I am (not) my hair?

When I started with this column last year; I broadcast a message on twitter asking my network what they thought I should publicly opine about; what would be interesting and engaging to them and fellow Swazis of our time. 

One of the first suggestions was, “Write about hair”. At the time the public conversation about hair – specifically black women’s hair – was a topic as hot as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie before Jay and Bey came on the scene. 

I wasn’t part of this robust dialogue and had no interest in it. But judging from the level of interest from Swazis in recent events at Pretoria Girls High School, I figured it’s time I engaged.  

When it was suggested I write about hair,  legendary Jazz musician Hugh Masekela had been among the first in contemporary Southern Africa to directly address black women‘s hairstyle choices and what their choices said about their identity and self-love or lack thereof. 

It was in early 2015 when Masekela cut off an excited adoring student fan who’d snuck up to take a picture with the legend. 

Bra Hugh was having none of it because her head was decorated in a lustrous weave. Since that first encounter with the Rhodes University student, the iconic musician made it a point to speak out against black women wearing weavesand other types of artificial hair extensions. 

Bra Hugh was as loud as his trumpet; “I will not talk or take pictures with them because they do not look like African culture and heritage”.

Pretoria Girls High School pupils in protest over remarks and rules over their black hair.

The raging debate on Bra Hugh’s stance ranged from him being a typical patriarch – men telling women what to do, to him undermining democratic freedoms like choice, to women spending exorbitantly on something so unessential, and to a call-to-action; ‘black women of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your hair’… emotional and academic conversations that I honestly couldn’t relate to…still struggle to.

Growth

One of the first dramatic things I did immediately after completing high school was shave my hair. When it grew back I twisted it into locks that would grow to attract comments like “Soli Rasta?!” (You’re Rasta now?!) Or “Hey Sistren!” (Hi My Sister) from the Rastas; and from the Christians; “Nawe sowenta lobusathane betangoma” (You’re into the evil Sangoma thing too?!).

When ID cards were first introduced in Swaziland I was working as a Swazi TV News reporter. I found myself narrating the accounts of a few people who’d been turned away by Home Affairs officials who refused to take pictures of people in those dreaded locks. 

These people didn’t question the officials, they simply did as they were told - removed their locks. This story appealed to me because I still had my locks and couldn’t imagine ever removing them against my desires.

The unsolicited commentaries and other people’s trajectories with authority brought back the mother’s famous probing words directed to me when I twisted my first lock; “Manje wentela kutsini?” (Why do you choose to do this hairstyle?).  This is always my mother’s question when she respects one’s choice but doesn’t understand it and seeks to understand.

Hair speaks to ancestors

The truth is my growing crown had nothing to do with my reluctance to enter the ever-green, honeymilk-coated Promised Land that is the yard of the imposed bestie Jesus. 

Neither did it have to do with my love for ragga or dagga, nor my inescapable Sangoma heritage or my dislike for weaves. 

I grew locks simply because I could no longer bear to deal with a sensitive scalp that reacted to the chemical relaxer I’d been using in the last two years of my high schooling. I also didn’t want to be spending hours and hours at a hair salon pulling my scalp from all ends just to have a flawless hairpiece attached to my hair – I was never that patient as a teenager.

My only gripe with the Brazilian, Mexican or whatever weaves is that each head piece costs an arm and a leg plus some dialysis and a seven nights flights and accommodation inclusive recovery holiday package to Zanzibar island. That just doesn’t make any kind of sense to me.

I’m just a woman who likes to wear her hair loud, bold and proud like it speaks directly to ancestors. This can come in any color shape or form; I don’t care; as long as it reveals a part of my thrifty personality. 

If that revelation of my personality further exposes my heritage then good but I am NOT my hair like that i.e. blackness, Africaness or ruralness even. But, I AM also my hair like that because it is my crown and as mentioned, an extension of my carefree, self-loving and childlike spirit; my hair speaks therefore I am.

So what’s my point? My point is I was still disinterested in (black) hair politics throughout the Pretoria Girls High debacle. It did however reinforce what I have always thought and believed about hair; that much like politics, it’s personal and informed by early socialization. 

Therefore, the argument about relating all black hair and all black errthang to black history, identity and heritage is not applicable to all simply because we are of the same black skin color.

Thanks to my mother though, I am able to understand others through her three-word question and that understanding does not mean agreement but can mean respect and tolerance for the struggles of others that I will never understand simply because of predisposed prejudice or ignorance and experience of race and culture issues in early life and importantly, that one must always understand the choices they make; what informs them and to what end.

Related reading; Dear  racist John Robbie