There’s Hair Racism, Too
I was a little girl in the era of blue-eyed blondes ruling the media. One of my pet peeves as a five-year-old was blue-eyed blondes. They were all over the media. I complained about this to my mother, who never forgot it. Even when I became an adult, my mother bought me dark-haired, dark-eyed dolls. At that point, they finally arrived.
But my critical eye noticed that in toy catalogs, dolls came in two colors: white and black. I was not a blue-eyed blonde, but if I wanted the doll, I’d choose the white one anyway. I guess I wasn’t any different than those babies in the experiment for doll preference. They chose the white one too.
And I wondered. Why weren’t there any Caucasian dolls that had dark hair and dark eyes? Or maybe dark hair and green eyes? The entire friggin’ world wasn’t blonde, although when I visited Minnesota as an adult, it sure seemed like it. There were three kinds of people in St. Paul. Blonde Caucasians, African-Americans, and Native Americans. Being surrounded by so much blondeness freaked me out. For the first time, I felt I understood what it was like being a black kid in an all-white school. Freaked out. And maybe a bit terrified.
So I put up with the blonde Barbies as a kid, and that one baby doll, Chrissy, I think her name was, who had hair that changed from long to short, via a cord in her back. She had red hair. I remember pulling on her auburn ponytail to make her hair long again.
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But color wasn’t the only thing — hair had to be straight. I stood out with my “bubble bob” as my mom called it. Dark brown, nearly black hair, curly like a grapevine. It was paired with skin that would tan if a camera flash went off. Cue the racist remarks. I was called the N-word. It only happened once, but the slur hurt. Technically, I was half Puerto Rican, but my haters weren’t interested in specifics. I had darker skin and curly black hair. Therefore, I was black, in their eyes. Or rather, that word.
My mother used to tell me men would run their fingers through my hair when I got older, as an attempt to make me feel better. It was a lie. No man ever ran his fingers through my hair.
I got my first hair straightener as an adult. I wish I hadn’t dropped it, because that was the best hair straightener ever. It was a Conair, with mirror plates two inches wide. The first time I used it, I had stick-straight hair. It. Was. Amazing. NOW, I could run my own fingers through my hair. I loved how the straightener did its magic. My hair looked longer than normal, because it wasn’t curling up like an old picture. Why my mother never suggested or offered to iron my hair with a regular iron baffles me. Maybe she envied my curls. Or maybe she hoped I’d grow to be proud of my hair.
Part of the problem was not finding the right product or cut for my hair. Occasionally, my dad would offer his hair oil, but I had significantly more hair than he did. Oil worked for him, but not for my mane.
Then, at an age when it didn’t matter anymore, I started getting compliments on my hair. I found a hairdresser who was a curly hair genius. The product was longer in coming, but I found what worked at a beauty wholesaler in Guangzhou, China. Turns out I’d used the product decades ago, but somehow forgot it existed (probably because some hairdresser convinced me to try their more expensive, but inferior product). I snapped up a bottle. Tried it out. And BOOM! It still worked. The curls were there but the frizz was gone. Ironically enough, the first time I’d purchased the product was in the African-American hair care section.
But the hair racism exists. I’ve never really seen it mentioned in the media, but it’s there. Remember The Princess Diaries? I love a good makeover scene, but I wince at this one. They insinuate that Mia Thermopolis, played by Anne Hathaway, is hideous because of her glasses and thick curly hair. They ditch the glasses, whip out the straightener, add a little makeup and eyebrow tweezing, and she’s now “hot enough.” I’m thankful they didn’t do a hair color change. But the message was clear. Glasses and curly hair are for losers.
Because of my living situation, I have cut my own hair for the past four years. I cut it just a week ago, and I looked in the mirror last night. My hair, accented with natural silver highlights, was full, curly and bouncy. I took a picture because it was so perfect-looking. At least in my eyes. It took decades, but I’m proud of my big, fat, curly hair, as socially unacceptable as it may be.
