"What happened to your hair!!? Your hair!!” she lamented, as she looked at the silky slick European like weft that covered my head. She asked because I no longer spotted the thick, earth mother locks that grew to define a generation of young black women. Women who; oft times; were seen as angry and asexual but secretly virile and sexually liberated. Women who, in men’s eyes were intellectual kings in public, freaks in bed, but never material worthy of marriage because for some reason it was believed they were not interested in that sort of thing. They were, for some reason seen as the martyrs in the social movement of reclaiming Africa’s identity. They were seen as the ones willing to take the bullet aimed at killing off any sense of feminine softness, suave intimacy and sexuality all in the name of reclaiming one’s African identity.
I looked at her, when she asked me and felt a slight pang of anger and sadness at myself when I just simply smiled and politely shrugged, “ah well, you know” giving her the platform to be the judge, to be the high and mighty all knowing “sisteren”. I did it because I didn’t want to burst her bubble of what it means to be African. To have given her an answer akin to, “I was sick of the dreadlocks and I just couldn’t take care of them coz they are way more high maintenance than a weave” would have shattered her even more concerned interpretation of me as a lost soul who had sold out to the capitalist white devil. To have told her that I got sick of being boxed in because of my hair, would have shattered her very comfortable reading of me as ignorant and disconnected. I didn’t want to burst her bubble of seeing me as a young black girl who didn’t know any better. For to explain that I really didn’t need a kinky head to define me as African and to inform or measure my degree of “Africanness”, would just be a bit complex for her to handle. I just let her sit in her narrow-minded definition of what it means to be African, for to be African was to wear long baggy skirts, to allow myself to be obese, to allow myself to wear brown, green, earth blue, mustard yellow colours. To always wear a scarf and to only wear jewellery that was either made of copper, beads, stones, string, shells, cotton or whatever else that was of no value, but looked damn connected to the motherland. Forgetting of course that our ancestors adorned some of the most extravagant illustrious jewels made of gold and other precious metals. To burst her bubble and say that, in my weave wearing self, I under all that fake hair, have not used any chemical relaxer in all of four years would have just opened a can of worms that would confuse the little African princess. It would perhaps make her question to what degree the white coloniser had enslaved her mind that she had to externalise her struggle to such an extent that she no longer saw herself as anything other than a walking, fighting, external manifestation of a cause to reclaim Africa’s place in history.
To be angry at her, served very little purpose, for in my heart I could have yelled that it doesn’t take the kink of my hair to realise that to be African is to bear the brunt of the world’s wrath at all times, weave or no weave. To explain to her that to be African did not mean “I enunciated my weds aaz such. Speeking in the most arteekulate and most pronounced aaksent. So the weld can know that I am an AFrikaan.”
Africa’s woes are far greater than the hair on my head or the clothes I choose to wear. To know my heritage and to celebrate it, is not locked in hair or in my jewellery. To be African is locked in my blood, in my ancestral knowledge and pride of passing on the true history of my continent and its people. To be African is locked in my knowledge and celebration of the fact that my continent was once and still is, a trading partner with other continents and it holds its ground in any intellectual, social, political or economic space and is full of scholars and intellectuals who gave the west all that they now call their own. To be African is to know that I and all my fellow Africans can continue that legacy.
To pass on the pride and knowledge of the great kingdoms of Mali, Songhay, Ethiopia, Nubia, Egypt. To remember and honour King Shaka, King Moshoeshoe, Emperor Menelik, the great Queen Nzinga of Angola, Queen Hatshepsut of black Egypt and the scholarly excellence of universities such as the Universities of Sankore is what it means to be African.
Africa’s problem will not be solved with me wearing dreadlocks and a long skirt. Africa is full of intelligent, young minds, young Turks who can stand their ground on any stage but who do not need to do so based only on their external expression of themselves. How many times have we seen leaders in Africa dressed in their African regalia, touting expletives of Africa this, Africa that, Africa my children, Africa liberated, take back Africa, free Africa, smoke out the coloniser only to have that very dictator kill and starve his own people. To jump like a monkey and dance to a “liberator” who brought you nothing else but one day of independence day celebrations, war, poor public health systems, poverty, hunger and some fake version of your traditional clothes as part of the independence day celebrations is an insult to what it truly means to be African. It's an insult to the fruits borne out of the struggles faced by our forefathers/mothers who risked their lives for us. To merely honour their memory with hair and clothes that perpetuate a notion of you as other, is an insult to what they stood for.
Your beauty as an African woman, the beauty of your kinky hair, the beauty of your mountainous curves as you carry that pot to cook for your family on that wood fire, the long skirt that covers those curves as you walk are the end result of a work of art that was conceived through God’s creation of you. What makes you African, is far greater, it is partly the beauty of your empathetic spirit, the strength that lets you hold your head up high and keep going when the darkest of days engulf and cloud any sense that things are gonna get better, it is the knowledge that nobody else, but your past, your present and your future are what define you. It is the blood line from whence you came, it s the pride that puts a smile on your face when you look back on your life and know that you defined that life through your deeds, thoughts and spoken word and not just merely through a hairstyle or a piece of cloth that covered your beautiful body.
So my sister, in answer to your question "nothing happened to my hair. It’s still well and natural...” if however you are asking “what are you doing to reclaim Africa?” well then we can have THAT conversation over a cup of coffee and I can tell you of my perilous journey and we can maybe compare notes and see where we can join forces to take back Africa and live on her land as was rightfully intended.
Goodnight my sister and good luck.
I looked at her, when she asked me and felt a slight pang of anger and sadness at myself when I just simply smiled and politely shrugged, “ah well, you know” giving her the platform to be the judge, to be the high and mighty all knowing “sisteren”. I did it because I didn’t want to burst her bubble of what it means to be African. To have given her an answer akin to, “I was sick of the dreadlocks and I just couldn’t take care of them coz they are way more high maintenance than a weave” would have shattered her even more concerned interpretation of me as a lost soul who had sold out to the capitalist white devil. To have told her that I got sick of being boxed in because of my hair, would have shattered her very comfortable reading of me as ignorant and disconnected. I didn’t want to burst her bubble of seeing me as a young black girl who didn’t know any better. For to explain that I really didn’t need a kinky head to define me as African and to inform or measure my degree of “Africanness”, would just be a bit complex for her to handle. I just let her sit in her narrow-minded definition of what it means to be African, for to be African was to wear long baggy skirts, to allow myself to be obese, to allow myself to wear brown, green, earth blue, mustard yellow colours. To always wear a scarf and to only wear jewellery that was either made of copper, beads, stones, string, shells, cotton or whatever else that was of no value, but looked damn connected to the motherland. Forgetting of course that our ancestors adorned some of the most extravagant illustrious jewels made of gold and other precious metals. To burst her bubble and say that, in my weave wearing self, I under all that fake hair, have not used any chemical relaxer in all of four years would have just opened a can of worms that would confuse the little African princess. It would perhaps make her question to what degree the white coloniser had enslaved her mind that she had to externalise her struggle to such an extent that she no longer saw herself as anything other than a walking, fighting, external manifestation of a cause to reclaim Africa’s place in history.
To be angry at her, served very little purpose, for in my heart I could have yelled that it doesn’t take the kink of my hair to realise that to be African is to bear the brunt of the world’s wrath at all times, weave or no weave. To explain to her that to be African did not mean “I enunciated my weds aaz such. Speeking in the most arteekulate and most pronounced aaksent. So the weld can know that I am an AFrikaan.”
Africa’s woes are far greater than the hair on my head or the clothes I choose to wear. To know my heritage and to celebrate it, is not locked in hair or in my jewellery. To be African is locked in my blood, in my ancestral knowledge and pride of passing on the true history of my continent and its people. To be African is locked in my knowledge and celebration of the fact that my continent was once and still is, a trading partner with other continents and it holds its ground in any intellectual, social, political or economic space and is full of scholars and intellectuals who gave the west all that they now call their own. To be African is to know that I and all my fellow Africans can continue that legacy.
To pass on the pride and knowledge of the great kingdoms of Mali, Songhay, Ethiopia, Nubia, Egypt. To remember and honour King Shaka, King Moshoeshoe, Emperor Menelik, the great Queen Nzinga of Angola, Queen Hatshepsut of black Egypt and the scholarly excellence of universities such as the Universities of Sankore is what it means to be African.
Africa’s problem will not be solved with me wearing dreadlocks and a long skirt. Africa is full of intelligent, young minds, young Turks who can stand their ground on any stage but who do not need to do so based only on their external expression of themselves. How many times have we seen leaders in Africa dressed in their African regalia, touting expletives of Africa this, Africa that, Africa my children, Africa liberated, take back Africa, free Africa, smoke out the coloniser only to have that very dictator kill and starve his own people. To jump like a monkey and dance to a “liberator” who brought you nothing else but one day of independence day celebrations, war, poor public health systems, poverty, hunger and some fake version of your traditional clothes as part of the independence day celebrations is an insult to what it truly means to be African. It's an insult to the fruits borne out of the struggles faced by our forefathers/mothers who risked their lives for us. To merely honour their memory with hair and clothes that perpetuate a notion of you as other, is an insult to what they stood for.
Your beauty as an African woman, the beauty of your kinky hair, the beauty of your mountainous curves as you carry that pot to cook for your family on that wood fire, the long skirt that covers those curves as you walk are the end result of a work of art that was conceived through God’s creation of you. What makes you African, is far greater, it is partly the beauty of your empathetic spirit, the strength that lets you hold your head up high and keep going when the darkest of days engulf and cloud any sense that things are gonna get better, it is the knowledge that nobody else, but your past, your present and your future are what define you. It is the blood line from whence you came, it s the pride that puts a smile on your face when you look back on your life and know that you defined that life through your deeds, thoughts and spoken word and not just merely through a hairstyle or a piece of cloth that covered your beautiful body.
So my sister, in answer to your question "nothing happened to my hair. It’s still well and natural...” if however you are asking “what are you doing to reclaim Africa?” well then we can have THAT conversation over a cup of coffee and I can tell you of my perilous journey and we can maybe compare notes and see where we can join forces to take back Africa and live on her land as was rightfully intended.
Goodnight my sister and good luck.
