India Arie explains the concept of "good hair" on her song ‘I Am Not My Hair’, as she sings; ‘Good hair means curls and waves, bad hair means you look like a slave’. In black communities around the world typical West African features are often deemed undesirable. The brainwashing that occurred during the colonisation of Africa and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade conditioned some people into thinking that looser curls and lighter skin are superior to tightly coiled afro textured hair and darker skin. This brainwashed mindset was passed down from generation to generation and promoted in the media, having an adverse impact on people with tightly coiled afro textured hair.
I grew up in North West London in an area with a large Afro Carribean community. The word 'picky head' was often used as an insult to describe afro textured hair that wasn't neatly groomed. People with loosely curled hair or straight hair rarely got mocked for having messy hair. It was clear that some people had been conditioned into thinking that there was something inherently wrong with afro textured hair.
When my son was born he had silky defined curls and people would compliment his hair. As the months went by, my son's hair became coarser and his curls became tighter. I wanted to cornrow his hair but my Nigerian husband was strongly against it. I left my son's hair loose and free to grow into an afro keeping it washed, conditioned, detangled and moisturised. Members of my husband's family criticised my son's hair style because I didn't shave off his hair. It seemed that longer hair was only acceptable for Nigerian boys if it was loosely curled. After my son's first birthday I started taking him to the barber's so they could shave the back and sides of his hair and I would comb out the top into a fro. The above photo was taken when my son was 14 months old and he wore his hair in that style for a year.
On the day of my son's second birthday party I took him to the barber's for a shape up but the barber took too much hair off of the top. I had to cut my son's hair down to one level and start growing it out again. As my son's hair grew out I would brush out the coils to try and make his hair look neat but it kept trying to coil up. He was too young for me to slick his hair down and wrap it with a scarf to smooth out the coils so I kept brushing it.
The process of growing my son's hair brought back memories from my childhood when people would describe afro textured coils as 'picky'. I would regularly brush my son's coils out thinking 'I don't want anyone to call him a 'picky head' but the coils kept coiling up after I brushed them. One day I got a revelation that the 'picky head' concept was rooted in anti-blackness. People wouldn't refer to my son's coils as 'picky' if his hair was loosely curled. Once I realised that I had been impacted by anti-black conditioning I stopped trying to disrupt my son's natural coil pattern.
As my son's hair continued to grow it formed cute cylindrical coils and he now receives loads of compliments on his hair. My son loves his coils because afro textured hair IS "good hair". Healthy hair is "good hair" and we need to internalise that so we can teach the next generation of children to love themselves completely. There isn't anything wrong with manipulating our afro textured hair to change up our style but we shouldn't be ashamed of the way that our hair naturally looks when it's wet. Self-acceptance brings freedom from shame and embarrassment.
