitt knew what Carol’s Daughter was. But in all seriousness, just three years ago, this was acceptable punishment for a Black person not shrinking themselves, and the only reason this case of abuse made a ripple is because someone filmed the incident and the video went viral.
Thankfully, since then, New Jersey joined California in passing the CROWN Act and so did New York. The New York City Commission on Human Rights created guidelines to impose penalties on those who discriminate, harass, demote, or fire people for wearing the following hairstyles: “natural hair, treated or untreated hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and/or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state.” While this does bring about a sense of relief, the reality is much more sobering because California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, New Mexico, Delaware, and Nebraska are actually the only eleven states who have passed the CROWN Act. Sure, others including Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsylvania are “considering” passing similar legislation, but they haven’t. Yet. That means in thirty-nine states, it is fair game to discriminate against and jeopardize Black people’s safety, mental health, financial security, and comfort simply because our hair is different, which brings me back to my #JokesNotJokes feelings about the astonishing, completely original, and immeasurable impact Black hair has had on not just Black culture but globally.
When you analyze the decades and centuries of psychological and physical harm and trauma Black people have experienced because of our hair, as well as the high-fashion creativity (CreativeSoul Photography with their series AfroArt), beauty (Diana Ross’s entire hair oeuvre), envelope pushing (Grace Jones’s flattop fade), and overall cultural contributions of their hairstyles to the zeitgeist (Bantu knots, Jheri curl, etc.), I conclude that Black women, in particular, need to be acknowledged and celebrated in a major way, and not just light-skinned Black celebrities during Black History Month. I want some year-round shit. Monuments erected that depict wash day, which is really a several-day odyssey. Like, if I had to spend the past eighteen years living in New York City and seeing that trifling statue of Teddy Roosevelt’s raggedy self on a horse flanked by an African man and an Indigenous man, then we are loooooong overdue for a sculpture of a Black woman making a stank face while reading the back of a bottle of conditioner. This sculpture shall be named Just Use a Dime-Sized Amount of Conditioner? Bitch, Where? Every weekend, there needs to be a Jamaican Carnival–level celebraysh, but instead of bountiful booties and free-range titty meat on display, it’s YouTube hair tutorial stars, who can no longer hide behind video editing, and instead must publicly struggle to style their hair while on parade floats.
That’s just the beginning. I want more. Such as products created especially for us, like memory foam cooling pillows specifically designed to soothe our tender scalps after getting box braids, so we can sleep peacefully. A course at Barnard College called Shrinkage Tried to Stop Us from Being Great, But the Heaux Lost. Monthly swag bags delivered to our homes that are full of candles, journals, Sally’s Beauty Supply coupons, artisanal cheeses, head wraps, and Cajun seasoning. I mean, BW deserve so much, y’all; at the very least, we should be secure knowing we will not ever make wack shrimp étouffée because we ran out of spices. But it’s not just gifts and grandiose displays of appreciation that I’m after.
Putting Black women of all shades at the forefront of these hairstyles is not only instrumental in Black women seeing ourselves reflected in the media, but also allows the BW in front of the camera (and behind the scenes) to achieve
the financial and career gains that culture vultures such as the Kardashian clan and fashion-week models make when they sport a poor facsimile of the hairstyles that on Black women are often denigrated as ghetto and ugly, can cost them employment and dating prospects, and may, perhaps worst of all, gaslight them and make them question their self-worth. All of this damage can take years, decades, and even a lifetime to be undone if it can be undone at all. I should know because, somewhat to my surprise, I am one of those people who is still doing the laborious work of overcoming what I’ve been conditioned to believe about my hair.
I remember the first night I served as the moderator on Michelle Obama’s Becoming book tour. Yes, I’m aware 1) of the whiplash that just occurred from that segue, and 2) that the previous sentence is as down-to-earth as when, in the middle of the 2020 quar, Martha Stewart posted on Instagram about the summer house (built in 1776) on her farm that she converted into a library for her book collection. You know, I bet if the enslaved people who most likely constructed this home knew that it would one day only house, among other books, Joan Didion’s entire oeuvre, some Glennon Doyle self-help, and a first edition One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish for Stewart’s grandkids to read, the slaves would have surely screamed, “WORTH IT!” In all seriousness, while most of us are just hoping to one day afford a home that will house our bodies, M. Stew is devoting an entire property to her books and treating them with the same loving care Beast gave the red rose he kept in the protective glass cloche in Beauty and the Beast. Needless to say, this is not the most relatable thing Stewart has done, but neither is my launching into a story about my time with my Forever First Lady. However, I’m not bringing up Mrs. O (again) as proof of how cool I am by association, but because it wasn’t until a couple years after that night with Miche that I realized my hair issues weren’t a thing of the past as I had led myself to believe. Turns out I wasn’t “cured,” as I implied in my first book, You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain, which if you don’t have, you might need to purchase in order to understand my relationship with my hair.* Or I could just tell you now. After all, this isn’t the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which it’s wise to watch Thor: Ragnarok before Avengers: Infinity War in order to fully understand Thor and Loki’s complicated relationship. Okay. Long story short: I assumed that simply because I listened to neo-soul, stopped perming my hair at eighteen, then wore dreadlocks for five years that I must’ve defeated any insecurities or self-defeating talk about my hair.
Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes Page 24
