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My Hair Is Kinky: Does That Make Me Ugly?

Damn the beauty standard!

By Kellion KPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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We figure we’re doing you people a favor to get some white blood in your kids.

—John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (p. 103).

At 18, I felt like my most attractive and beautiful self. As I grew older, I learned to love myself more and more. However, my growing self-love was not meant to fight off the societal beauty standard of America. The visceral appreciation for myself that I developed had to now wrestle with the American ideals and hegemonic values. My Jamaican society taught me that black women are queens; I learned that my kinky hair is preferable to the long straight hair; I reveled in my dark skin and the curls of my hair. These were what made me so beautiful.

The black women in America, however, have to battle with the beauty standards meant for Caucasian women. I came to America only to be told that my natural hair is untamed and unacceptable. My dark complexion is not ideal and is susceptible to discrimination by racism and the colorism passed onto the black community. I have to both listen to and observe the underlying presumption that African-Americans that have white ancestors are more acceptable and more beautiful. The idea of improving the race became widespread after Jim Crow America and is still prevalent today.

“I don’t date women who are darker than me.”

“I want me a red-bone.”

“For a black girl, she is pretty.”

“For a dark-skinned girl, she is pretty.”

I hear these statements from my African-American teammates. I read them on social media. And I listen to them in the pop culture music. For the last five years, these expressions have been pervasive in my interactions. Colorism is centuries old; stemming from the treatment of slaves. As far as colorism is concerned, there were two kinds of slaves. The domestic slaves that worked in the house, and the slaves that worked in the fields. The darker complexioned slaves worked in the fields, and the light-complexioned slaves worked in the house. The position of the domestic slaves was envied for obvious reasons, and from this dichotomy ensued the idea of colorism: the idea that light-skin African Americans are more desirable and more worthy.

Light-skin Africa-Americans tend to be considered as closer to the beauty ideal. The reality of segregation between races and the colorism that exists within the black race resulted in my newborn self-loathe. It wasn’t a conscious change in my self-perception. It was subtle, but the change was there. I began to feel less like myself. I became more aware of my complexion and my hair. My hair and my skin began to feel like an extension of me. The hair on my head, so basic and so natural to me, but so detached. It was another entity. My skin, too, was something to change.

I tried weave for a few weeks; to look less black. I processed my hair because that would give me straight hair. But these changes didn’t last very long. The weave and the processed hair made me feel even more detached from myself. The weave made my scalp itch relentlessly and I burned my scalp every time I processed my hair. It was too much of a struggle to fit into the beauty standard of America, so, I decided to revert to my natural hair. It was an ugly transition because I had to allow my natural hair to regrow and not be stifled by the chemicals needed to make my hair straight. My hair, for months, looked like it was stuck in-between straight and curly. Eventually, I cut off the straight ends of my hair and left the natural roots. It had to happen. I needed it to happen.

Almost immediately after, I decided that I wanted dreadlocks.

I refused to see my blackness as inferior and undesirable. I tried to reconnect with my hair that I had loved as a girl. My skin was still my skin. I just needed to learn how to love it again. Subsequently, I decided to change the music that I had been listening to. My music consumption played a major role in the perception of my hair and my skin. Eventually, the words of my teammates became blasphemy to me. Erykah Badu and India Arie became my teachers. I had to relearn how to love myself. So, I listened to self-conscious African-American women.

Beauty looks like encouragement, patience, acceptance, forgiveness, carefulness and compassion. Beauty is spiritual and physical.

—Erykah Badu

I have had my dreads for almost four years, and now, I love my hair more than I did as a teenager. Because of the attack that was made on my hair, it has become a significant part of who I am; my identity. I treat it with more care and I am more in tune with it. I try to flaunt my hair where I think it is undesired. My hairdos are as unconventional as I can make them. I try to make these hairdos as unique as I can to reflect my nonconformity to the Caucasian beauty standards. Sometimes my hairdos are appreciated; other times, not so much. Some of the compliments that I get are from white women, but a lot more of them come from white men. The Caucasian women still disappoint me. One particular incident I remember happened in the gym with my teammates: Vince—a white male—and Britney—a white woman.

I had just gotten my hair done in a way that takes the shape of a crown; subtle, but still noticeable. Britney looked at my hair and smiled: “Diane, have you ever had straight hair? Has your hair always looked like this?”

“I have had straight hair. I didn’t like it. My natural hair is kinky.”

This was followed by me showing her pictures of my hair as a teenager and my freshman year in college. What I expected was not what followed. Britney felt the need to tell me “I think you look so good with straight hair. You should get straight hair again.” I barely gave her a response when she grabbed Vince’s attention by asking his opinion on my hair now and then. Because of Vince’s reply, I didn’t have to say much to Britney.

Pointing at my crown, Vince asked “You don’t like this? This is so authentic!”

He looked at her in disbelief and disappointment. I smiled at Vince as he walked away from Britney and I, as if he didn’t just dismiss Britney’s folly question. I walked away with him while Britney continued to assess my hair in confusion.

The following are questions—sometimes statements—frequently posed to me:

“Why don’t you wear weave?”

“Diane, has your hair always looked like that?”

“I think you would look soooo good with straight hair, why don’t you try?”

In the past, these questions infuriated me. Not now. Now when I get these questions, the simple reply is “My natural-born black hair is kinky.” Sometimes I have to elaborate. Other times, that statement is sufficient.

I chalk up the questions and statements to ignorance and a strict regime of the beauty standard. These women have been taught—like me—that the ideal beauty has long straight hair, has a straight nose and is white. Every woman is socialized to desire whiteness and to dislike all that is not. The standard is whiteness, and all else is ugly and unwanted. The Hispanic, the Asian, the Native American and the Black woman are all outside the standard whiteness and beauty.

With this realization, I questioned myself: How can you get mad at them for asking these questions? Why not try to inform? My white peers have very little experience with blackness and all that is associated with it. Any complexion that deviates from whiteness is problematic. If the hair is not straight, it is problematic. If the eyes are too slanted, they are problematic. If the nose is too round, it is problematic. These are the things that have come to be enveloped in what defines beauty.

There are white women with kinky hair that have been taught to hate it. Regardless of their whiteness, these women face the struggle of being an ugly minority, whether or not the struggle is miniscule compared to an actual minority. Kelsey is one of my friends. She is a white Canadian. Her natural hair is kinky and full of life. As she likes to say, “My hair has a mind of its own.” Kelsey’s hair is one of the many parts of her body that she hates. Regardless of having naturally kinky hair, I seldom see Kelsey with curly hair. It has become routine for Kelsey to straighten her hair in the mornings. So much so, that her hair is now damaged because of all the added heat needed to straighten her hair in the mornings. Whenever I try to remind her that she is damaging her hair, her reply is always “I know. I know. But, I hate my hair. It’s so wild.” Kelsey, like all minorities, has been taught that her kinky hair is undesirable.

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About the Creator

Kellion K

Lover of writing and expression. Lover of people, life, and living.

Stories are opportunities to travel through space and time. Storytelling is our superpower.

Follow me on Twitter: @callme_kelli

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