Don't Touch My Hair!

By A’mari Bing-Way // Illustrations by Katia Novak

I was sitting in front of the mirror with my hair freshly washed, conditioned and blow-dried. After straining my neck over the kitchen sink while my mother scrubbed my scalp, I dreaded the possibility of shampoo getting in my eyes. As I looked at my reflection, I admired the length of my hair. The shrinkage had disappeared. I was happy. My fantasies of having free-flowing, golden tresses blowing in the breeze were about to come true. Having long, straight hair meant that I was pretty, and that I would look like all of the other girls in my class.

Looking at my straightened hair, I did what I saw in all of the TV shows and movies: brush it. I tried to make the brush pass through my straightened coils, but it wouldn’t. “What are you doing?” my mom exclaimed. “This is not meant for your hair. You can’t brush your hair.”

“Oh,” I said, devastated. I wanted to emulate my favorite scene from The Princess Diaries. Mia Thermopolis’ iconic makeover was the epitome of what straight long hair represented—confidence, beauty, and best of all, becoming a princess. Through the efforts of her eccentric stylist, Paulo, Mia’s curly hair was tamed. My love for the movie, Mia Thermopolis, and wanting to be a princess superseded my reality. The reality was that as an eight-year-old black girl, the only thing my hair had in common with Mia’s was that our hair could break a comb or brush.

Having straight hair was a symbol for who I thought I was supposed to be. I imagined a fair-skinned girl with long, straight hair in place of my reflection. I always saw girls like this at school, on TV and in movies, magazines and books. So, for me, wearing my hair straight was one step closer to being someone who I was told was socially acceptable.

The representation of black women was limited in the early 2010s and representation of a black woman’s relationship with her hair was non-existent, especially for my hair texture: 4C, which is kinky and coily; imagine the shape of a spring. It has been notoriously deemed as the most unmanageable, unattractive, and as the last on the scale, the most neglected.

As a young black American girl, this story is not unique. Deanna Clarke-Campbell, a Jamaican-American junior at Boston University, shares a similar sentiment about her hair. “Growing up, my hair was always straight,” she says, “I always internalized the feeling that my hair was too difficult to manage.”

Having straight hair was a symbol for who I thought I was supposed to be.

Like her, I wasn’t taught to appreciate my hair. I believed that managing my curls only caused unnecessary struggles of arm soreness, broken combs, time management and mental distress. The process of getting my hair done was never something to look forward to. It was essentially a form of torture. The sound of hair grease sizzling against your scalp as the hot metal comb passes through your hair while you anxiously pray that it avoids your ears, the feeling of nails digging into your scalp as your hair is being tightly pulled to form fresh cornrows, the burning sensation of a perm radiating all over your scalp, and the struggles of falling asleep at a certain angle so not to mess up your new hairstyle (only to wake up with a crick in your neck) are all-too-familiar memories.

Ironically, we use the term hair care when we have not been taught to treat our hair, let alone ourselves, with care. However, despite the pain, black women are dedicated to our crowns. Our hair holds our confidence, culture, history and personal stories that are vital to who we are. Unfortunately, it takes many of us years to recognize this, Clarke-Campbell admitted, “I think I started loving my hair when I was 16.” Lauren McDonald, a American, revealed, “I didn’t truly embrace my hair until freshman year of college.”

From the Tignon Laws of 1800s Louisiana to the last decade, where black girls were still being banned from wearing natural hairstyles at school, the policing of black hair has lasted for centuries. Despite that, the past decade has been a modern-day resurgence of the natural hair movement (the first coinciding with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s). Social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Twitter have afforded black people a new sense of agency over how we are represented inside and outside of the black community.

The first time I saw a black girl on TV wearing her braids with confidence was in 2010, when Willow Smith encouraged us to whip our hair.

On the surface, the resurgence is met with positive feedback for being a positive, inspirational social movement that encourages black people to embrace their natural features. Yet, the natural hair movement has also reinforced some dangerous “isms” within the community. Colorism, racism, fetishism and exoticism have continuously riddled the visual representations of black women. Despite the trend of self-acceptance, these ideas did not go away in the last decade.

Some of these “isms” have become internalized to the point where one version of black hair is seen as socially acceptable in the community. To Clarke-Campbell, the natural hair movement has caused frustration. “When they mean natural hair, they mean natural hair on people with lighter skin. I just wish I saw more diversity in hair textures,” she says.

Platforms like Twitter and Instagram have placed pressure on how the narrative surrounding black hair needs to change. “I grew up in predominantly white places, so my introduction to the black hair community was through Twitter and black Twitter,” said Mushtaaq Ali, a Muslim black American junior at Harvard University.

Thanks to users exchanging stories of hair discrimination in their workplace, school environment, or other places, legal policies like the CROWN (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) Act were passed in several states in the U.S.

Strides to make any form of natural black hair illegal were essentially useless as each time black women reacted in three forms: discover loopholes in the policy, confront the discrimination, or simply ignore them. In the 2010s, black women used social media to publicize these reactions.

From the start of the decade, black female celebrities used their platforms to celebrate black beauty. The first time I saw a black girl on TV wearing her braids with confidence was in 2010 when Willow Smith encouraged us to whip our hair. Lupita Nyong’ o represented the TWA (teenie weenie afro) community during her Oscars debut in 2013. Now, “whenever she’s on the red carpet, her hair always reflects the natural state of her hair or African hairstyles,” said Ali.

The year 2015 was about confronting cultural appropriation: Amandla Stenberg confronted the Kardashian-Jenners for wearing cornrows, and Zendaya educated the public on the history of locs after entertainment reporter, Giuliana Rancic, commented that Zendaya looked like she smelled of “patchouli oil and weed.”

Fortunately, both these moments created conversations on the difference between appreciation and appropriation. The following year was pivotal in the natural hair movement. Beyoncé and Solange embodied the black experience in their respective albums, Lemonade and A Seat at The Table. The sisters proudly wore natural and protective hairstyles that influenced how black women and men embraced our history and natural features.

Because of black female celebrities’ choice to express their blackness so openly, black male celebrities “are more ambitious with their hairstyles,” Ali continues, “like Jay-Z growing his hair, Lil Yachty wearing braids and beads and The Weeknd wearing locs.” The decision to grow out one’s hair may seem simple, but for black men, it is an act of challenging the stereotypes that they face. As a young black woman, I was happy to see my male counterparts using their hair to express themselves. Clarke-Campbell noticed that after the Marvel film, she saw more black men wearing similar styles to the characters. “I think it may have made back men prouder of their hair,” she says.

Hashtag movements also helped the empowerment of the black community. In 2013 #BlackGirlMagic took off, a movement initiated by Cashawn Thompson, who believed that it was time for black women to unabashedly celebrate their accomplishments. In the same year, Zeba Blay dubbed #CarefreeBlackgirls on Tumblr, where she called on black girls to embrace their individuality and reject stereotypes. Both hashtags developed into pop culture phenomenons and even songs, like “Black Girl Magic” by Che Lingo. Because the movements mobilized so quickly, it felt like social media feeds were being flooded with images of young black women taking advantage of the viral nature of social media to debunk ridiculous hair myths. Assertions that darker-skinned women can’t wear blond hair, kinky hair is unattractive, black women are bald-headed, black girls don’t have long hair, and only lighter-skinned women have curly hair were all counteracted by pictures black people of all colors confidently rocking a plethora of hairstyles.

In 2016, more myths were debunked after Chance The Rapper tweeted #Blackboyjoy and sparked a revolution. This one tweet gave reason for black boys and men to express their happiness fully. This continued into 2018 when #wavecheck went viral, eventually leading to the creation of Durag Fest in North Carolina, where black men and women would take off layers of durags to revealing smooth, glistening waves of hair. Through hashtags, black people were able to access immediate proof of the diversity and beauty within the community.

Age difference plays a vital role in this movement. Because the natural hair movement has fully resurged, the youngest generation today has the luxury of loving their hair while many black women my age and older are still trying to unlearn the myths about theirs. “Embracing our natural hair is definitely paving the way for the next generation to understand how to take care of their hair,” explains McDonald.

The movement is about more than hair. It has operated as an educational tool for those like Ali, who recounts, “Once I took my hijab off, I realized that I didn’t know how to take care of my hair.” It has served as a mediator for Clarke-Campbell, who feels her hair has become a “loveable frustration,” and as a “necessary step into greater self-love” for McDonald.

The last decade has laid the foundation for a new perspective on black hair, and it’s only fitting that we started the new decade with the short film Hair Love winning an Oscar. For black people, our hair is one of many attributes that often speak before we do, but this decade has shown us that it does not have to be a bad thing.