All blackgirls have a hairstory. I have always had a love-hate relationship with my hair. When I was little my mama called me tender headed when I shrieked at the harsh brush bristles pushing my hair and scalp together until it laid all the way down, or enough to keep the inevitable frizz at bay. […]
Tag: hair
Claressa Explains It All
I’ve always been ambivalent and maybe even a little skittish about sports. They seem violent and remind me of The Hunger Games, particularly with the amount of POC presence and the injuries athletes incur. I wasn’t invested in the Olympics until my tumblr friends started pointing out the racism, sexism and nationalism in NBC’s coverage […]
take a load off family: black women, hair and the olympic stage
I am no athlete. I have not won an individual sports competition since maybe the second grade. I recall Usaining all comers in the 40-yard dash but, as Kasi Lemmons learned us, “memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others indelibly imprinted on the brain” and I might have photoshopped that one. My middle […]
Beauty Parlor Politics
The first time I “got my hair done” beyond school nights sitting between my mother’s cocoa butter legs while she combed through my hair with grease soaked fingertips, or Saturday morning hot comb rituals in front of the stove, was in the house kitchen of a church lady who did hair on the side. She […]
‘Dos and Don’ts
The summer of 2000 I went to my hairdresser and said, “I want you to cut all of this off,” pointing emphatically to my badly-damaged permed hair. She asked me if I was sure and I told her I was–and off went four or five inches of angst onto her linoleum floor. What was left […]