My Afro Diaries

As a toddler my personality reflected my wild hair; untamed & not abiding to any rules. I never saw a difference between my friends and I, racially, socially or other and joyfully meandered through my prepubescent life. I am of mixed heritage, English & Ghanaian, & my mother who is white was very much my primary care giver. This fiercely intelligent woman inspired so much in me, but hair care was never a priority! Even if my mum had shared my hair type, this would still not have been a focus in our household of which I am grateful for.

Unsurprisingly, by my teenage years I loathed my hair. The adolescent phase that so many experience of wanting the opposite of what you have- blonde to black, straight to wavy & in my case frizz to sleek. After a short & indefensible stint having a bold red fringe, I eventually took the aspirational step of chemically straightening my hair. The anticipated rewards of success, popularity & undiscovered beauty never materialised. Straight hair does not automatically make you Barbie pretty! Years later reading Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' I was painfully reminded of the inexplicable desire to capture an unreal & superficially concocted appeal.

“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.”

Replace eyes with hair & I recognised a little of me, luckily this high maintenance style was brief; a lifetime of delinquency with my hair meant that blow drying was physically untenable & I gave up trying to have straight hair very quickly.

At 18 I discovered leave-in conditioner and this was a game changer (I exaggerate not), I finally began to appreciate my crazy curls. This coincided with moving to London and going to drama school. Though still an anomaly (my year of 28 had 1 black guy and me), the greater context of diversity in the capital began to influence and bolster my sense of individuality & defiance from ethnic expectations. At 21 I spent a couple of years having regular haircuts but since then I have pretty much lived by the mantra 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. I have abstained from haircuts, dyes or anything that involves cost or effort. I am a low maintenance woman with a political underscore. Firstly, I enjoy shedding the stereotypical feminine cloak of grooming, but more importantly my fro has become a bizarre badge of honour, a physical manifestation of my sense of pride in my 'blackness'.

Looking back at my naive teenage years I cringe at my self-proclaimed title of 'bounty'- brown on the inside but white at my core. My home town was not particularly diverse & I was comforted by a generally inoffensive ignorance towards half of my heritage.  In recent years as my relationship with my father has become fractured; I have become increasingly estranged to my Ghanaian family but my hair stays strong & a significant part of my identity.  I want to celebrate my African side & embrace the wonderment of being dual heritage.

On occasion I almost feel having natural hair is a barrier between me and many black women who grew up with the normality of 'fake' or adjusted hair. I am grateful that my upbringing eschewed this pressure, but can also feel alienated. Perhaps this feeling of alienation is not solely from the black community, but society as a whole? Recently I came across a news article about a young girl in Florida, threatened with expulsion because her natural hair was a ‘distraction’. This is madness! The world seems to have assimilated a view not only of attractiveness, but acceptability when it comes to hair care. Images of Beyoncé & Rihanna with wavy blonde locks make me feel uncomfortable. Not because they don't look alluring but because this perceived state of beauty is unachievable for so many. On a multimillion pound stage the weave looks incredible, on me it would come across as an unnatural & unattractive wig. One could argue that the weave is not supposed to look 'real', but it certainly exacerbates the idea that whatever is underneath does not deserve a look.  This is not necessarily a black, white or mixed issue, but we all recognise a certain level of faux beauty that clouds the media & sets unobtainable expectations, and it does feel that there is a bigger chasm for black women to cross.  

For years I wasn't sure about my own beauty or if I could ever conform to what was the norm. Now my head of hair represents an important part of me; from a shrunken ringlet after a wash to a frizz explosion at the end of the week, each curl is unconventional & unique. I am of course an advocate of freedom for women to choose to style their hair in any way, but surely we must first acknowledge the natural beauty in us all. Hoorah to my hair & to yours. Hoorah to not being particularly bothered about the latest construction of beauty & acceptance. It will probably cost a heap of money & you'll never win. Think of Ani Difranco's vociferous words in 32 Flavours & allay your fears:

'and god help you if you are an ugly girl course too pretty is also your doom cause everyone harbours secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room and god help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise up from the ash and a thousand eyes will smoulder with jealousy while you are just flying back'

My Afro Diaries was first published in June by Luna Luna Magazine in an abridged version