Issue №15: Hair
I don’t fly often. But when I do, I pride myself on my airport-security-line efficiency. I slip my laptop, shoes, and liquids into bins. I wait attentively for a TSA agent to wave me through the body scanner. And when I step out, I brace myself for a hair search, where an agent’s gloved hands pat the top and sides of my head, wriggle my ponytail, and feel under whichever style I happened to choose that day. Then I go on my way.
This spring was the first time I learned that this hair search was disproportionately practiced on black women, and that it continued despite a formal complaint levied against the TSA by the ACLU. That complaint resulted in a 2015 agreement to “conduct trainings” on the practice of singling out of black women in airport security lines. Distraught by this revelation, I polled my straight-haired, non-black friends to see if they’d ever experienced this hair search. The answer was a unanimous “No.”
It’s hard to describe the shame I felt in that moment. In an effort to comply with the TSA agents, to get some sort of airport-security gold star, I never stopped to wonder whether it was a well-meaning public servant or the bureaucratic hands of white supremacy groping my head. While the public discrimination was humiliating in itself, the idea that I unwittingly participated in my own racial subjugation was so much worse.
There’s something about black women’s hair in particular that wrenches racial injustice from the abstract to the physical world. Sure, racism is omnipresent, but it doesn’t usually reach out and touch you. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized these searches are just an extension of the hair-centric oppression black women regularly endure.
There’s something about black women’s hair that wrenches racial injustice from the abstract to the physical world. Sure, racism is omnipresent, but it doesn’t usually reach out and touch you.
That oppression was why I stood in the shower, pulling clumps of hair from my burning scalp, when chemical straightening product was left in my hair too long. I was 13 or 14 years old, and I sprinted downstairs to my mother with a bundle of my own hair in my hand. She shoved my head under the kitchen sink, where she rinsed the relaxer out — but not in time to save much of my damaged hair. She held me and sobbed, saying “I’m sorry” over and over. When I began to cry as well, she pulled herself together and went on to dry and cut my hair, salvaging whatever length of my now stick-straight hair she could. I’m not sure it ever recovered.
This is what western beauty standards do to women of color: The more we assimilate to white culture and bow to those standards, the more we feel like strangers in our own bodies. Betrayed by it, even. Every hairstyle and makeup trick is obliquely meant to suppress whatever physical markers of otherness we possess. Even as the natural hair movement takes hold in black communities and beyond, traditionally black hairstyles are still derided, exoticized, and appropriated. Of course, this is the tightrope people of color and women must walk in order to survive — smiling and nodding as we navigate the social and institutional structures that were never built to include us.
The oscillation between tentative acceptance and outright contempt for black women’s hair is most evident in the workplace. Particularly when those workplaces are mostly white (i.e. everywhere I’ve worked), any hairstyle change makes black women a target for gawking, questioning, and touching. It’s hard enough being one of just a few black women in the office without Susan from accounting reaching for your braids while you fill a cup of coffee, or telling the seventh person in two hours that yes, they’re extensions, and yes, it took a long time. That said, there are fates much worse than feeling like a walking petting zoo or Wikipedia article at work. For some black women, wearing their in natural or traditionally black styles can cost them their jobs.
It’s hard enough being one of just a few black women in the office without Susan from accounting reaching for your braids while you fill a cup of coffee, or telling the seventh person in two hours that yes, they’re extensions, and yes, it took a long time.
Even in diverse, liberal environments, the acceptance and understanding of black hair is finite. I feel the outer limits of that tolerance when, for instance, a friend suggests I get my hair braided for her wedding (despite the fact I’d already spent hundreds of dollars on travel and bridesmaid responsibilities, and that braids would add another $200 to my expenses). I sense the disappointment when I show up to work after taking my braids out and someone asks me why I did (uh, because I can’t have them in forever??), or when they tell me point blank that they like my hair better in braids.
You know what? I like my hair in braids better, too. I like it better because I’ve been conditioned to believe I am more beautiful — more worthy — when my hair is long and straight. I grew up believing that my natural hair is something to be contained or confined or fetishized or worn as a costume — or searched by airport security. That it’s better scorched-straight than it is curly.
I sometimes wonder if I’d have a better relationship with my hair if I’d grown up in Brooklyn or somewhere else where there were more people who looked like me. Part of me thinks I absolutely would; I’d be more adventurous with the styles I tried, and I would feel more attractive when I wore my hair curly. But no matter where you are, there’s no escaping Eurocentric beauty standards — even within the black community.
Since I moved to New York City, though, I’ve begun to embrace my hair. I’m often surrounded by more black women in a single subway car than I ever was in my hometown; I can walk to several black hair salons in a matter of minutes, including the one I go to for braids. The guys who run the beauty shop around the corner have taught me more about hair care than any white hairdresser ever has, though they’ve sure tried. And for the first time in my life, I can appreciate how normal my hair is — with or without a movement to back it up.
This week, we’re featuring women whose work normalizes black women’s hair — and helps us learn to love it, too.
- Ari, a black woman who’s still learning to love (and do) her hair
ANTONIA OPIAH
You can touch Antonia Opiah’s hair. Just kidding — you shouldn’t — but for a 2013 public art exhibit, she invited passersby in Union Square to do just that. The event inspired conversation about the “unsolicited fascination” black women often endure when it comes to their hair, and she later published this film documenting the exhibit. Antonia has since founded Un-ruly, a website dedicated to black women’s lifestyles and hairstyles. The Un-ruly team also produces fantastic videos that feature discussions among black women about their relationships and experiences with their hair.
MICHELLE LEE
As Allure’s editor in chief, Michelle Lee is proof that publishing culturally-diverse content begins with diverse editorial leadership. In her first two years at Allure — about 1/53rd of the time it took Vogue to hire a black photographer for its cover shoot — Lee featured a hijabi model on the cover, dedicated an entire issue to diversity in beauty, and banned the term “anti-aging” from the magazine. But Lee first caught my attention earlier this year when she moderated a discussion with black and brown actresses and models about the way the world sees their hair. It was the first time I’d seen such a candid, vulnerable discussion among women of color — let alone beautiful, famous WOC — about something I thought only I felt. The conversation didn’t stop there: Just this week, Allure published a photo essay featuring five black women and a black man discussing the myth of “good hair.”
BRIELLE
Brielle is a Queens-based cosmetologist who works with a range of hair textures. Her clientele includes celebrities like Jill Scott and Lorde, and she’s styled for some big-name fashion shows and on shoots for brands like Target and Spotify. That’s all impressive, but what makes Brielle stand out is her dedication to hair education in her community. She’s hosted workshops throughout New York City — and one in Port-au-Prince, Haiti last spring — to teach black women and girls how to care for and appreciate their hair. As of this posting, I’m still trying to get on Brielle’s books for some blonde box braids and much-needed hair education.
Token is a project by Ari Curtis and Natalie Chang that celebrates the work and worth of women of color. Subscribe here to get the latest issues in your inbox.
