Stop Staring. My Eyes Are Down Here
Maybe I hate myself. Maybe I really hate you. Maybe I use my hair to make up for my dress size and my flat feet. Maybe I do want to be white. There. You’ve figured it out. Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe I’m not as enlightened as I should be. Maybe my eloquence is misplaced. Maybe I’m one of those about whom Harriet Tubman spoke—one of those slaves who could have been freed had she known she were a slave.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. I haven’t worked out the kinks. And you don’t get to do that for me. But there is nothing more I would love to say to you right now than this: Get out of my hair.
I’m talking to some of you natural-haired wonders. Not all of you. Just the ones who feel the freedom that comes in wearing your hair the exact way it grows out of your head affords you the liberty to shame and cast judgments on me. Me. The weave wearer. The one with the standing relaxer-and-style appointment. The one who owns more wigs than socks. The one who straightens her hair with a flat iron, careful to keep its smoldering clamps from getting too close to my brown skin (which I love, by the way).
Most of you don’t care what I do. There are those who don’t think twice about it. There are those who respect my choice. They used to make the same choice I do. And maybe one day, again, they will. Maybe they have never made the choices I have made. I’m never made to feel lost, less enlightened, less sophisticated, less beautiful, or any less myself. I just am. Weave, wig, relaxer, hot comb, or not.
This is for those who regard me with pity, those who feel a responsibility to help me cross over, as if I endeavored to cross over in the first place. As if there’s some sort of self-love holy land to which the freedom of natural hair is the only ticket. It’s funny how, in said freedom, we resign ourselves to being divisive. How can we embrace shirking traditional standards of beauty, and yet oppress each other with our diagnostic judgments and unsolicited assessments of value and self-worth?
You don’t get to do that.
Now if I ask you how you did it, if I admire it, if I want you to guide me, do it with all the zeal of offering me a new dinner recipe. Do it as if you’re excited because it tastes great, but you couldn’t really care less what I’m eating tonight. Don’t get all enthusiastic about trying to fix me.
You don’t get to do that.
As much as I want to say it’s just hair, it’s not. It’s never been. It’s political around company. We ignore that it’s even more political among ourselves. That you think your hair elevates you says so. That I feel guilty for not partaking in the natural hair revolution says so. Perhaps this revolution all dressed in self-love needs to wear different, more inclusive clothes.
In loving yourself, I just ask that you let me be and love me anyway. So please, stop staring. My eyes are down here.
hehehehe!!!! cheii!
Weavees vs. Naturalees.
OOYA, I’ll be the referre
LEGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Team#natural!
@GeordieEnds
I agree. Even on the opposite end of that spectrum, it gets to be annoying to constantly have to discuss my decision to be natural with newcomers. It wasn’t a big deal when I first joined the ranks, it’s not a big deal years later. It’s just hair, not membership. I’m not all that impressed with “being able to walk in the rain without an umbrella.” I still hate getting wet for no reason. I always look forward to the day all that zeal dies down from newcomers so we can go back to the regular way we used to interact.
Im sorry for women who put this much energy into something that grows out of their heads. For me , hair is hair whether it is straight or curly. Maybe you are putting too much thought and energy into something that, in this day and age, wouldn’t be a political statement if people would stop trying to make it one.
Yes!!! Tell it! I have a head full of hair and it’s big ok. Anyway I had a coworker up at least one a week until last week that would come by and try to sneak up behind me and put her hands in my hair to see if it’s real and then would say I just love your hair. Well last week she came by and lifted it in the back and I said look I know what the h@l*you are doing…why don’t you just ask me? She stopped and has been telling everyone it’s weave. Well do whatever you need to do to make it ok in your head…just don’t touch me. Then at my son’s school this lady was like….is that all your hair not once but twice like I don’t know. I’m like who does this in front of a group of people! Furthermore black women can grow hair to their ankles with the proper care. Why is it SO STRANGE to see a sister with hair on her head? And I won’t even get into the lady at my daughters salon that tried to pull it out by the roots. I almost went to jail…..Do I really have to cut myself bald in order to make folks happy?!?
I’m natural, and I don’t have a problem with relaxer or weave wearers really. The problem I do have is with horrible weaves. It’s so sad. I see more girls with bad hair weaves than good ones. A lot of them look horrible. A lot of them look so obviously fake. When a woman has her hair done well, I could care less.
LMAO!! Exactly!
It just irks me to no avail (did I use that word correctly??) to see all of these black women thinking walking around with a matted weave that looks like a birds nest, a dirty weave that you haven’t bother to wash or maintain for months or a weave that is just obviously a weave because it is no where near your texture, rather than just wearing your own damn hair!!
Trust that I see plenty of women with weaves that look amazing and it makes me feel soo good to see these women, black women, just killing it in the streets. But I see A LOT more women with weaves just looking crazy. Especially since we are seen so much so as a monolith, you walking around looking a mess just confirms to everybody else that black women are so insecure and hate themselves sooo much that they would rather look a mess with someone else’s hair than their own. And that the rest of us are an anomaly.
But to sum it up, I am natural myself and I do everything to my hair, including putting in braids, twist and genie locs, so I would never judge anyone solely because they wear weave, do you, especially if it’s hot.
I apologize if this came off rant-like, I was on the train going to the boogie down earlier today and it was not a pretty sight, smh.