ABOUT
Ten years ago, when I made my first attempt at valuing the naturalness
of Black hair by locking my own hair, I had no idea that I was in
essence making a powerful commitment to my own liberation of Black
people throughout the Diaspora. As I look back on my own process,
I am impressed by the similarities that exist between my process and
the process of many of my clients and colleagues. For many of us,
the decision to explore the natural state of our hair meant also exploring
the stigmas and internalized oppressions that have been locked within
our very consciousness. |
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Whether
from Louisiana or Senegal or Haiti or Jamaica or Brazil, we
are descendents of people who experienced the social, political,
physical, cultural, and economic devastation of slavery, colonialism,
and imperialism. Our bodies and yes even our hair tells the
story of what we in the persons of our ancestors faced and how
they faced it. The devastation that we were subjected to cast
our hair as nuisance, impediment and even horror as we cleared
the swamps, farmed the plantations, built the roads, and mined
the quarries. It is no wonder that the word "unmanageable"
was applied to our hair. How could our hair be anything but
unmanageable under conditions that were so unbearable? |
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Now we
live at a time in which we can see natural hair worn by Black
actors, professional basketball players, lawyers, politicians,
police officers, doctors, hip hop artist, models, journalist,
college professors, CEOs, and artists. You name the type of
Black persons and there will be someone in that part of our
community wearing their hair natural. We have resurrected
the Corn Row and Afro of the 60's and 70's to rejoin that
primordial Braid in a revolutionary marriage that is funked
up with the Locks in a way that we have never before seen
since ancient times. Baby we are bad and I am so glad to be
a part of this moment in our hair-story.
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My formal
education in natural hair care was well developed at Locks
'N Chops in New York City. There I learned about client services,
technique, and the culture of natural hair. Having apprenticed
there for three years, I was given a strong foundation upon
which I could advance. I am so grateful to the tutelage that
I experienced under its founders, Adémola Mandela and
Orin Saunders. Each of them provided me with unique opportunities
to grow and develop as a master stylist and natural hair culturalist.
As the
owner of my own private practice, I have drawn upon those
early lessons to advance our movement a step further. My unique
contribution to our movement is the ability to challenge myself
and my colleagues and encourage my clients to be "unmanageable"
in the living of their lives. We must be unmanageable in the
way that we respond to the remnants and modern day manifestations
of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. We can't afford
to be managed. We must be unmanageable, unrealistic, and unreasonable
because to be otherwise means to be complicit in our spiritual
and cultural demise. Therefore our hair must reflect our unwillingness
to compromise.
As I work
with clients we explore each other's ability to be unreasonable
with the social order. We experiment with the destruction
of the falsehoods parading as truths about what black hair
is and what it is not. We confirm for ourselves that our hair
is in the process of creating and co-creating beautiful natural
hair styles we are healed and we are liberated.
VIDEO:
See my presentation at the Golden Scissors 2000 show
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Video
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