Happy Mamas Day

In honor of Mothers Day, and particularly the wonderful lady who made it possible for all y'all to have the pleasure of my company, I thought I'd put something up here. Way back in 2008, I wrote an essay about something that has been a constant source of humor, frustration, and bonding between me and my mom: my hair. Y'all enjoy.

Love you, Mom!

That Good Hair

I just read a blog/article on The Root (a sort of Pan-African web community) about a biracial girl, her relationship with her white mother, who had no idea what to do with her hair, and politics.

It made me think. And it made me feel.

Being multiracial, many of your relationships with the rest of the world revolve around that quirky bush that crowns your head for most of your life. The author described a childhood memory of running through the house every morning, trying to escape her Irish mother and the "Green Monster"--the hairbrush.

I have similar memories of squirming, squealing and outright outpourings of tears as my mom laboriously worked a brush through my misunderstood frizz, and I'm sure my sister sympathizes. Most of the photos of little me, up until almost the millennium, involve some kind of poof, tangle, or fuzz on my tiny head. I remember one of my brother's friends affectionately calling me "Bushweed" all through the sixth grade. I remember the horrors that ensued when my crazy white grandma would take us to the beach for a week, letting the salt and sun tie my, and my sister's, hair into impossible knots because she "liked the way it looked when it got all wild like that." And then, of course, my mother would throw a complete fit because she would have to undo the damage.

My hair has a unique texture. My mother's hair is thick--each individual strand is thick in and of itself, and there are an awful lot of them as well--and coarse, and bright red. It's actually a lot like "Black people hair," even though she's white on the outside. My dad's hair is mostly not there these days, but the old pictures of him and his high-top fade attest to the fact that it is Black People Hair for sure. I haven't met any of our Native American relatives with hair, as my great-granddad didn't have any by the time I met him, but I can only assume it's probably dark and silky. Somewhere in all that you get me.

My hair is what my melanin-blessed folk call "That Good Hair." It's thick but soft and springy, with a smoothness and strength to it. Some of my melanin-challenged folk still think of it as coarse, but they're used to that fine, swooning silk they've got atop their own domes.

My hair and I have had a difficult relationship; it's been like a forced marriage between two people who don't speak the same language. We've communicated poorly, and it's been a long process learning to do it better. Sometime in high school I discovered short hair, which worked immensely well--it gave my curls a chance to shine, without all the dry length and damage to frizz it out. And in college I discovered Black People Hair Products, with which I have attacked and made sticky several of my melanin-challenged brethren.

Black People Hair Products tend to come in but a handful of categories: Greasy, Sticky, Caustic, Jiggly, and Candy Shell. They are EXTREMELY STRONG, whatever form they take. But that's what it takes. Styling white people hair is like folding satin napkins: you have to be careful and gentle with it. Styling Black people hair is like carving a hardwood table: you gotta use some elbow grease. Black people hair is also typically dry as hell. I know from anecdotal evidence and visual confirmation that white people hair tends to get quite oily and stringy-looking if they don't wash it every coupla days. Black people hair doesn't tend to come with its own oil, so it has to be purchased separately.

But with the magic of relaxers, non-pH-balanced shampoo, heavy conditioners, oils aplenty, heat, and satin wraps, I have managed to cultivate the delectable locks you have seen pictured.

Many people may ask, "Why? WHY?! You had such interesting, ethnic hair! The curls, the CURLS!!!" Many people have indeed asked that, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Relax. I can have the curls any time. I do in fact enjoy them a great deal (as evidenced by the college years when I was rockin' the Blaxploitation 'fro). But hot damn have I been waiting all my life to be able to toss my head and have my hair COME BACK DOWN for a change. To have the wind actually pick up the strands of my hair and tug at them, rather than just bouncing off and going "What the fuck did I just hit?" To not have a perpetual up-do. It's just about options, yo.

And all of this makes me think, makes me wonder. Sure, my mom knew more than the average cracka about Black hair. But I wonder what it's been like for her to have a child who looks so much like her...and yet so not. Seeing us apart, people would probably never guess we're even related. But put us next to each other and watch us smile, and it's like "You mean I can get that in Ivory AND Khaki?" I wonder how my mom feels about the fact that I have, by default, been identified more with my dad's people? About the fact that, much like a certain Magic Mulatto in the not-so-White House, people don't always count her in my genetic makeup.

I think she probably feels a lot like many other parents of multiracial children feel: she loves me, and she's proud of me and the fact that my skin is a different color than hers doesn't matter a bit. I'm her little girl, regardless of how old I get, or how poofy my hair is.