By Miranda Armstrong

‘What have you done to your hair?’ A colleague asked me a few years back, eyeing my new straight look. I explained I’d put a relaxer on the ‘fro she’d last seen on me. ‘I’m horrified!’ She said. ‘It’s a political decision, what black women choose do with their hair!’

 Really? Do the hair decisions black women make always mean something?

The on-going debate about black hair often equates hair choices with specific approaches to life in white societies; black women who use weaves and relaxers do it in order to conform and assimilate, while those who wear natural hair do so as a conscious act of resistance. I question the assumption that black women’s hair choices always equal a particular stance. What about personal preference? Individual style? Experimentation and creativity?  I now wear my hair in natural styles but my decision to ditch the relaxer was not one of rebellion against the system. My main motivation was simple: preferring the look of my natural kinks. But my love of natural hair is not something I preach about – there is more than enough judgement around in black communities regarding the matter of our hair.

Black women’s hair choices are judged according to two laws; the law of respectability and the law of authenticity.  On one hand the law of respectability dictates that black women should help facilitate their acceptance by white society through disproving negative stereotypes and striving to uphold to dominant ideals of beauty.  This law manifests in the attitude that if you dare to go natural, you had better make your hair look good – that wearing your hair in a manner that disturbs the status quo  would be letting the side down by. On the other hand, there is the burden of mythic authenticity that decrees that for individual and communal uplift we ought to demonstrate a love of self and ‘blackness’ by channelling an afrocentric aesthetic that flies in the face of ‘whiteness’ and racism. Black women’s hair choices should demonstrate self-acceptance; it’s what‘s right and socially conscious. This is as controlling as the first law, only it is presented in the guise of being ‘pro black’ which makes it all the more confusing.

The policing of black women’s choices constrains personal freedom, leaving unchallenged the very structures that can shape how black women experience their hair: capitalism and its offspring, the media, beauty and fashion industries. Considering the effects of these forces, it becomes clear how black hair can be seen as a politically-charged topic.  But at the same time, the opinion that black hair is ascribed more meaning than it should be is still worth consideration. Are the hair choices of women of other ethnic groups dissected and judged in the same way?  While the socio-historic context in which black hair decisions are made is inescapable, making decisions based purely on complex politics only gives away our right to be self-defining. Wearing our hair the way we want, rather than how we feel we ought to, is an act of agency and allows us freedom of expression. Plus our declaration of individuality just may inspire another black woman to fully enjoy her own personal liberty, through her hair and beyond.