#108 HEADSTART

[March 25, 2011] 

I began the Sisters, STOP THE WEAVE CAMPAIGN! on Facebook. Go there to read the responses from my FB friends. The response below was sent to me in an email and I could not resist creating a post here on my blog.

"Now you have touched a woman. Now you have struck a rock!"

That defiant statement/slogan was at the heart of the protests against the Apartheid government of South Africa's expansion of the odious pass laws to include women, which led to the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960, a date which is still observed as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, declared by the United nations, and observed there (and globally) on an annual basis. The statement was no glib rhetoric or catchy slogan of the moment, like Madison Avenue ditties to sell some product, but was rooted in a deep understanding of the universe, which includes the proverb, "When a boy child is born, a new world comes into being; when a girl child is born, God's own self has come to earth." Even behind all of the modern-day posturing and corruption of societal values, there is still an abiding reverence for womanhood and motherhood that is directly linked to the reverence and respect for Mother Earth, as in traditional societies around the world.

Even in this modern world, with all of its rapid, even convulsive changes, which invite and often obligate us to revisit and reevaluate many of our inherited assumptions, I elect to stick with the traditional wisdom of our Ancestors until it is proven to be incorrect. Part of that wisdom is the recognition that man and woman are two halves of the same fruit. (We might say the half you see and the half you don't.) As such, they are equal, but they are not the same. There is a reason in Nature for there to be two genders, and, as with all things natural, we are better served to live in harmony with that reason than to fight against it or manipulate it to conform to our own imagined and egotistical needs. Because this is true, as traditional wisdom would have us know, whether it is "politically correct" to say so or not these days, there is "Man Business" in which women have no say, because they are not men, and "Woman Business," about which men just need to shut up and mind their own. This latter awareness, too, was very much a part of what the women of South Africa were reminding the male-dominated white legislature with their protest slogan.

That slogan was the very first thing that came to mind as I read the subject line, and then the bullet points on Facebook talking about this hair issue. It took me right back to the 1960s and '70s, when I can remember how many female responses to judgments made on this issue made it known that it was very sensitive, and that those, especially males, who foolishly touched upon it had indeed struck a rock. No woman's mind was going to be changed by someone else's idea of what she should do with her body (sound familiar?), unless that someone was a person whose opinion she thought had real value. That didn't change the fact (as it still doesn't) that there are those men who still think it is their province to rule all women's behavior, and there were even instances of physical violence being carried out against women in Africa for wearing wigs or straightening their hair. (These guys had never been schooled in knowing what Man Business really demanded of them, which certainly was not that kind of cowardice or facile judgmentalism.)

So, although my thoughts have been invited on this, I, for one, have nothing to say about the Woman Business of what females do with their hair, but I can say something about the Man Business side of this (which is to leave it alone, except where other men need to be schooled), and about the great common ground of understanding in which both genders need to participate. In that context I can make two general observations, and one specific one.

The first of these is that (as we can still see in some parts of the Motherland) it has long been understood by African people that the human body was the first "canvas" for art. Body decoration of a dazzling variety has always been with us -- painting, piercing, scarifications, etc., etc. -- and is still with us, as can be seen in any smiling gold grille, for example, or any barber or beauty shop. The latter treat what has always been one of the most expressive part of our living "canvas," the hair. Africa may lead the world in artistic manipulations of the hair and head, and the carved neck rests that are used in lieu of pillows to protect elaborate hairdos can be found all the way backing ancient Kemet. Africans have braided and sculpted hair, added beads and flowers, mixed it with clay, and on and on and on. One memorable example from a book on Nuer Personal Art showed a man with a medium-sized Afro, the hairline shaved and trimmed to a symmetrical shape, his hair mixed with gold dust, and topped with a front-to-back row of dried white flowers. And that was just for that day. Albert Murray, in his great book, The Omni Americans, remind us that in African America (and the rest of the African World for that matter), contrary to the stereotype of poverty and dysfunction, barbers and beauticians are held to standards worthy of the Pharaohs of Egypt.

That brings me to the second general point. Considering that we have such a culture, which even the centuries-long nightmare of the Middle Passage and slavery could not destroy, why are so many of us so willing to buy into this notion of pandemic self-loathing that is supposed to afflict our entire "race." Of course, s in any population, there can be found examples of individuals who are dissatisfied with their appearance, and it is not to be denied that many of our people, having done well to survive the shipwreck on hostile land at all, have bought into such madness as being "color struck": preferring light complexion to dark, or actually, perversely thinking that an ancestry forced upon them by rape and violence has conferred some kind of gift in the possession of lighter skin or straighter hair. Psychologists and psychiatrists have studied similar responses to extreme oppression -- such as Jews in death camps imitating their Nazi captors -- as various forms of psychosis are bound to result from psychotic behavior in the first place. The cautionary note here is not to confuse the minority or the exceptional with the majority and the commonly held consensus. In African American history, the mental afflictions of "house Negroes" cannot be said to be the common lot of "field Negroes," who did not have the luxury of fantasizing about their lot, and even less so of those who opted for "marronage" escape into self-liberated communities.

The point here is that there are no general rules which can apply to all people in all places and although there may be clear general PATTERNS of behavior, these abstractions only operate in the real world on a case-by-case basis. (Maybe a good analogy for this is language: We have an African-American "creolized" form of English, which has been [mis]named many things, but which has been found to be a real dialect like the Queen's own, or any other, "systematic and rule-governed," as the linguists say; it is not just "bad English." And we have what we refer to as "standard" or professional English. It is probably fair to say that very few African Americans speak only one or the other form exclusively, and it certainly cannot be said that even fewer can claim only to understand only one form and not the other. The vast majority have a blend of pronunciations, words, meanings, and grammatical structures that borrow something from both extremes.) W.E.B. DuBois famously captured the psychic plight of the American Negro in his notion of the "twoness" forcibly experienced by Black people, but the question remains whether we are defeated by it, spiraling down into the depths of self-hate, or whether we rise above it and embrace life in spite of it, on terms that are uniquely our own. That, too, is decided on a case-by-case basis by our daily actions every day. So, while I will not go into denial about what some of us believe, negatively, about ourselves, I am neither prepared to accept that as the explanation for ALL of our behavior.

This brings me to the specific question, beyond which I will go no further into Woman's Business. While I think it is absolutely legitimate, even necessary, to ask the question of economics -- the enrichment of Asia at the expense of the African World with the money spent on imported hair -- I have to dismiss that as very small potatoes compared to the what we spend on Asian-made everything else: cars, computers, TV sets, cell phones, etc., but that is just a preface to the matter that struck me in that discussion. The use of Asian hair in weaves may be considered as a single issue, but I had to wonder of corn-rows and other, traditionally based African styles can or should be considered in the same light or the same breath as what might be called "European" styles (which, too, might be very much of a myth: while being absolutely no expert in the matter. I do wonder aloud how many stylings of straight [or straightened] hair that are attributed to European women were actually learned from or influenced by African women's designs).

Here, as a man, I am in foreign territory, asking questions rather than pretending to offer answers, but, looking in from the outside, I cannot help but come back to my original point. Every woman is different. As both genders seek ways to make themselves appealing to the other, each woman, like each man, will decide what style of grooming will serve that purpose. A whole beauty science has arisen around how to enhance each woman's body shape, facial structure, etc., etc. That might be questioned, of course, because so much of it comes out of that sense of "commodifying" everything for the market place, as it were, and those who question that might see the wisdom in more "natural' alternatives and the mental health that comes with "body acceptance" of who we are and not who we think we ought to be. So it seems to me that there is some healthy and healthful discussion somewhere to be had, among those to whom it matters (Woman's Business), but what seems to me is totally irrelevant on that account. What I do believe does need to be considered, in the common ground that embraces both genders, is the matter of simple respect for every precious life.

Somewhere in that territory that I dare not enter, there is a fine line that separates healthy discussion from being judgmental about another person's behavior. True enough, our traditional way in village life allows for a lot more communal and collective thinking and keeping everybody on point, so that weaknesses do get harshly judged in order to be made into strengths, etc., but these general condemnations of the behavior of people that we don't even know, based on prejudicial presumptions of their self-hate because we have other agendas does not strike me as healthy. Maybe in some areas it might work as a guy-thing, for guys, but I would not be surprised if this whole discussion doesn't create a serious push-back, as they say these days, letting any and all condemners know that "now you have struck a rock!"

Bottom line (and once againI surprise myself with the length of my reply to this): War is raging in Libya. Japan faces the consequences of a triple disaster, of earthquakes, tsunami, and a damaged nuclear energy plant. The people of Haiti, more than a year and 10 billion dollars in donated aid later are no better off than they were when the earthquake struck their country. The world is in a global financial meltdown. Almost all of this nation's productive capability has been shipped to China. Home foreclosures mount. Too many people willing to work and having the skills are out of jobs. The madness in Iraq and Afghanistan continues. Police are shooting our youth with impunity. And we are talking about hair weaves???

Hey, you have a knack for finding topics that trigger responses from me regardless. Even in this case, although I conclude by making this one look trivial, YOUR attention to it gives it importance. While I think it is 99% a discussion for women to have, it does touch us all, and, if we are wise, our deliberations on it should yield greater wisdom still -- not a bad legacy to pass on to the next generation, just as those before us blessed us well.

Much love,

DGT

  On a more serious note DGT wrote:

On International Day, UN honors legacy of transatlantic slave trade victims

[Source]

The events will culminate with a Living Legacy concert that will be staged in the General Assembly Hall tonight featuring prominent artists such as Melba Moore and Randy Weston of the United States, Morgan Heritage of Jamaica, Aurelio Martinez of Honduras, Khaira Arby of Mali and a cultural group from Equatorial Guinea.

Oprah's Weave

". . .there is "Man Business" in which women have no say, because they are not men, and "Woman Business," about which men just need to shut up and mind their own."

What the. . .???

Prom Night Hairdo

One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. - W.E. B. Du Bois

African Hairdos

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