Not having long hair
Uploaded by mrscutiepie on Nov 28, 2007
For years, my hair has been chemically processed. Growing up it was like a sin to see “nappy” hair and completely unheard of. On the streets and television there were plenty images of women with perms and different hair colors. Therefore, in my mind afros and locks only existed back in the day. My mother is very light-skinned and people use to ask if I were adopted or mixed. Though my skin isn’t very dark or light people, (kids) would ask if I were and I would get offended, because I didn’t understand what they meant. As a child, my mother’s hair was very long and wavy only one of her siblings shared the same characteristics. She told me that my grandmother use to tell her not to stay outside too long, because she would get too dark. I believe that is the reason she felt she had to stand out. Through out all of her high school years she wore a huge afro.
My mother use to tease me about not having any hair when I was born. She said that in order to get it to grow she put it into little plats all over my head. When it started to grow my hair resembled a huge black bush. I grew tired of it being all over the place and her hurting my tender head when she brushed or combed it. When it came time for elementary school, she took me to the beauty shop for the first time. The place smelled like an unsafe potion and I was afraid that my hair would fall out as if it did when I caught chicken pox and smelled like Blue Star Ointment for a whole month. My beautician was a man with wavy hair on the top and faded sides. That was new to me, because the only men I had seen with hair like that were light-skinned and he was very dark. Not only did his hair confuse me, but also so did his many gestures and speech. I felt uncomfortable around him, but I loved the way his hair looked.
He sat me down in a chair and asked what I wanted him to do for me. Little ole young and naïve me wanted to have hair like his. My mother smiled and asked if I was sure, because unlike me she understood what would be done. I nodded...