Sometimes when I read my writing, immediately after I’m done or years later, I cringe; perhaps the style, the form or limited eloquence I perceive in my lyrical offerings put me off. Yet, I often find that the message, although structurally dilapidated, remains solid. And I am more in love with myself, not my ability to write, but the consistence of my thoughts and my capacity to continue to stand for the things I deeply believe in despite peripheral changes and development in my style and sound. That’s how I feel about hair.

I wrote the article below years ago, when I still lived in California and the Natural v. Relaxed black hair debate was raging, fired by India Arie’s, ‘I Am Not My Hair’. A discussion with a natural-haired friend brought this debate, and article, to mind. I still believe that the allegation that there is a link between self-love and choosing to change the natural texture of your hair as a black woman, is an urban legend. I think in 50 years, the colour of toenails may be the political fashion statement that natural hair is today, and in that context, by exalting black hair to more than JUST HAIR we empower the racists of history that stupidly used hair to determine the utility, beauty and character of a person.

“If you have ever had a weave tightly knit to your skull by way of hair thread and a piercing needle, you would know that the experience of robbing a goat, sheep, horse, or Indian man of his luscious locks, attaching these to your own (probably thinning) mane for your enhanced self-beautification is a complex road to travel.

This process informally called ‘Weaving’ and fancily called ‘Artificial Hair Integration’ (I kid you not), is most practiced among the Fabulous and Indomitable Negroes of The World. In fact with regards to hair, the average black woman operates strictly on the ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent’ theory. Hence, she is immediately suspicious, to the point of paranoia, of any other black woman’s hair that is too thick, too full (especially at the nape and temple) AND too long. Where all three are present, the question “Er, excuse me….what weave is this?!?!” is inevitable. Lifelong friendships have been started over hair discussions like this. That’s why God gave us our coarse hair and the desire for finer hair… because He knew black women would rather pretend not to notice each other, even when seated alone in an empty room, than be friendly and make conversation with other pretty black women…or is that just Nigerian girls?! I digress.

I want to make like self-righteous ‘PETA’, ‘Happy Nappy’, ‘Negroes Keeping It Real’ and other such ‘Black and Proud’ groups and say that the act of enjoying life with an extension-filled head of Chantal Biya proportions…leaving balding and shivering horses or humans in your wake…is a terrible side-effect of the global media and its unattainable and Europeanised standards of beauty and should be condemned post haste.

THEN I remember moments when I have strutted down streets, arms a-swinging, hips a-swaying, men a-whistling, confidence a-emanating (words a-creating)….with artificially integrated hair billowing in the wind as I generated my own breeze and my fabulosity level increases exponentially….and alas, I find that I can not condemn The Weave. The Weave, European ideals of beauty be damned, is a wonderful, wonderful invention that I applaud with gusto. If several sheep have to be sheared for my sake well then so be it! Isaiah 66:1 says, “….the earth is God’s footstool and everything in it….”…..same Bible says “Don’t you know that you yourselves are gods?”1 Corinthians 3:16. Ergo, as a god, the earth-sheared sheep and balding horse included-are within my dominion-range, PETA be damned! *Worriedly looks over shoulder*

Today, my issue is not with the correctness of sistaHs straightening their tightly curled hair using lava-hot temperatures or metal-eroding chemicals to achieve an ideal of beauty. As a solid partaker of the Cream Crack alias No Lye Relaxer, I do not agree with the proponents of natural hair that we have been brainwashed from childhood by the media to believe that ‘Straight is Great’ anymore than I have been brainwashed, through watching Eurocentric Anglo-Saxons on my TV, to believe that White is Always Right. Then again if I had indeed been brainwashed of course I would say the same thing….so maybe I have been brainwashed and I don’t even know. Or care.

Catch 22 aside, the conspiracy theorist in me will admit that the programmes I watched growing up; the Disney Princesses, Jem and The Holograms, Sky Dancers and so on, all seemed to have been secret Protene Pro-V advertisements with their long, gleaming locks. And maybe the subconscious message was indeed indoctrinated into our innocent and rather vacuous minds that straight (AND loooong, I’m an unashamed 18inches Premium Human Hair addict baybay!!!) is the ideal of beauty. But if it indeed was, why are we not also strolling about with the bright pink/neon green/pale orange bushy 80’s hair of many a Hannah Barbera heroine too?

Somehow, along the line, as is always the case whenever a group voluntarily and often unnecessarily decide to take on an imagined slight on behalf of a whole race/minority/ethnic group/country/tribe/hut/anthill, too many people bandwagon the original cause, the cause becomes diluted, confused or honestly, simply deviates from its original path and like a stone-free Hansel and Gretel leads followers away from Grandmamas cottage to the Witch’s Guesthouse.

So it is with the weave debate. A group of happy nappys decided that all those who dared to change their God-given locks by covering, straightening, gel-ing, hot-combing, burning straight via relaxer, or exchanging their natural locks for sure-as-hell-doesnt-look-like-it-grew-from-your-scalp-lace fronts are in some way terrible people who are deeply ashamed of their race add heritage and want to be white by conforming to someone else’s standards of beauty. *Shrugs* It’s not that serious. Brainwashed or not, if my hair refuses to graze the small of my back despite my determined efforts, best believe I will rob many a sheep, goat OR she-goat to get the look I want. To define a full, rounded, 3D human being only by their hair is The Daftness and that is the kind of brainwashing that we, as a world, should be more afraid of.

Now, as a faithful weave fiend, I have to say that one thing that causes me pause in the Hamletesque ‘To Weave or Not To Weave’ debate, and indeed one thing I think the black race should focus on and find an answer to in lieu of arguing about skin complexions and hair is; HOW THE HELL DOES ONE GET AIR INTO THE SCALP WHEN ONE HAS A WEAVE?!?! I beg you I need an answer because I have seen grown women almost give themselves a concussion from knocking their heads with palms splayed wide in the name of fixing an itch in their now untouchable skulls. I have also witnessed incredibly intelligent women come frighteningly close to scalping themselves as they try to maneuver a tiny but incredibly sharp object through the crevices of their weave, between and betwixt the fields of neatly corn-rowed hair to itchy scalps. Hell, I have BEEN those women!

As a race, in fact forget that, as a world we need to come up with the answer to this perplexing conundrum before black women become extinct from concussions and scalping. An alternative is of course to bring back the 70’s; spandex, neon and unpicked afros. “Oh Miss Wintour…..””