Baby, I’m Just Tryna Let my Hair Down

Graphic by Quynh-Nhi Tran.

When I was younger, I hated my hair. It wasn’t straight enough. It wasn’t smooth enough. It wasn’t like my white friends who didn’t have to spend hours washing and styling their hair. I didn’t like how my curls looked when they were in a ponytail and made a poof. I didn’t like how my braids wouldn’t stay flat when I wanted to put it up. Everyone else liked my hair. I was surrounded by hands reaching to scrunch my curls and an endless stream of “how do your braids not come undone” and “I wish my hair looked like yours”. 

I chose to straighten my hair as much as possible. 

It took me a long time to love my Ethiopian heritage. My pride in my culture and identity grew once I started to love my hair. Black people have a very emotional relationship with our hair. It’s clear from a young age what the cultural beauty standard was: white, straight blonde hair, blue eyes. Lack of representation plays a significant role in this. Even though I went to very diverse schools my whole life, I was still the only or one of the only Black people in my classes. It’s hard to appreciate your identity if there is no one around you that looks like you.

The process Black people to love and respect their hair despite Eurocentric beauty standards is long and sometimes painful, which is why scenes in films and pictures that show a Black person getting their hair done are especially impactful. 

In the film “Queen and Slim”, a turbulent romance about two people on the run from the law after a traffic-stop-gone-wrong. At one point in the movie, Queen and Slim go to Queen’s uncle’s house to change clothes to disguise themselves. They also got their hair done. Queen gets her braids taken out and Slim’s hair is trimmed down to his scalp.  Every Black person has been in that chair. Backs aching and necks about to snap from trying to not lean back into the person doing our hair. The smell of product mingling with the smell of food from the kitchen as a show plays in the background. We become new people.

The Carter’s album cover for their album EVERYTHING IS LOVE shows a woman doing a man’s hair under the gaze of Mona Lisa. Their existence and actions defy the image of Eurocentric beauty, and that image is barely distinguishable behind them. All focus is on the couple standing before us: her parting his hair with a pick, and he giving the audience a steady and confident gaze. They don’t even look back at the famous painting. She is just a prop and they are the art. 

Of course, it is always a struggle to keep the love we have for our hair. Trends like the “clean girl aesthetic” that were actually around for decades on Black, Brown, and Latina women but were demonized on those groups, went viral when White women “discovered” and put a label on it. Cultural appropriation is infuriating and destructive; it just reinforces Eurocentric beauty standards and tells all women of color that nothing they do will be viewed as beautiful until someone that fits that standard claims it as their own. Then we have to fight to show that they stole our culture again if we want our culture to be respected and recognized. 

It’s a sick game that inevitably makes us question our heritage. 

But at the same time, defending our culture and our hair makes us feel even more proud about them. It makes our relationship with our hair even deeper. And it makes me love it even more.