A fan contacted
me on Twitter (thank you @KillahCam52) to say that he was watching me on Def Comedy Jam. It inspired me reach
back into my archives and dig out this photo taken during the taping oh so many
moons ago.
Photo
Facts
What: Taping
of Def Comedy All Star Jam
When: November
1995
Where: Academy
Theatre, NYC
What’s
up with the Hair: Pre Sisterlocks
By 1995 I’d been
natural for a while alternating between braids and my signature DIY (Do It
Yourself) two-strand twists. In this photo I’d recently had a drastic hair cut.
The scissor happy hairstylist at a salon in Harlem convinced me that I had the
worst split ends in Christendom and that I desperately needed a trim. A trim
turned into a chop and I was exceedingly unhappy. I complained bitterly for
months afterwards that thought I looked like a boy. Ridiculous, I know. But that’s how I felt.
I
showed this picture to a friend and he said, “Wow, you’ve been natural a long time.”
I said, “Yes. Yes I have.”
“That says a lot about you. Not a lot of women chose
to go natural back then.”
I was impressed. That’s not something a
lot of folks are inclined to notice.
No,
not a lot of Black women chose to wear their hair natural back then. The
support, en masse, simply wasn’t there yet. It was kinda ok if you were “in the
arts” but even then you were in danger in limiting the roles you’d be sent out
for. (There just weren’t a lot of locks, braids, or ethnically-ambiguous curly
girls in commercials, TV, and movies back then.)
During
my senior year of college I was strongly encouraged by well-meaning mentors to
take out my braids or risk not getting a coveted corporate job. Why, pray tell,
would I want to work somewhere that had regressive, oppressive (and I daresay
illegal) attitudes about my hair? Yes, I know. I was being terribly naive. By the way, I left my braids in and was hired
by a Fortune 500 company to work in their Corporate Communications Department.
If you’re wearing natural hair at your
corporate job and you’re stunned that this is even an issue .... you’re
welcome. #fistbump
2 comments:
Love the Look Soror! To piggyback on employment standards, in NC, employment at will and nepotism, will make you do whatever you need to do to conform and to co-exist. Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule.
Very good point. I sometimes forget the value of luck and geography. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
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