With Hair People Want to Touch All the Time

[jlh]

This Is Dedicated to That One Black Kid, comic by Keith Knight
Monday: who lives in that tiny ass town off the highway, in the middle of nowhere
Tuesday: who was not into hip hop in high school
Wednesday: who gets used as the reason why someone isn't a racistShort answer: Don't ask people you don't know well if you can touch their hair. It's

Comments

[ecwoodburn]

Oh, the hair thing. As someone with natural corkscrews that my mother never quite knew what to do with? This one I can get. And having gotten into the "Curly Girl" thing a few years ago, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say my hair has more in common with black hair than with white straight hair. And yes, we have our own product lines, too -- but most of them seem to be about controlling frizziness, or "letting" us have beautiful straight hair. Except I can tell you from experience, anything that involves fussing at my hair too much? Will just add to the frizz, not control it, not unless I go for the helmet-head look with tons of product.

There are the keeping the curls v. blowing/ironing/chemical straightening debates, shampoo v. no-poo, no product v. various types of products. Luckily, though, there are also plenty who realize that even among curlies there are so many variations that different things work for different people. Which is pretty much the only thing we want from hairdressers, too -- to get them to stop treating our hair like wayward straight hair and realize curly hair needs different treatment.

And yes, I get highly annoyed by people who think I'm "lucky" to have curly hair. s:) I've gotten better at accepting my hair as-is, but there are still days I look around on the Metro, and think "If only I could have your hair, just for one day..." Human nature, I guess.

[jlh]

Still, your and my hair, and the curly hair of other Mediterranean-heritage friends of mine, is very different from the wiry hair of most black folks. I don't know when mine stopped being very afro-like, but it will fall into a curl, while a lot of black women simply do not have that option at all, which is why they're envious of my hair-because it IS closer to that white beauty ideal than theirs is.

That said, it's definitely true that the less I fight my hair, the better it looks.