This evening I was forced to people watch (not that I mind), since I finished "Sula" this morning. I usually try to preoccupy myself with a good read so that I don't fall into a fit of giggles cracking on folks in my head, but this evening I couldn't help it. As I squeezed onto the downtown 1 train, I caught sight of a giggling and smiling White woman with a head full of brittle and brash thinning blond hair that made me shudder. My first thought was, "She's too old to be using such a horrible unnatural hair color." Then my eyes drifted on down to the too tight, leopard print, purple polyester shift dress that was horrendous and unflattering; at this point I needed to understand the rest of her, so I began to focus on the veins popping out of her winter pale skinny legs and I wanted to throw up in my mouth. As the crowd thinned out, I found a seat slightly across from her and took in the strange looking creature. I closed my eyes and murmured, "Thank God for making me melanin-favored."
I think most Black girls go through their hang-ups about being a girl and well...Black. Fortunately, I didn't have a color complex, I was a brown-skinned girl and I was fine with that, I couldn't see it any other way. The only thing I craved to change was my hair. Yes! The dreaded hair complex all Black girls develop at some point of their early lives. I would prance around my house in my underwear while wearing a t-shirt on my head. I would toss the sleeves off my shoulders and tug at the hem as if it grew from my scalp and then I tended to it as though it were a breast-feeding baby. I went through the horrid stages of my first perm at about 11 or 12 years, preening in the mirror waiting for the JUST LIKE ME model's hair results. During high school I had a head full of bouncy, behaving, shoulder-length hair like I always dreamed and then came the experimentation, "Oh yes!" I trimmed, colored, rinsed, had high lights, low lights, got layers and finally my hair began to thin and fall out. I was forced to make the dreaded decision to chop it all off two years ago... but it was the best decision I ever made. I got the Halle Berry in the movie "Boomerang" because that cut was banging! Since then, I've gotten mohawks, pixies and bowl cuts! Unfortunately, I got a little hair sick a month ago and payed damn near $300.00 for a sew-in and I cussed the entire month because it was itchy, hot and I resembled the lion in the Wizard of Oz. Saturday I removed it and I'm breathing a little easier again and I'm over my phase. Just like that.
As I stomped down midtown Manhattan today with my own blunt bangs swaying across my forehead, I've realized the confidence I've gained has allowed me to become a little more accepting of myself (physically, let's not go overboard now, still working on the internal). Hey, let's face it, a lot of these little Black girls, are running around bleaching themselves, wearing ten pounds of weave AND make-up because they want to resemble that swamp creature I spotted on the train or they're imitating that crazy Nicki Minaj rapper/singer's "Barbie Movement." (Really though? I'd rather not go into that sideshow, she's another topic altogether). Black women in the spotlight don't make it any easier for those who are still trying to reassure the little brown girls inside of us. So go ahead and tell yourself, "Thank God I'm melanin-flavored and always highly favored."
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