London Olympics Entry #3: Gabby Douglas and Hair Politics

I write this journal entry particularly to the black women who thought Gabby Douglas' hair was inappropriate or unkempt.

While the rest of the US are celebrating a newly minted American hero, some Negroes are fuming over something as petty as her hair. I guess this is what happens when the emphasis for black women has become how one looks in the eyes of others, even if it is to her own detriment.

Tis true, we are the first to attack our own about our coily tresses; however, if you are a black woman, you know the first tormentor regarding your kinky aesthetic looks just like you.

But since a good portion of black women in the United States have been locked into years of relaxers, flat irons, extensions and weaves, we don't even know what their natural hair really looks like anymore, nor how to care for it.

I am sure most of these critics look in the mirror and see their thinning or disintegrated edges, male-patterned baldness at the crown, severe breakage and empty patches where hair used to reside, and still think Gabby's hair is a mess.


But this time, as you attempt to project your self-deprecation, something I understand is not all of your own-doing, I am telling all of you to step the fuck off.

Keep your 'Buckwheat' images tucked into the orifice of your arse. And don't come crying to people like me when a non-black person calls you a nappy-headed ho.


Our tresses do not wisp about in the wind. They roll and wine in spirals like a Trini Calypso song during Carnival. We are not Snow White, no matter how biracial and octoroonish you may think you are, our edges will forever puff up in resistance like a Zulu army.

SPOILER ALERT FOR MEN WHO DATE BLACK WOMEN: If you have only seen us with relaxed, pressed hair and tracks or weaves for years than it is highly likely that there is not much to work with. Case and point, Naomi Campbell

Wigs, Weaves & Extensions, Nuthin New Under the Sun

Egyptian Queen Nofetari

I was at the Do Over in the Los Angeles this week, and met up with a Ghanaian sister who told me she would be shedding her locks for something new.

Her plan was to wear her hair short and get some funky wigs and weaves and let her roots rest, eventually allowing her follicles to bloom.

Immediately, the bias in me, said, "Weaves!" with disdain. She saw my face as my mouth dropped. She quickly tried to explain her decision.

I felt embarrassed. This sister was a bridesmaid at my wedding. She will always be my sister and I wanted to ask her, "Why wigs? Just rock you!"

But, "Who am I?" I'm still trying to figure it all out myself; especially my hair.

When I made it back to Jersey last night, I was perusing through some hair anthropology data when I was checked for my judgmental thoughts. I forgot about the wigs and extensions found in multiple burial chambers of Egyptian pyramids adorning women and men.

From kinky, to puffs, to coily, to straight augmented hair was mummified to perfection. Like today, augmented hair was all the rage as far back as 3400 BCE (Before the Christian Era).

Wig with coily puff mane found with mummy.

Not only did this re-submission of information into my life sit my ass down in my natural journey, but re-affirmed that nuthin' isn't new, just revamped and reinterpreted.

Weaves, wigs, extensions, braids, fades, silky locks, faux locks, real locks, and Indian Remy hair are old hair trends with a contemporary feel.

In Egypt, the hot desert sun and sand were climates that made bald heads an easier style to rock for men and women. Plus it was the most hygiene-appropriate in preventing the oft-head infestation of lice.

Women and men, usually of royal descent would wear wigs and extend hair length with the use of human hairpieces from their own shorn hair or coifs of commoners.
I always asked, "Why is hair so important to black people and black women in particular?" Well, anthropological studies have shown that even in the days of Queen Tiye and Nofertari (the mummy picture above) hair communicated your wealth and social status.

Hair was an important commodity that was traded and sold. In fact, human hair ranked alongside gold and incense at one point in ancient Egypt.

Hair dyed with Indigo and black henna.

And get this, not only was human hair wigs and extensions were popular, but hair coloring. One mummy was found with a waist-length wig and her own hair colored with a vegetable-based dye to give it a yellowish color. The mummies natural hair was black.
Much like henna and indigo dyes still popular in North Africa and India, and even the ochre earth dye of the Himba women in Namibia, there are natural dyes.

So who was I to question my friend's decision of jazzing her hair with added pieces?

Though I still think that the wig and weaving process should be more humane and equitable in the trade of hair, and prolly, people will use this blog to continue to throw horrible Yaki #9 in their hair, and wear 29-piece weaves on their balding crowns, I think I need to reconsider selling the locks that sit on my shelf.

Even though the Korean store owners didn't want the coily manes of African descendants in Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair", it was, and still is all the rave.

Eco.Soul.Intellectual is a socio-cultural, political award-winning writer, journalist and blogger who lives between Newark and Los Angeles.