We have no way of knowing what might have happened in the continent had millions of the most active and able not been shipped away, if traditional family and kinship structures had not been decimated, and the people hadn’t been uprooted from land that had for centuries provided for their needs. We do not know what might have developed if foreigners had not imposed a world of taxes and artificial wants, producing a new reality where scarcity replaced abundance. What might that land look like without the imposition of a system where working became necessary for survival but where there would never be enough work to meet the population’s needs? Sadly, we do not know what “Nigeria”—Flora Shaw’s invention—might now look like, if it had never been thus named, or what might exist if the British hadn’t quashed spiritual practices that were far more flexible, fluid, and humanitarian than the didactic forms of Christianity that have since taken root. (Wakanda perhaps?)
In the cult classic text The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney remind us that there remains a huge debt to be paid. I am an advocate for reparations. While there is little that can compensate for the seismic cultural, economic, and spiritual loss created by the transatlantic slave trade and subsequent events, reparations are necessary in going some way toward restoring balance. However, reparations should not be an endpoint, and as such I am fascinated by Moten and Harney’s case for refusal, a refusal of the very values of the system we have had imposed upon us. I’m excited by the idea that real power lies not in asking, or even in demanding, but in refusing: “Refuse that which was first refused to us, and in this refusal, reshape desire, reorient hope, reimagine possibility, and do so separate from the fantasies nestled into rights and responsibilities.”45
This first refusal, followed by a recalibration, is work that needs to be done urgently. We need to reimagine the way we think about progress, about modernity, about success, about development, about “civilization.” We need to think about the way we frame demands for inclusion and representation and seriously rethink the way we attribute—or more often do not attribute—value to indigenous knowledge systems. And, yes, we need to reject many of the beauty standards we subscribe to, those that privilege lighter skin, thinner noses, or “good hair.”
One of the easiest ways to demonstrate our nascent freedom is to wear our natural hair not only in homage to what it announces externally, but moreover to wear it in recognition of the more internal work, demonstrating our engagement with the history and the knowledge encoded and transmitted via braided hairstyles.
These hairstyles emerged out of a cultural and material world in which black people were central, a world that was open and accommodating of difference, a courtesy that has rarely been afforded back. Our unique hair texture allows us to be the living embodiments of a complex visual language, the scope of its concerns social, technological, philosophical, and spiritual—a visual language that was designed to be transmitted by our features. That integration of the metaphysical and the physical is the reason why, when we wear these styles, it is with a finesse that Kim, Kylie, Iggy, Becky, and company can only dream of, try as they might to claim it as their own, try as they might.
3
Shhhh . . . Just Relax
Beauty shops
could have been
a hell-of-a-place
to ferment
a . . . . . . . . . revolution.1
Not so long ago I was on my way to the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. When I emerged from the Underground, somebody tapped on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a black woman in her early forties wearing a platinum-blond wig.
“Your hair is beautiful, natural—it’s good to see.”
My heart sings. I am still overjoyed by such encounters. I will always rejoice in the camaraderie of black people celebrating one another. Especially when it’s in mutual appreciation of features we’ve been conditioned to detest. The fact that these exchanges happen regularly—with both men and women—feels like something of an antidote to the negativity that characterized my childhood experiences of my hair.
This positivity couldn’t be further from the culture I grew up in, where my hair was an object of ridicule. Oh, how I longed for straight hair! Yet while I remember these feelings intellectually, the feeling of those feelings fades with each passing year.
The society I come from is one in which speaking positively about oneself was not done. Now, I’m all about self-deprecation. I’ve spent far too long in Ireland and the UK not to be. And in our current climate of rampant narcissism, there is much to be said for keeping those tendencies in check. Yet this was an environment where cultural norms violently suppressed anyone having “notions” about themselves. But because it was also an environment characterized by a pervasive and constant refrain of black inferiority, there was little I could do to contest the negativity I was bombarded with. Navigating the tension between the two and developing a healthy sense of self-worth seemed impossible. While my mother was not one to offer much praise (to my face—wouldn’t want anyone getting notions), she did drill it into me to walk straight with my shoulders back. As a result, I had really great posture when I was younger. Apparently, even this was a problem: Who does that young wan think she is? Does she think she’s better than us? Eventually, my shoulders slumped accordingly.
These days, however, I’m struck by the distance between that attitude and the imperatives in black popular culture with their emphasis on and encouragement of being a “queen,” where regal bearing is recognized and applauded, where your glow is not seen as threatening; on the contrary, it enhances the shine of your whole squad.
We can see the antecedents of this in Yoruba culture. When I hear a family’s oriki, they are singing of the greatness of a particular family but not necessarily to the detriment of any other family. Our greatness is not at the expense of yours.* It’s a phenomenon that can be observed in a mother’s traditional morning greeting to her child: the child has a short oriki of their lineage sung to them when they wake up. This serves two main purposes. Firstly, it grounds the child within a trajectory of the achievements of their forebears. Secondly, it gears them up for whatever tasks they have to accomplish in that day. To me, it seems the most beautiful and profound type of affirmation.
So, yeah, my hair look dope. I’ll keep going. It is big, thick, and abundant. It’s also keeping me warm on this bone-numbingly cold winter’s day and it smells like a dream. The scent of shea butter, incense, sage, and perfume linger; it’s like a magnet for good scents.
Gassed from the compliments to my hair, I reach the archives. Excitedly, I dig into the first box I have asked for and there it is, a headline from a 1990 edition of Afro Hair and Beauty.
WHO LETS YOU DOWN? YOU OR YOUR HAIR?
Anxiety grips me. All the self-loathing from my childhood is thrown into sharp relief. Afro hair may well still be stigmatized today, but I’m instantly reminded that a huge cultural shift has occurred since this article was written. What follows is a battleground of chemically ruined hair. It describes a world of shame and punitive measures, one I recognize only too well.
The disciplinary thread that often runs through black cultures can be at least partially located in black people historically having to prove not only their worth but their humanity. This attitude of “discipline and punish” went beyond hair care, regulating the entirety of my being. The condition of my hair then couldn’t be more different from that of the radiant crown that adorns my head now; the self-doubt that plagued me then couldn’t be further from the assuredness I now feel in being myself. But moments like these remind me that I am still vulnerable.