An African American Girl & Her Hair

I am a young African-American girl living in a predominantly white environment. Emphasis on the African. Although my father was born in New York, he spent most of his life in Wum, Cameroon. Whereas my mother is a Kenyan through and through and has traveled from country to country throughout her childhood. I take great pride in my heritage and the African community I have been brought up in, but it comes with many negative stigmas. When I started elementary school I always wore my hair in my crochet braids and all of the kids were fascinated. They would always ask “Is that your real hair?” or “Is that a weave. Don’t black people wear weaves?”. The real showstopper was when I released my natural hair: The ‘Fro. All the kids would come flocking to take their turn at touching this “untamed” thing that laid upon my head. “I wish I had your hair. It's so fluffy like a pillow!” they all said, and it made me feel so special. I would always beg my Mom to let me take my braids out early because I knew the next day I would be the focus of the classroom.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I began to say “No” when some random stranger would come with their hands stretched out, ready to grope my head. It soon made me feel like I’m some sort of spectacle or part of a petting zoo. Many have tried to guilt me into permitting them to touch it by saying things like “I just wanna know how it feels, I’m not trying to be offensive I’m just curious”. I even once heard a boy in my class say, “Her hair isn’t like the others. She doesn’t have normal hair,” as he proceeded to try and justify what he meant by that statement. Now, that wasn’t the first time I noticed I wasn’t like the other kids I was surrounded by, but it was definitely a defining moment. I’ve grown up in a relatively welcoming community, but I’ve also had my fair share of racial encounters. Starting in early elementary school when a young boy yelled, as I was playing with my friends, “Watch that fat black cow jump over the moon”. Or that time where the N-word was yelled at me as I was walking off the bus with my friend to go to camp. We had both thought that it was directed towards her and asked a camp counselor what it meant, but obviously received no answer. Looking back I’ve realized that that derogatory term was meant for me. Then in 8th grade, a group of boys yelled “Monkey” in my face as I got up to throw away my trash in the cafeteria.

Now, even through all of this, I have found beauty in the color of my skin and the kinkiness of my hair. I don’t want it to seem like everywhere I go I have people touching my head and asking me to speak African, it comes in more subtle ways. I’m very grateful to have parents who have raised me to be prideful in my African background and helped me realize that there is much more to it than the American depiction of what it means to be African-American. Being African-American is beautiful and powerful- I’m hopeful to see the day where it is normalized to be a bit different than everyone else.