"Our Love for Each Other": Gabby Douglas & Another Look at the Life Balance Conference

Really, this is not another Gabby Douglas post although I do want to congratulate Douglas's history-making accomplishments! Way to go, and keep doing your thing, young lady--correction: Gold-Medal-Winning Olympian!

Though this post is not about Douglas or her hair, the haterism about which has been covered here, here, and here in particular (where she directly addresses the silliness of all the talk), it is about black women's love for each other, and we'll start with this hair discussion briefly.

I mean, check the hardware!

Black women know all too well how sensitive the issue of our hair is, and the rest of the world is learning quickly. However, no matter where a woman stands on perms or gels, we have got to learn how to treat each other with love. For instance, I have a preference for chemical-free hair, but I don't begrudge anybody their choice to embrace relaxers. One of the wonderful things about living in the 21st century is that, while we still have a way to go, we're enjoying a time in which great strides in gender and race politics have been realized. That means we're increasingly able to rock perms, 'fros, locs, and sew-ins, and it's all becoming acceptable.

Yet, we still have women within our communities policing other women's choices and effectively causing division where there should be love. Why did we have black women taking to Twitter to tear down another black woman who was representing her country on the world stage? Where is the love and support for a woman seeking to make history and otherwise do something positive? As Douglas puts it in the HuffPo, "I'm like, `I just made history and people are focused on my hair?' It can be bald or short, it doesn't matter about (my) hair." Priorities, people. Priorities.

To return to insights gained from the Black Women's Life Balance and Wellness Conference, an important part of that weekend had to do with black women choosing to lift each other up in love--and it is a choice. As we performed the exercise in which we gazed at each other in pairs, as I described in my last post, Alexis Gumbs said something powerful: "This is a historic moment in the context of our love for each other." It was profound because we were taking time out to really see one another, without judgment, and only with spirits of affirmation.

If, then, we can support each other's endeavors and really see each other, how much could we accomplish together? If we could put aside the petty differences (like hair preferences) and cultivate "our ability to see the brilliance around us," as Alexis put it, to what extent could we change our world for the better? Ladies, please, let's cut the foolishness and love each other.

One Thing I Want My Daughter to Know: "Good and Bad Hair" Revisited

All right, I'm gonna talk about hair again, and then I'll leave it alone (until I get moved to talk about it again. That's right. I said it.).

I was watching a rerun of The Game on BET—don’t judge me—when an ad for Motions Silkening Shine Relaxer came on. I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard “Get pretty.” Then my ears perked up. The line continued, “…with shiny, make-them-stare hair.” Then it hit me hard: this is why little girls grow up thinking the hair they were born with needs to be fixed. Otherwise, it’s not “pretty.”

This ad reminded me of a recent conversation I had with my pastor, when he told me that we partly form our identities based on the models before us—that is, both fashion models and everyday examples. Little girls, for instance, grow up knowing what’s “pretty” without having to have it blatantly stated (although this ad is pretty blatant). We have Barbie dolls, TV, magazines and movies to tell us.

The thing is: the “popular” models, as opposed to the everyday ones, get more pull as kids grow up. We know this. And if we’re talking about models of “pretty” hair, the view is pretty one-dimensional. For black girls growing up today, their models are the likes of Beyoncé, Queen Latifah, and the model in this Motions ad: beautiful, influential women who relax their hair. I imagine the message for a little girl is that “shiny” hair like this model’s is the only way to “make them stare.” This type of hair is necessary to be considered beautiful.

I’m aware that these are arguably trite ideas--we all know that trying to be Barbie has screwed with quite a few minds--yet these ideas about "pretty" keep being recycled. In spite of all the conversations about multivalent versions of “pretty,” we’re still getting “pretty hair=straight and shiny” coming through the tube. To a little girl, who may have few, if any, models of naturally textured hair that is “pretty,” this ad provides the key to “pretty”! Shiny, blow-in-the-wind hair that correlates with all the other models out there.

I think we’d see a lot less negativity surrounding nappy hair if black females in their girlhood, where ideas about “pretty” firmly take root, can actually see more than one type of “pretty” hair. If they can see hair that looks like theirs as “pretty,” not just at home or in the neighborhood but on TV and in magazines, then maybe we can add a few more dimensions to the idea.

I’m not naïve, however. I know that part of kinky hair’s lack of visibility has to do with its paltry level of acceptability in the fashion, TV, and film industries. But we’ve seen kinky hair featured in the worlds of fashion and entertainment, as in this photo of Beyoncé. (Granted, I don't believe this is her hair, but the point is that the afro is getting some play!) World famous model Alek Wek is also an example of kinky hair in the fashion world. Kim Myles, of HGTV’s Myles of Style wears her hair in its natural texture. Jazz, blues, and folk icon Cassandra Wilson has been wearing locs for decades, and soul singer Leela James has a very prominent afro.

There are models of black women with naturally textured hair out there, but they’re nowhere near as prominent as models of straightened and relaxed hair. Where are the Carol’s Daughter, Miss Jessie’s, and Kinky-Curly TV ads? Maybe they’re on their way. They’re fairly new companies, after all.

With all this in mind, if I ever have a daughter, I’d want her to know that she’d be pretty no matter what she did to her hair, that there’s more than one type of “pretty” and that she wouldn’t have to change the texture of her hair in order to get it. But she could if she wanted to. It's one option and not the only one.

Death to "Good and Bad" Hair!

Let me start by saying that I’m not going to comment at all on Chris Rock’s film Good Hair. The world has about mutilated that dead horse, right? This isn’t about “Straight and Nappy” from Spike Lee’s classic School Daze, either (although it’s playing in my head right now, high kicks and all). Instead, let me tell you a story.

A woman of a certain age was once describing to me the hair textures of three biracial women she knew. One of them, she said, had hair the most like “black people’s hair,” more on the kinky side of things. Another had hair that was “like good black people’s hair—but better—like a Latina,” and the third had “good hair,” which I assumed meant naturally wavy or straight hair. I smiled and nodded, but I was struck—and slightly saddened—by the enduring idea that a black woman’s hair is bad or somehow lesser. The uses of good and better here imply that a black woman’s hair is naturally bad. And in my experience, it’s not just women of a certain age who use and believe in this idea.

There are women out there who believe the natural texture of their hair is bad for the simple fact that it’s kinky. That’s it. It’s not that it’s damaged or falling out; it’s just nappy hair! There’s a historical dimension to this sense of shame, partly rooted in very old racist ideas about beauty and partly linked with long-standing fashion trends. Both are hard to contend with, but this leads me to wonder: when my sisters look at their nappy roots in the mirror, what runs through their minds?

Back when I used to straighten my hair (never had chemicals), new growth meant, Dangit! I have to straighten my hair again?! After a while, I realized that I didn’t have to do anything, so I stopped straightening my hair. It was intermittent for a while—I might straighten it; I might not—but after a few years it became a firm decision. I noticed that I liked the things my hair did on its own. If my hair didn’t want to stay straightened and downright refused to do so, who was I to try to force it? A very liberating experience.

It’s been an interesting ride. Family and friends alike have ridiculed me, sometimes in the spirit of fun and sometimes in the spirit of flat-out dislike. Here’s one of my personal faves: “What happened to your hair?” I went from having “good” and “pretty” hair—hair that fell mid-back when straightened—to “wild” and “big” hair. (Compare the pics: 2004 with straightened hair and 2008 with hair doing its own thing.) Some people like it, and some don’t, but I’m glad that I got to the point where I don’t care what others think about my hair. It’s healthy and reasonably well taken care of. ;-)

Of course, I don’t expect all sisters to do what I did. Different strokes for different folks. Some people tell me, “Oh, well, you don’t need a perm.” Who does need one? Some women choose to straighten/perm their hair because it’s what they’ve always done. Some do it because they have comb-breaking hair–I broke several combs as a child!—and just don’t have the time and/or desire (in some cases, the ability) to deal with it. For some it’s just more convenient to perm it or wear wigs and weaves. To each her own, but I would encourage my sisters not to base these decisions on notions of “good and bad” hair. If women can be born with “bad” hair, hair that needs to be “fixed” from jump, then countless little girls are coming into the world with a completely messed up sense of beauty. They’re born lacking something because their hair coils up. That can’t be the case; I just don’t believe that’s true. But how many women do believe it’s true?

I love a t-shirt one of my dear friends owns. It reads, “Good hair is healthy hair.” If your hair doesn’t constantly break off or shed a thousand strands a day, then you have good hair, whether it’s nappy, wavy or straight, long, medium-length or short. Wash it, condition it, and trim those split ends. Whatever else you do, consider canning the idea of “good and bad” hair. It’s so passé. Look around: slowly but surely, the world is changing.