Hairpeace - requirement for Afro-American women writers to discuss hair - Section 1: Black South Culture

African American Review, Spring, 1993 by Pearl Cleage

In fact (EIGHT) ever since the kids in my elementary school established that I was not an albino, I was allowed into the "fine" category simply on the basis of two out of three. I was certainly light enough and I had blue eyes. The fact that I didn't have "good hair" was overlooked as unfortunate, but not terminal, and on the strength of the two things I did have, people sometimes consciously or unconsciously upgraded the quality of my hair by several huge notches. This accounted for a pomade-waved paramour's shocked surprise at the condition of my sweat-soaked hairdo as we parted after a particularly satisfying slow dance.

"I thought," he said indignantly "that you had good hair!" Undoubtedly this boy was what is known as "color struck"; otherwise the condition of my pageboy would have been of less consequence to him than the fact that we had been grinding in perfect synch throughout "If This World Were Mine." I probably would have kissed him in a friendly sort of promissory way if he hadn't acted such a fool.

(NINE) this presumption of light skin "good" hair also accounted for the time a new beautician rinsed the soap out of my locks to discover a thickly tangled brown mass instead of the limply obedient curls she'd expected. "She's too light to be growing some shit like this," she hissed to her friend behind the next chair, rolling her eyes in my direction as if I had willed my roots to crinkle just to fuck with her Friday.

Okay. Last one.

My sister, aged twenty and in the throes of the black cultural revolution and her first love affair, cut her shoulder-length. hair into a beautiful afro about the size and shape of Kathleen Cleaver's when she married Eldridge. She put on a pair of dangling African earrings and went over to show off the new look to my grandmother

We rang the front doorbell and my grandmother peeked out the window to see who it was. Catching sight of my sister's hair, my grandmother's smile hardened into a line of disapproval. She flung open the door and shook her pale bony finger in my sister's flushed face.

"What have you done?" she demanded, her voice trembling with indignation. "If God had intended your hair to look like that, he would have made it that way!"

My sister looked at my grandmother and said in a tone that mirrored complete confusion but no disrespect, "Say what?" And my grandmother said, "O-o-o-o-o-o! This terrible hair!"

That's TEN!

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta-based creative writer and journalist. She is the editor of Catalyst, a literary journal. "Hair-peace" was written as a performance piece.