I was lying in bed this morning and I had an epiphany. Well, not exactly... I heard "Nappy Head" by War and then, "I Am Not My Hair" by India Arie. After that, I reached up and felt my closely cropped dome and thought about... well, my hair history.
Being a black male, I'm not going to have the hair stories of struggle that my sisters had or are still having. But, I have some musings on my hair too. See, my hair was what I like to call "Defiantly Nappy". I have black people's hair. I hope I'm not offending any black people by saying this but if I am, toughen up! You know the deal,if you're honest.
I'm a true black man... nappy hair and all! Whenever my mother and grandmother used to comb my hair when I was a little boy, I would be in tears. So, I suppose they just got tired of fooling with me and sent me to the barber. Any guy out there knows what the barber did... he gave you what is referred to as a "Hustler" (cut it all off) and you were bald. I never quite knew why they called it " The Hustler" though.
As a little boy, I didn't care if I was bald, just as long as I could go outside, play ball, and ride my bike. However, by the time I was 12-13 years old, I did care about my head. When I came along, only a few guys were still wearing doo-rags and "processing" their hair. They were like "Jerome", the character on Martin, who was stuck in a time warp.
If you ever read the autobiography of Malcolm X, he gives a harrowing account of how guys would buy all kinds of chemicals and put them in their hair. These chemicals burned and they had to stand over a sink with cold water to ease the sensation. They did all this so their hair could be slick (like the white man's hair). Look at an old photo of the Temptations and you'll see that they had their hair like that. Thank God, I came along after that was out of style because I don't like pain. I don't think I could have stood it.
When I came along, The Jackson 5 was the standard by which guys were styling their hair. They had these huge afros that I reasoned were created in the lab. All the girls were going for guys with the biggest afros. I think Jermaine had the best afro out of the five. At best, I think mine looked like Tito's. However, my mom was not amongst those females who were impressed by it all. She made me and my brother keep our hair cut short. She said that "an African bush" (as she called it) made you look unkept. So, we looked "kept" to her and decidedly unhip to everybody else.
My mom eased up her dislike for the afro within a few years though and allowed us to have them. My brother was kind of blessed with (for want of that term) "good hair" or, at least, better hair than mine. His afro was big, it was nice, and he kept it cut neat. Mine was all over the map and still very nappy. It never looked like I wanted it to look so ladies, I feel you.
I have a cousin, (Arlene's sister) who is only three months older than me and yet, when we were little, she always seemed like she was seven or eight years older. One thing she didn't like was me getting too buddy-buddy with her girlfriends. Her girlfriends always seemed more interesting to me than the girls "my age". They were only a year older but, at the age we were, a year was a big thing. She had one girlfriend, who I won't name... I'll just call her J. To this day, my cousin doesn't know how really close her girlfriend J. and I were. We were close mainly because J. found a way to tame my hair.
Steve Harvey told a joke about how you could fall in love with someone who was braiding your hair. He joked... "All that time with your head between a girl's legs while she's braiding your hair does something to a man." Well, it's true because J. used to braid or cornrow my hair. When she took them out and hot combed it a bit, my hair looked the way I wanted it. Huge like a halo. I think it was actually what they used to call a "blowout". I always had her to take the cornrows out before I went home. She would and then, she would comb it. It didn't hurt like when my mother and grandmother used to comb it. It was soft and shapely.
My mother may have relaxed her standards on the Afro but she did not like braids, cornrows, or guys who walked around looking like that all day. She called it the "height of pickininnyism". (Don't ask me, I don't know... it was just among the few things she used to say that would make her sisters crack-up and make me scratch my head.)
I could always be my own worse enemy. If I stopped by the playground and got into a pick-up game of basketball, my sweat usually ruined all of J.'s hard work and I was "happy, black, and nappy again by the time I got home". But, I didn't care because it gave me a reason to go and see J. again. It was our secret. It gave me "alone" time with J. and added a little excitement to my life (that shows you how boring my life was). Also, I was doing something "secret" that nobody else knew about. (My Aunt Jean had an idea but, she was always good about keeping my "secrets"- LOL!)
Of course, J. didn't see me in the way that I saw her... she was just doing hair. She knew I had a crush on her and I know that she liked the attention because she never turned me away. But, she never let things go any further than doing hair and talking. I would ask her to go to the movies with me or out to eat and she would politely refuse or say something like... "maybe when you're older". At best, she was about 9-10 months older than me but, like I said, that was a big deal back when you're sixteen.
Like most women though, J. would get what she could get out of the situation (another lesson I had to learn down the road). In turn for doing my hair, she got me to run errands for her. If I refused or was hesitant, she would say... "See, you always acting like you want to be my boyfriend but when I want you to do something for me, you wanna get new." New? I doubt if her boyfriend would be doing the things I was doing ... running to the store to get hoagies, fried chicken wings, soda, etc. and getting no payback. However, she did keep my hair tight and keep my "secret" about "us" so, most times, I complied.
She never told my cousin that I was coming over her house as much as I did and when my cousin was around, J. and I acted like we barely knew each other. It's not that I asked her to do this... she just did. On the other hand, J. would call me and ask me if I needed my hair braided. Whether I did or not I would keep her on the phone as long as possible, talking about nothing. She could have hung up at anytime but, like I said, she liked the attention so, she would oblige me. J. would talk to me for close to an hour at times.While it may be true that I was playing my game, it's also true that she was playing her game too. Game always recognizes game!
Now that I think back on it, nobody would have cared even if they had of known because there was nothing going on for them to care about. My mother and my aunt knew the girl and her family but, for some strange reason, I felt better without them or my cousin knowing about our little "arrangement". Then, hairstyles changed again and guys started wearing "The Hustler" again.
I went through all of that just to go back to having my hair cut and wearing it close. But, J. came to the rescue again... after my hair was cut, she used some old pantyhose that she wasn't using, slapped some of that pomade grease on my hair, and introduced me to the "wavecap". This was before they started marketing them or calling it anything other than a "stocking cap", which is all it was. All the guys were wearing "stocking caps" to get "waves".
Well, my mother didn't like that either and said that I looked like a "jitterbug". (Don't ask... in her terminology, a "jitterbug" could be anything from a hood to an ill-dressed man. It all depended on who she was talking to or what she was talking about at the time.) So, I had to have the stocking cap off by the time I got home. But, it didn't matter because it didn't work anyway. I have never been able to get waves. However, I did look neat and well-groomed with my short haircut.
By the time I entered the Air Force, guys were wearing their hair in the "jheri curl" style. For some reason, I was not interested in that at all. I hated going to clubs and trying to dance next to some guy who thought he was Morris Day (or girl) with a jheri curl. Activator was flying all over the place, getting in my eyes, messing up my suit, and it was a mess. I didn't embrace that style and me and my friends laughed at most of the guys who did.
After I got married, I toyed around with a "box" hairstyle and a Bobby Brown "Gumby" for a hot minute. (Of course, I looked ridiculous and thank God I have no photos of me then!) Now, I have settled for a more clean-shaven "hustler" look again. Mom would be proud! -:) I can't wait to see Chris Rock's new movie "Good Hair". I know that he (probably) only wanted to talk about black women but, as you see, black males had some hair issues too. Maybe I'll write a movie treatment for us guys!
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