I AM My Hair: Or, Why I've Chosen to "Rebrand"

I came to understand myself as a little girl through the beauty rituals of black womanhood: weekend days in the salon with my mother and sister; hours between my mother's knees as she combed, oiled, and braided; endless tears over lost handfuls of hair after a first relaxer or braid-job gone wrong.

I agree with India Arie when she says; "it's not what's onyour head, it's what's underneath," but I also challenge her: the notion "I am not my hair" denies two realities — First: that Black women are defined by our physical appearance whether we choose to accept or reject those definitions, and second: that the way we adorn our body—literally what we wear, how we look—has a significant affect on our psyche. 

This isn’t news to anyone: you look good, you feel good.  I personally discovered this idea my sophomore year of undergrad after I stopped relaxing my hair— realizing that the person I felt myself to be on the inside did not match up with the person I (and other people) saw on the outside.

As part of a continuing process of self educating, I’ve been reading Rock My Soul: Black People and Self Esteem by the brilliant bell hooks. hooks relies on a quote from Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden: “Integrity is the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs—and behavior. When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match, we have integrity.”
To revisit this idea, I’ve recently undergone a process of rebranding. I call it "rebranding" with an ounce of sarcasm, but I am fully committed to the idea. Here’s how I’m hoping this works: Change the way you look–> change the way you feel–> change the way you are perceived. (Depending on who you are or the circumstance, it could also go this way: change the way you look--> change the way you are perceived--> change the way you feel). 

I realized, in not so many words, that I was not living with integrity. My theory was not integrated with my practice. I believed in the beauty of blackness, but did not perform it. Until I stopped relaxing my hair, I never realized how far from my true self I had been in the past. 

So. I cut off half of my hair. Lost fifteen pounds. Changed my subtle nose ring to the hoop I've always wanted. There’s something empowering about using my body as a site of resistance. (What I mean by this is best explained by youth scholar Sarah Abbots: the body is a site at which oppression is manifested, and from which resistance can be generated.) 

By refusing to conform to a standard of beauty set forth by a seemingly invisible something/one (white, heterosexual males), I’m literally embodying the belief that no one's definition of beautiful is more valuable than mine. 

By wearing my hair natural, I’m prioritizing my own aesthetic over that of an Anglo-Saxon culture that has defined straight hair as beautiful. By wearing my hair short, I’m prioritizing my own aesthetic over that of a patriarchal one that defines long hair as beautiful. If we keep conforming to a standard that tells us that the body in which we feel most comfortable is wrong, ugly, to be hidden, to be adorned only in a way that they approve of, (sick, even), then the definition will not ever shift. We remain prisoners to other people’s thoughts. We give them power.

A teacher of mine once told me “don’t let anyone have power over you.” It is the most valuable lesson I have received to date.  By doing what I want with my body and not apologizing for it (from with whom I choose to share my body to what I put on it or in it), I am choosing to not let anyone have power over me. 

hooks encourages us [black people] to develop oppositional consciousness as a way to decolonize our minds. She defines decolonization of the mind as “letting go of patterns of thought and behavior that prevent us from being self-determining.” In letting go of the ideals that have been created by oppressors and sustained by oppressive systems, I am freeing my mind. 

In short, Nina Simone said it best: Freedom is mine, and I know how I feel. In an effort to get free, I'm trying to learn how to be okay with doing what I want. I am my hair. I am my body. I am my mind. It is a process. Get free, y’all.