Chris Rock’s “Good Hair”

Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair, opens this week and it got me thinking about all the things I’ve done to my hair over the years.

There was ironing my hair. Yes, I laid my head down on an ironing board like some wrinkled old shirt and came as close to my scalp as possible with a hissing, steaming hot iron. Only problem: I couldn’t get to the hair root so when I lifted my head off the board I had a circular two inch protuberance of bumpy, curly hair then straight pieces of locks jutting off the knob at a 45 degree angle with fried, split ends that hissed as loud as the iron.

Then there was Dippity Do. I slapped layers of the clear gop onto my bangs and then taped the whole sheet of hair to the rest of my face with scotch tape (I’m talking down my temples and onto my cheeks because the tape would only stick to skin, not more hair). I could just about hear the stuff crackle like Arctic ice as it dried through the night and, then, one by one, strands of hair broke free from the stiff, hardened gel to climb their way upward and backward into a natural, relentless curl. In the morning I awoke with a shelf of semi-straightened bangs that flipped at the ends making a trough in which I could have carried my pencils to school.

Then there were the empty orange juice cans used as curlers that lifted my head a half of foot off my pillow and gave a permanent tilt to my neck and head that looked kind of cute in my prom photos. And don’t forget the Spoolies which were my attempt to make my curls line up in neat rows. Spoolies were akin to sleeping on plastic cones of Medieval spikes but were actually more comfortable than lancing my hair with long, unyielding bobby pins and teetering on all those metal x’s. throughout my dreams. To say nothing of being woken from those dreams because I thought someone was in my room, only to discover the steirofoam head wearing my wiglet and sitting on my dresser staring at me.

So, yes, white girls go to great lengths to have fashionable hair as well.

There was a lot of talk on shows such as Oprah and The View about whether all the time, effort and money black women spend on their hair was a sign of wanting to be white and trying to “fit in”.

Both Whoopi Goldberg and Sheri Shepherd of The View, for the most part, argued “no.” They both said that black women, like all women, want to look nice and want a change from time to time.

I know that was part of my motivation. Growing up with curly, wiry hair limited the number of styles I could talk my hair into. Also, it is frustrating to decide on a certain look and spend a good deal of time creating it, only to step out and have the humidity snatch the whole thing within minutes. Yes, products start to line your bathroom shelves in order to exercise some meager measure of choice and control. Not to mention, sometimes, when my hair was long (down my back) and I wore it “natural” it just plain hurt to sleep on. The steel wool texture across my face or in my eyes was not like a lover’s caress and about as pleasant as being woken through the night because I’d forgotten to remove my hair shirt.

But there was a part to all of these machinations, at least for me, that was about more than just wanting to fit in with the latest styles. When I was a young adult, about twenty-three, I saw a movie made in Ireland. I do not remember its name to this day, but there was a young girl in it with long, red, wiry hair. I was looking at her on the screen, all of a sudden, I burst into tears. The words in my mind were, “Oh my God! I have Irish hair!”

Now, of course I knew I was Irish but, as crazy as this sounds, I never thought about having “Irish” hair as hair texture, not just color. First, as with all ethnic groups while there are similarities, no one group is all alike. (My brother did not have red hair; he was “black Irish”. He inherited the traits from the Spanish or prehistoric Iberians’ visit to Ireland – dark hair and dark eyes with his milk white skin.) But the whisper below the discovery “I have Irish hair” was the additional revelation: “And nothing is wrong with it. My hair is the way it’s supposed to be.”

In other words, in all those scenes of self-imposed torture throughout high school and into adulthood, my hair rituals and experiments were not merely a desire for variety, beauty and going with the fashion flow – which does seem innately human and even, in ways, self-loving; there was also a tinge of who I am is not okay, is less than. Some part of me felt that I was just plain not as good as all those girls with naturally straight, silky hair who could walk next to a beach or ride in a convertible and count on returning home, and after a quick comb, appearing much like how they looked when they had left (as opposed to my having to walk sideways through the front door because my hair was permanently four feet wide).

Hair, make-up, clothing – how I look – seems to be a mixture of self-caring and self-loathing. The gift of growing older is that the percentages have swung higher and higher toward the former. Learning to love ourselves and claim our beauty is a journey for women of all colors.

(P.S. This “mod” look from high school, 1968, probably took hours to create, complete with straightened hair and wiglet. For more on Hair see my blog post from September 11, 2009 “A Hair Brained Idea”.)

This article may be reprinted when this full byline is used: Susan O’Halloran is a story artist, workshop presenter and keynote speaker whose work explores the complex (and, with Sue, entertaining) issues of social justice and valuing differences. She is an author of four books plus diversity curriculums, CDs and films. The Chicago Reader says O’Halloran “has mastered the Irish art of telling stories that are funny and heart-wrenching at the same time.” Find out more about Susan and her online classes plus download a free audio interview at: www.susanohalloran.com.