new wave feminism

Interesting article about black women and their issues with hair!

Excerpt:

 We aren’t imagining things. We aren’t making it up. I’ve heard the words come out of a many fellows’ mouths and seen their actions scream at me in stereo — I love all black women, just ignore me as I break my neck to talk to that light skinned girl with the long hair.

I know this because I’m the light skinned girl with the long hair and I’ve seen it over and over and over again.

Recently I started dating again to mixed results, revisiting an old problem that just won’t die no matter what I do. But the reality of people treating my hair and skin tone as a fetish object is painfully real.

I don’t like being treated like a fetish. If you think I’m beautiful, great. If you fall in love with me for me, wonderful. But I freeze up with aphrension when a man gets stuck in my hair and can’t get out of it. There’s a difference between saying, “Your hair looks nice today” and saying “Your hair looks so much better than all these other sisters who be wearing weaves.” One) Why do you think it will turn me on to dissrespect other black women in your pursuit of me? Two) What?!

It all gives me flashbacks to an ex who would talk about how gorgeous India.Arie was, but married me. Who would bash Halle Berry and other light skinned people, but would admit that it had been his dream since he was a child to marry a girl with light skin and long hair. That he hated the perm I had then, but then bemoaned my TWA (teeny weeny afro) when I cut my hair off.

“I wish I never told you to cut your hair,” he said, wrongly assuming that I’d gone natural because of his constant psuedo black militant, intellectual banter. I’d cut it because I’d wrongly thought he was the first guy I’d dated who didn’t care about my hair. That I could cut it without fears I’d be loved less or ridiculed as unattractive. After all, the man before him used to sing Hakuna Matada and call me “Mustafa” whenever I wore my hair just wavy. He was so hostile towards unstraightened hair that even an unstraightened perm was offensive. But he managed to outdo the jerk before him with his hair 360 degree turn,I’m no longer attracted to you, garbage.

“Just date the white girl already,” I used to say when I was frustrated. It made no sense to expect straight hair perfection out of me when my straight hair was a pressing comb illusion.