Good thing no one reads this blog. But it's like my own little film journal, well hopefully it will turn into that. I think I'm going to use this place to document the documentary that I am trying to make happen. It has no name but it's going to be about the politics, history and the affects of black hair. It's definitely not a big issue among non-black groups of people but I feel it's something black women should have to learn about, despite how they choose to wear their hair. Because sometimes, NOT ALWAYS, the choice black women make in the way their hair is worn, is based upon an insecurity that goes back many generations.
For the longest time I felt inferior to everyone that was lighter or had longer hair, I still do to an extent (I'm hoping I'll get past it). And I refuse to believe that was something I brought upon myself. No one can tell me that my crying everyday at my reflection and wanting it to somehow be lighter and for my eyes to turn blue, is something I created all by myself by the age of ten. Not to mention the many times I was called ugly and manly because of my skin color, or the disgusted looks I got from little boys, who were clearly displaying a sort of internalized racism and projecting it upon me. I'm not claiming to be beautiful (I would actually say that I'm below average looking) but my skin color and my hair, be it healthy, should have nothing to do in the way my attractiveness, or lack thereof, is perceived.
So when I started transitioning, I didn't do it because I wanted to reclaim my African roots, or find beauty in them. I did it because I realized relaxers were burning my once soft, shiny, fluffy hair and I wanted it back, not to show off in it's natural glory but so that it would grow and no longer break off. But as with anything that is not part of mainstream curriculum, I had to teach myself how to take care of this hair that most would negatively consider "nappy". The best part of my journey was learning so much about my hair. It made me proud to be black. Something I never imagined could ever, ever happen in my mind. I was the girl that refused to listen to rap music, or wear even a single braid in her hair, or color her hair, or wear weave all for fear of seeming too black and losing friends. I was afraid to listen to music too loudly, to state my opinions publicly, to talk on the phone in public, I was running away from normal human things because I thought people would think I was too black. Little did my small teenage brain realize that no matter what I did or didn't do, I would always be "too black" for America, simply for being born in this skin.
And I began realizing that as my search for hair care took a turn into the political and historical. I learned that when black women were brought to America,they were no longer allowed to style their hair in the way that their ancestors had before them. They were meant to remain unkempt in attempt to shatter their self-worth, which clearly worked and infiltrated it's way through the many generations of children of those slaves. I learned that slave owners raped slave women in order to produce bi-racial babies, and in turn, these babies were used to create a painful disjunction in the relationship between lighter skinned and darker skinned blacks that is still very present today. These are the things we never learned in school and I want more people to know about it. The only way we can get past this insidious racism and self-hate is to talk about it. That's why I want to make this doc. It'll be about hair but it's so much more than that.
