A Black Power Solution to a Bluest Eye problem

"Think about it. Barring Rastafarians, the real ones, religious ones, what kind of black girl grows locks? Black girls who go to predominantly white colleges, that's who. Dreadlocks are black white-girl hair. A Black Power solution to a Bluest Eye  problem: the desire to have long, swinging, ponytail hair. The braids take too long after a while, the extensions. But you still need a hairstyle for running in the rain. Forget the secret benefit from affirmative action; this is the white woman's privilege. Wet hair. Not to give a shit about rain on your blowout. . ." excerpt from 'Ghana Must Go' by Taiye Selasi

I think the politics black hair have not been written enough about. Hair means different things to different people.

To some it matters not whether their hair is long or short, kinky or straight, coarse or soft: hair is just one of those things we all have for practical purposes, like hands or a nose. To others, hair is very political, and to them, how you choose to wear it is a reflection of your beliefs about beauty standards and the oppression of black people.

I know black women who find themselves and others ugly with their natural hair unrelaxed with harmful chemicals. For some of them its not about ugliness as much as it is about having to wake up every morning to do battle with a curly afro: it's just easier to have smoothe, relaxed hair that can be managed easily at the start of the day.

I had a friend once who always got braids a week before exams because she found examination periods such a stressful time. The only way to help relieve the stress of waking up after a long night of studying was the assurance that she got to tie her hair in a ponytail and was ready to go.

I know other black women and girls who see their hair as battle grounds where the ideals of black identity are fiercely debated.

Only last year, we saw girls at a number of former model-C (read: former white) schools in South Africa protesting the rules that governed how they could and could not wear their hair. These young women (and many across the country who had and had not gone through similar experiences) felt that the way these rules were written and enforced targeted anyone who did not have silky, smoothe and straight white-girl hair. These rules were seen as oppressive an unaccommodating of black people in a country where close to 80 % of the population is black.

This was a polarising issue, with some people feeling that as school learners, these young women had to abide by the school rules and their protest was seen as them wanting to do as they pleased in a school environment.

No matter your stance on the hair of black people, this much is clear: we still have a long way to go in terms of the identity politics of hair.

"Ghana Must Go": A jewel of literary achievement

I'm currently reading "Ghana Must Go" by the incomparable Taiye Selasi.

"He wants her to be satisfied." Selasi writes. " He wants this because she can be. She is a woman who can be satisfied.     She is like no woman he's known.

Or like no woman he's loved.
     He isn't sure he ever knew them, or could, that a man can know a woman in the end. So, the women he's loved. Who knew nothing of satisfaction. Who having forgotten what they wanted promptly wanted more. Not greedy. Never greedy. He'd never call his mother greedy, neither Fola nor his daughters (at least not Taiwo, at least not then). They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all.
     They were dreamer-women
     Very dangerous women.
     Who looked at the world through their wide dreamer-eyes and saw it not as it was, 'brutal, senseless,' etc., but worse, as it might be or might yet become."

This short passage makes me wonder about what it means to find happiness with someone in a relationship when you are a dreamer. How do you take care of  someone who isn't a dreamer? Do you fight with them to become better than they are? Is that worth all that energy? What if they are happy being with who they are and where they are in their life? Will you only ever be happy with another dreamer? Even then, dreaming with someone else can be exhausting!

Before my current relationship, I was single for the longest time (six or seven years) and was never with anyone for more than a week or so. I always accredited it to my knowing exactly what I wanted in a partner (or more accurately, what I did not want) and all potential partners just not making the cut.

After reading this passage in Selasi's book, I identify a little with what she says.

I self-identify as a dreamer, as defined above: I see the world as it should be and work very hard in an effort to make this vision a reality. I stand so firm in my belief of how things should be that I tend to be too hasty in my dismissal of people who disagree. In the past this has included friends, mentors, family members and potential partners.