Dear White People: I am lit*er*al*ly NOT my CROWN.
Truth Serum Thursday #6
“You look like you need a buzz,” my Dad told me on Sunday.
I rubbed a hand over my head, then said, “Yeah, I do. After dinner this evening?”
“Sure.”
As I sat in my rolly chair with the cape draped me around me, I marveled once again at how my hair journey led to my Dad becoming my barber.
I had some pretty hair when I was younger.
My natural hair was thick and straight. My sister and I didn’t have time to be tender headed with the way my Mom wrestled our hair into submission. It goes without saying that our collection of hair accessories rivaled the hair section in a Sally’s Beauty Supply, and we more than likely had every damn color in the rainbow. But before my sister reached high school, she changed it up. They way she tells it, Mom got tired of doing her hair, so she was forced to do something different.
And because I wanted to be like my sister, I decided to change my hair, too.
To this day, it’s a decision I will live to regret.
Welcome to Lit*er*al*ly, Ororo, a weekly blog by me, Ororo Munroe. You are reading Truth Serum Thursdays, posts about deeper life shit that The Blunt Twin would share willy-nilly, but The Quiet Twin has doubts (shocker). No needles or toxic, mind-bending drugs were used to write these posts. Thanks for reading.
MY HAIR JOURNEY: HOW IT STARTED
That “something different” was a Jheri curl.
Ugh.
The dreaded Jheri curl.
I’m embarrassed to even write that. To be honest, it’s the most cringeworthy phase of my hair journey.
Because of the hair products.
Gah! The hair products were the worst. Since my hair didn’t naturally curl, it had to be forced trained to do so. Every two weeks, I was subjected to those rods that fastened at the end. Maybe you’re familiar with them?
And then, to keep up that tight curl, I had to use curl activator.
It was in a pink plastic bottle.
With a spray pump.
I grew to hate that shit because it got. Every. Where. Down my neck, on my clothes, on the car window if I leaned my head against it, on the car headrest…. God forbid I had to scratch my head because then that greasy shit would end up on my hands.
The Jheri curl stuck around until sometime during high school, I would discover my next hair phase: braids. I wish I had a picture because my initial foray into synthetic hair was the Cleopatra look.
Towards the end of high school, I was done with the curls and wanted to go back to the natural straight hair I’d had when I was younger, so I started getting relaxers. And that’s just what it sounds like: putting more chemicals in my hair to straighten the curls. Once again, I was retraining my hair.
MY HAIR JOURNEY: SO FAR
From 1989 to about 2016, the relaxer was my staple hairstyle, interspersed with braids for months at a time. Not gonna lie, I rocked that braid look. I’m 7 years older than Mr. Ex, but with braids I probably looked 7 years younger! LOL. I always received compliments from my white coworkers:
“I love your hair! How long did it take?”
4-8 hours, depending on who I went to.
“Wow. That’s a long time to be sitting.”
Indeed. But not for a bookworm.
“Can you shower with it?”
Yes.
“How long does it last?”
Three months. Sometimes longer if I go back for touchups (which I never did).
“Can I touch it?” asked in wonder. As if I’m a unicorn in a sea of donkeys. As if they’ve never seen a black person with braids before. Hell, for all I know, this is there first time working with a black person.
No, you can’t touch my hair. Do you see me reaching out to touch YOUR hair? No. Get the fuck out of here, you weirdo.
Mr. Ex lurved it when I got braids. He lurved to show me off, going out to dinner to hang with his coworkers. Also white. Also asking the same questions or additional questions like:
“Can you curl it?”
If it’s human hair, yes. Synthetic? No.
I tended to wear braids when I got tired of taking care of my own hair. I would get a 3-month reprieve from curling it, ponytailing it, or getting a relaxer. I’m convinced it even saved me a trip to urgent care. True story. One year for my birthday, I’d decided to get these twists (don’t remember the name). The hair was thicker than I was used to, and I walked around with a migraine for a week.
Until I decided to untwist the hair, releasing the pressure on my scalp.
And suddenly, I looked like Chaka Khan.
Except, in my case, I looked like a lioness (small face, big hair). I definitely was NOT used to having that much hair on my head. LOL But I still got compliments.
During my Chaka Khan Era month, I’d caught a cold and was trying a natural remedy of an Epsom salt bath (something Mr. Ex did when he was sick). Mr. Ex had left the bathroom and I was standing up to get out. The next thing I remember was him calling my name, asking if I was ok, and if I’d bumped my head.
Apparently, I’d passed out in the tub. Guess I was in that hot bath too long.
He’d come back in when he’d heard a big splash. My big Chaka Khan hair had saved me, cuz I felt nothing. #fabulousfuckinghairday
MY HAIR JOURNEY: HOW IT ENDS
The last year or so of my marriage, I decided to go afro natural. I no longer wanted to put chemicals in my hair. I got tired of maintaining the relaxed hairstyle, where more often than not, it was in a bun or a ponytail. Mr. Ex never came outright and said he didn’t like it, yet I could tell by his facial expressions that he wasn’t thrilled I was going back to a ‘fro (not the Jheri curl. There’s a difference).
He didn’t have a choice: my head, my hair.
He wasn’t the one who had to curl it.
He wasn’t the one having toxic chemicals brushed into his hair (and, by design, his scalp) every 6-8 weeks.
As my hair grew out, I bought headbands and barrettes, and managed to create cute hairstyles. But the novelty of showing me off had waned. We divorced in 2018. Not due to me going natural.
In 2020, my parents contracted COVID toward the end of March. It hit my Dad the hardest and he ended up in the hospital for 10 days. My sister and I decided to quarantine with them and we stayed for about a month. By the time we went back to our condo (we were living together at the time), I’d made the decision to do The Big Chop1 once beauty salons were allowed to open back up. The stress of that ordeal had me shedding hair. And due to my weird hair pattern, my goal of growing a big ‘fro wasn’t going to happen.
I needed a change.
And I’m glad I did.
Then, Jada Pinkett Smith revealed her alopecia condition, and I was like, “Oh. I wanna be bald like that.”
And so, here I am today, in 2023.
At the Corporate Hell Job I started last year (after not being in an office for two years), one of my then-coworkers asked me why I shaved my head.
My Ally McBeal response: Because I can, bitch. Get out my face.
My actual response: “It was time for a change.”
It never occurred to me that changing up my hair—braids, twists, bantu knots, my natural hair texture, bald—was an issue with my employers.
I was never pulled aside by my supervisor.
I was never called into HR and told to go home because my look was unprofessional.
So, imagine my surprise when I read that that had not been the case for other women.
And a law had been put in place to protect against it.
The CROWN Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” is a law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination, which is the denial of employment and educational opportunities because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including braids, locs, twists or bantu knots.
The CROWN Act was created in 2019 by Dove and the CROWN Coalition, in partnership with then State Senator Holly J. Mitchell of California, to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public schools. ~ From The CROWN Act website
So, not only do we get discriminated against for the color of our skin, but also how we wear our hair.
That is so fucked up.
And appalling.
And unreal.
Honest to Gawd, there are more important laws out there that need to be created. We shouldn’t have had to do this.
I need someone to explain to me why someone would need to be sent home.
Sent. Home.
Like an undisciplined child.
BECAUSE. OF. THEIR. HAIR.
I can understand sending someone home because their tits and ass are hanging out, but to tell someone to leave over their hair? Why? Break it down to me like I’m five.
Is it too ethnic for you?
Is it too black for you?
Does it remind you that your ancestors more than likely had her ancestors working in your cotton fields?
Are you jealous because you wish you too could wear braids but know you would look stupid as fuck appropriating someone else’s culture?
Are you jealous because you’ve always wanted curly hair but have to pay hundreds of dollars to fake it?
Or maybe you’re pissed because that white guy you like in Accounting prefers black women. With braids.
Fuck, I dunno. I’m just spitballin’ here.
But I can tell you this:
My crown does not equal my work ethic.
My crown is not synonymous with my job performance.
My crown is professional.
I will rarely get political on here, but this is the one thing I will be vocal about. Feel free to weigh in on this topic.
Help to end hair discrimination in the workplace, schools, and pools by clicking on the button below and signing the petition.
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The Big Chop is the act of cutting off your relaxed or chemically processed hair, revealing your true natural hair texture.
Signed! And for that young man in Texas being sent to a continuation school over his braids, and the wrestler forced to cut off his dreads to compete. And for the women going through chemo who feel the need to wear uncomfortable wigs. Why do we feel the need to judge and oppress and fetishize? Are we not in the year 2023, FFS? Also, I am sort of jealous. If I had your bone structure or Sinead's brows and lashes, I would've shaved my head decades ago. Hair is just an awful waste of time and money, and an endless source of frustration and disappointment. At least for me. My hair is a curiosity that become curious-er with time. Thanks for this, Ororo. xo