A little more than 11 years ago, I spent a month in Switzerland. At the time, I did not have natural hair, but I did have extensions, in part because I didn't want to have to worry about finding hair care products while overseas. I had my trusty grease and my braid spray, so I was ALL SET. There, although there were people from around the world, the black women that I saw from continental Africa all seemed to have relaxed hair. At the time I remember being surprised that they had relaxers, then wondering why their relaxed hair looked so strange to me, and finally I judged their hair by saying [to myself], why do these women have relaxers, if they aren't going to have them looking good?
Almost everyone at the time had relaxed or texturized hair, including 97% of the immigrants, children of immigrants (me), and American women I knew at the time. I didn't really think about our ethnicities or backgrounds (when it came to hair), because we were all pretty much assimilated. We all thought that perms and texturizers were the thing to do (unless you were growing locs). My only real thoughts about continental Africa, when it came my hair, took place when I went to get my hair braided by the "African Hair Braiders". These were ladies that I assumed represented common attitudes and beliefs about hair in "Africa" [since I never knew precisely where anyone was from]. They generally wore their hair braided, and they braided other people's hair, so in my mind I thought that is how people wore their hair throughout continental Africa. And apparently how I expected people to wear their hair after they emigrated. I realize now, after seeing 10,000,000 hair braiders on beaches throughout the Caribbean, and reading the article about "village hair", that I was ignorant. I viewed commerce as a reflection of culture instead of looking at hair braiding as a cultural skill set that was being used to earn a living.
But I digress, back in Switzerland, as someone using the creamy crack myself, my issue wasn't that the women I encountered had relaxers, it was that the relaxed hair wasn't then being turned into something I considered to be a "style". I wondered where the roller wraps or even the rollers were. I'd seen beauty shops, so I figured there were hairdressers "doing hair", but what were they doing? Unfortunately at the time I didn't connect people's lack of style with any limitations on beauty supplies, just lack of skill and desire.
When I couldn't take my braids anymore, I took them out....and suffered. I remember walking around Geneva one afternoon in desperate search of a curling iron.I did not find one ANYWHERE, and to tell you the truth, I don't know if I even looked for, saw, or considered using rollers myself. What I do know is that I immediately began devising ways to give my straight hair some texture. (I was too poor to consider paying someone to wash, condition, and curl it for me). I then began to improvise. I did a lot of braidouts. I would do a single French braid, then the next day a braidout. I did box braids at night that I tried to tuck under so they would have some curl when I let them out, next day braidout, and I recall trying cornrows, then a braidout. Eventually I made it back to the USofA, immediately went to the hairdresser, got a relaxer and a deep condition. All was right in the world. And I didn't think about the ladies I saw in Europe again....
Now looking back, I'm a older, and hopefully a little wiser, and I guess, even then, I was learning how to work with what I had to get a style that I liked.... And I realize that I shouldn't have judged with such a harsh eye. The women in Switzerland were doing what people all over the world do...trying to assimilate, even in a place that did not accommodate them.
Almost everyone at the time had relaxed or texturized hair, including 97% of the immigrants, children of immigrants (me), and American women I knew at the time. I didn't really think about our ethnicities or backgrounds (when it came to hair), because we were all pretty much assimilated. We all thought that perms and texturizers were the thing to do (unless you were growing locs). My only real thoughts about continental Africa, when it came my hair, took place when I went to get my hair braided by the "African Hair Braiders". These were ladies that I assumed represented common attitudes and beliefs about hair in "Africa" [since I never knew precisely where anyone was from]. They generally wore their hair braided, and they braided other people's hair, so in my mind I thought that is how people wore their hair throughout continental Africa. And apparently how I expected people to wear their hair after they emigrated. I realize now, after seeing 10,000,000 hair braiders on beaches throughout the Caribbean, and reading the article about "village hair", that I was ignorant. I viewed commerce as a reflection of culture instead of looking at hair braiding as a cultural skill set that was being used to earn a living.
But I digress, back in Switzerland, as someone using the creamy crack myself, my issue wasn't that the women I encountered had relaxers, it was that the relaxed hair wasn't then being turned into something I considered to be a "style". I wondered where the roller wraps or even the rollers were. I'd seen beauty shops, so I figured there were hairdressers "doing hair", but what were they doing? Unfortunately at the time I didn't connect people's lack of style with any limitations on beauty supplies, just lack of skill and desire.
When I couldn't take my braids anymore, I took them out....and suffered. I remember walking around Geneva one afternoon in desperate search of a curling iron.I did not find one ANYWHERE, and to tell you the truth, I don't know if I even looked for, saw, or considered using rollers myself. What I do know is that I immediately began devising ways to give my straight hair some texture. (I was too poor to consider paying someone to wash, condition, and curl it for me). I then began to improvise. I did a lot of braidouts. I would do a single French braid, then the next day a braidout. I did box braids at night that I tried to tuck under so they would have some curl when I let them out, next day braidout, and I recall trying cornrows, then a braidout. Eventually I made it back to the USofA, immediately went to the hairdresser, got a relaxer and a deep condition. All was right in the world. And I didn't think about the ladies I saw in Europe again....
Now looking back, I'm a older, and hopefully a little wiser, and I guess, even then, I was learning how to work with what I had to get a style that I liked.... And I realize that I shouldn't have judged with such a harsh eye. The women in Switzerland were doing what people all over the world do...trying to assimilate, even in a place that did not accommodate them.
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Unknown - Thursday, December 29, 2011
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