OPINION: Hair is a currency – Eyewitness News

Hair is an international issue. We had an African American friend stay over at our home. He used to have his initials embroided on the collars of his shirts, wore top end suits and shiny cufflinks. I really thought he was fly and in charge. One night I saw that he also went to sleep with a “swirlkos”, a stretchy skull cap designed to make and keep your hair sleek while you sleep. That was an awakening for me, my opinion informed by my experiences that maybe he was not that sure of himself after all. Why would his need his hair to be unnatural?  These are internalised behaviours but they come from somewhere. That place is called not being good enough.

The vast majority of Africans have tight curly hair. That is 100% natural hair, it is authentic, it is sometimes fashionable and mostly not. The mostly has recently raised a “Why is that?” flag. I am an African, a third generation African; some of my elders were brought to St Helena Island from India as slaves, and then migrated to South Africa. Our hair texture is a mixed bag, mostly we have sleek, fine or wavy hair. At large in it is a menagerie in our community when someone is pregnant, a standing joke. How will the hair be and what about the nose!? We joke and tease about it now, but it is a reality. We have internalised that as we are we are not enough, we are not valued. Parents and communities disadvantage their children by ‘fixing” their hair from a young age. Some of the remedies are from another planet. Horse shampoo, the actual shampoo used on horses! Rinsing conditioner off with vinegar that is best placed on hot chips! Sleeping (or shopping) with big green curlers, better known as rollers where I am from! Not unheard of is sleeping with conditioner on your hair and wearing some cling wrap! My childhood friends would play with their mums’ stockings on their heads with stones as weights in each foot, so that they could sway their heads and have the “hair” move. Blow-drying and straightening hair to an inch of its life with extreme heat and expensive hair products to sleek out “problem hair”!

Who decided this was problem hair and why? We do need to ask around to understand. I feel most of it is shame based, imitating others we perceive as more successful or better than ourselves.

When people braid their hair, have extensions or sport their natural hair, it should be a choice not a compulsion to satisfy other peoples’ norms, win their affection or acceptance. Messages are being sent clearly to the children who do not listen to what we say all the time but they are always watching what we do.

Many Africans whose ancestors immigrated from abroad and have blonde, black, red or black straight hair and fair complexions probably don’t feel the wound of discrimination flicked in this hair debate. I suppose they may feel indignant that they can’t express themselves by having hairstyles of their choice at school. The legacy of straight hair and afro hair have the same roots, but the experiences are vastly differently. One is an issue of following the school rules about short back and sides or off your face, while the other still implies you’re not good enough – conform or take the consequence.

To expand thinking I turn to the colonisation of our continent. Jan van Riebeek, in 1652, is depicted with luscious locks. All photos of him show him proud, his trusses sprawling down either side of his pushed out chest. Is it not possible that among the other right and wrong, in and out identities which were then successfully imposed on the majority of people having hair like an African slave brought and spread shame?

Hair in the community I grew up in is still a big deal. I never did understand it because my genetic big, dark-circled eyes were my concern, never my hair. Friends and people admired and complimented my waist length hair. Eventually I did understand. When I was 12 a Dutch school friend asked me: ”Are you white or coloured?“. ”Urm … If it matters, we can’t be friends,” was my reply. “No, no, no, it’s just that coloured people have crinkly, short hair.”

I must confess relief that that was her assumption and at least I could hold onto my identity as a confident coloured girl, in a predominantly white environment AND my hair passed. With hindsight and awareness, I fully realise the irony in that feeling that I thought I was confident and yet I was relieved there was one less hoop for me to clear.

 When people made a big deal about hair, I could shrug my shoulders and roll my eyes. However, as I got older I saw what an impact it had on us when our friends had boyfriends with curly hair and their relatives and friends would joke about any future children’s hair. Some of my friends’ hated being out in the mist and rain because their hair would “mince”. I have a friend who bought a hair straightening contraption so that her hair doesn’t “go home” (another way to say “mince”). Both mean to avoid your straight hair frizzing, curling or crimping out of style when exposed to moisture.

Growing up on the Capeflats, names like “kroeskop”, “chara hare” and “afkop” were used to insult people. “Boere” was used for the fair of complexion friends with straight or blonde hair. “Kroeskop” used to degrade people with tight scalp hugging hair; “chara hare” was used to refer to someone who looked Indian and had sleek shiny black hair, that was a racist insult and backhanded combo, it is messed up! “Afkop” implied tight hair and stupid. We were socialised like this and for this – that straight hair was preferred and treated like a choice – my own community must take responsibility. It never was and is still not ac choice.

The insights I draw from having straight hair is that when I was young, while I could see what was happening, I didn’t relate to it and it never really impacted me, so I was “safe”. I liken my childlike position then to many South Africans today who can make a difference with their voices and their understanding about pre- and post-apartheid but don’t because they are “safe”. Some even judge and criticise when ordinary citizens speak up or protest about privilege, corruption, domestic violence, the high cost of tertiary education, racism, service delivery, evictions from areas where 99 year leases were sealed with a handshake and the cutting down of trees in a forest by way of examples.

I am at liberty to say that we all have a tipping point, something that makes us get up, put a stake in the ground and say enough! It is my firm belief that we don’t put ourselves in other people’s shoes and struggles enough. We stick with our opinions and judgements never stretching ourselves to be over there and see if there is real dissatisfaction, if something is bigger and deeper than it seems.

Schools have always had codes of conduct and policies on uniforms and behaviour and so on. I have always liked to ask the barber to give my sons a schoolboy cut. I find myself questioning how that looks. I find myself thinking, “It’s hair!” I find myself thinking about all the young people who just want to wear their hair naturally. Let them. If they can value who they are and have been given hair that grows up and not down, that’s how it is. If an authentic African identity has been shamed, downgraded, spurned and rejected through racism, prejudice and discrimination, is allowing hair to be hair not a place to start? Our aim being to treat people as equally, as we treat hair. At the moment people are not treated equally, let’s start where we are with the hair we have and move to our other differences and embrace them. All the puns are intended, the insights are here if you want to see them or question them. The irony is that a lot of people choose to not see them.

   
We have to dig deep to find our humanity, to practise empathy and understanding and definitely to reserve our right to judge without enough enquiry.  If we, as a country, can make a concerted effort to understand why hair is a currency, we will fight the good fights and win the battle to transformation. If these hair protests spread, it is my wish principals and school governing bodies alike will seek to understand rather than be understood. There are lessons to be learnt and taught, let us not lose this lesson. Let us get curious about “kroes”!

Lisa Joshua Sonn is a social activist. Follow her on Twitter: @annalisasonn

from Hairstylez http://cityhairstyle.xyz/opinion-hair-is-a-currency-eyewitness-news/