I’m listening to NPR this morning. There’s a story about hair…actually shampoo. Breaking news – “We” don’t have to shampoo our hair every day.” Who is the “we”? Who is the “us”? Who are the “Americans” all of us – the ones who shampoo daily?
If you have kinky, curly, or Moe hair, you don’t wash it everyday, right? Should I just come out and say “black hair?” In that hairtopia world daily washing strips hair of its natural oils. Sometimes oil needs to be replinished with conditioning….I’m getting too technical or personal.
kkkKatie had her hair ironed in Harlem. Those of us who don’t shampoo everyday were in solidarity with sistah Katie. Was she making that treck on the A Train every morning? [spoiler alert] After she lost her man, she went back to her politics and her curly hair.
The kink of my hair is like the kink of your heart and neither is going to be hot-pressed into surrender. – “The Colored Museum,” a play by George C. Wolfe
Back to the radio show. I’m sort of going in and out of this because I’ve got a hair dresser appointment. I don’t want to be late. Ah-hah, the reporter just discovered that you’re stripping your hair of essential oil by washing daily. Have we found common ground? I’m listening. Curly vs. straight. Curly hair doesn’t have to be washed as often as straight hair.
So now it’s curly vs. straight. A new story on curly hair follows. “What makes straight hair curly?” So we all come into this world with straight hair, but then something makes it curly?
Wait, there’s more. This reporter has curly hair. Will there be a pill or some kind of treatment that can alter hair texture without sitting in a beauty shop for 4 hours.
Hair raising or consciousness raising?
It’s too bad Ayoka Chenzira‘s fabulous 16 minute animated “Hair Piece” (1984) film isn’t online. [It’s available for sale and rental from Women Make Movies.] It’s a bit of history (pre-weave), but was a powerful statement with some good laughs that hasn’t gone out of date. But check out her interactive website – http://www.ayoka.com/.
I’m just getting back from the salon and finishing this post. My stylist says she caught some of the NPR program. She was intrigued by it, and explained to me that this was a science topic. I suppose I was listening through my culture filter. Apparently hair isn’t a universal language.