Why Do You Care so Much About My Hair?

Jun 15

Jun 15 Why Do You Care so Much About My Hair?

I have a confession that is truly not much of a confession if you interact with me. I do not give a damn about my hair. Growing up I never saw the big deal about hair but as I have gotten older I have realized hair is an immutable bedrock of black culture.

Although I was raised in a majority-black city, went to a predominantly - damn near 100% - black high school, it was not until I got to Fort Valley that I really understood the magnitude of black hair. I had to go back, fix my Lemonade(stares at Becky with the good hair) and educate myself on the history of black hair. I am a history buff so learning about early African civilizations’ usage of black hair(twists, dreadlocks, braids, etc) to determine a person’s tribe and socioeconomic status was enlightening. As it relates to modern times, I knew about the transatlantic slave trade’s role in the perception of black hair. African beauty standards were compared to European beauty standards and we all know which standard would be considered desirable. I underestimated the lasting role this has played in our society, thanks eugenics!

For the first 18 years of my life, I always had short hair because I was always sent to the barbershop bi-weekly. However, once I got to college it became a once or twice a semester ordeal since I was in charge of getting my hair cut and each hair cut was almost always to appease someone asking me to cut my hair. My hair does not grow terribly fast so it has always stayed relatively low nonetheless. That has changed since I started working full-time and the subsequent pandemic, when I moved to Austin I refused to pay more than $20 for a haircut. It took me a month but I found Kut Klose Barbershop and got my haircut in March just to assess the quality of the barbershop just in case I needed one. Shortly thereafter we started working remotely and I never went back and got my hair cut, it has been 15 months since then.

Black hair and discrimination is a very real civil rights issue and I know many times people are asking me to cut or groom my hair because ultimately they want the best for me. However, I am here to tell you I will be fine and I will live with any of the consequences that arise due to me not grooming my hair in conformity with some arbitrary standard. Fortunately, there is no correlation between hair and anything else meaningful about you. For example, your intelligence, hygiene, net worth, etc are not correlated to the maintenance of your hair to some arbitrary standard. Also, even if there was a correlation, correlation does not necessarily equal causation but that is a totally different rabbit hole we could traverse :).

Here’s an example of me at the same conference in two successive years, in the same outfit. One year I had to be a student speaker, and another I did not. I am sure you can tell which is which, but what you cannot tell is which year I got more job offers ;).

Uncut Hair TMCF 2018

Cut Hair TMCF 2019

While I acknowledge some people have my best interest at heart, I also must acknowledge some people’s criticism of my hair is based on their own discriminatory biases. These populations are not necessarily mutually exclusive either. I never realized how much hair plays a factor in people’s perception of others and people’s preferences in dating until I started paying closer attention to my interactions with others. If it is well-known that people discriminate based on hair in other areas(employment for example), it is logical that these biases are probably not limited to those areas. Making a determination about how a person is feeling based on their hair is silly, similarly, I believe that placing significant weight on someone’s hair in dating preferences is weird, and discriminatory. Real examples I have witnessed in conversation: “She did not do her hair so she must be having a bad day.”, “I only date women with natural hair.”, “I don’t like women who wear weave.” I remember my ex-girlfriend saying that her previous boyfriends(sans me since I am now in that category) would have a preference on how her hair was styled and she would at times acquiesce to their preferences. In my eyes, that was a level of control that those who are pro-life aspire to have on women’s bodies. I did not go down that rabbit hole and I actually regret not going down it.

To be clear, I am not saying hair has no value, I actually believe that hair is a great medium for the expression of self. Hair has as much value as you place on it, which means that it is 100% subjective. If wearing your hair makes you feel good, by all means, you should rock it. The only determination as to what an acceptable hairstyle is should be decided by the person whose hair it is, they are not decisions for outsiders to make. This is a key reason why hair discrimination should be illegal federally, it is a civil rights issue. Truly at the heart of my argument, I am stating that just because someone’s hair is not expressed to a standard you delineate as acceptable does not mean that hair is not acceptable. The same line of thinking was utilized by those who dehumanized slaves for their hair. These standards are in place because we continue to self-subscribe to these arbitrary standards of beauty. So as you judge other people for their hair choices, I implore you to check yourself and your biases.

All in all, undoubtedly there are many decisions that likely go through your mind as you decide to style your hair. Those decisions are your personal choice. Your personal choices should not be used to deliver unwarranted judgments and assumptions about other people’s personal choices. We are no better than one another and everyone has a different vision for their life. Their hair is not an accurate indicator nor a predictor of their life choices and trajectory. Unfortunately, hair discrimination is real and forces people to make decisions and judgments that contribute to our culture of adhering to arbitrary beauty standards. While the fight for this discrimination to be abolished will have to go through federal law, I am optimistic that one day we will live out the true meaning of our creed. For now, we can stop self-subscribing to what acceptable hairstyles are based on our own biases and delivering subsequent judgments based on those biases. Next time you look at my hair, I hope you see your own bias and unwarranted assumptions.