Black hair hierarchy is a metaphor for life. It’s not just about hair – it’s about racism.
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| Image - Creative Commons License |
I am the manager of an emergency placement centre, or orphanage, in
Mitchells Plain – a largely coloured location situated about 30 km from
the Cape Town’s CBD.
Every child in our care has a story of unimaginable pain and
suffering. We do what we can to provide the necessary interventions and
solutions that can help them to slowly change the way their story ends.
We receive calls almost daily where we are told horror stories and
asked to provide a place for a child that has been abandoned, abused or
neglected. I don’t think I will ever get used to these phone calls, no
matter how many I take. When the social worker tells me “It’s a girl” my
heart always drops a little further: three little words that are a
clear indicator of the sexual, emotional, psychological and racial
stereotyping that lies ahead.
The greatest challenge I have is convincing the young black and
coloured girls who are brought to my orphanage that they are beautiful,
that they deserve to be part of a story that has positivity and
potential.
Shit must be pretty messed up if you have to work hard to persuade a little girl that she is beautiful.
The information a little girl has comes from the people around her,
the structures she lives in, the media, the words and ideas that she is
exposed to. If she is not comfortable in her skin, her body, her hair –
it is our fault. We have failed her.
We created and accepted a world where our structures, words and
actions placed her, the young black girl, right at the bottom of the
system. How can she recognise her power and worth when everything around
her reminds her that she is right at the bottom? We have accepted a
system that privileges the interests, ideals and standards of everyone
else over the integrity, dignity and autonomy of these girls.
I see her seek comfort in reading fairytales of a white princess with
long flowing gold hair cascading down her back. This princess with the
happily-ever-after is so far removed from her reality.
She calls the Barbie Doll she plays with “Beautiful Tina”. This doll
is skinny and white with flawless skin, not dark and bruised like she is
today. It is this definition of beauty that makes it so hard to
convince the little black girl in my care that she is in fact beautiful.
The devaluing of African physical features, including hair, skin and
features, is the reason little Thandeka thinks she is not beautiful. She
exists in a culture where Blackness exists as the antithesis of beauty.
It is racism disguised as fairytales, movies, jokes, children’s
animations, toys, and school rules. I am not a writer or a journalist. I
don’t have the words to describe how this affects the way many of these
little girls see themselves. The only way I can do this is to show you.
Watch this video (turn up your volume because it is very soft). Please watch on South Africa Today - here is the link = VIDEO
This is Nati, a little girl aged 8. This is not the first time she has
been visibly upset because of her hair not being long enough, soft
enough or smooth enough. On this particular day she was teased at school
and called a “pitte kop”. She came home and insisted on having her hair
chemically treated/relaxed so that it would be softer, smoother and
flatter.
We began explaining to her how the chemicals would damage her hair,
and she became inconsolable. All she wanted was hair “like on the TV”.
She told us that this was more “girly” that she didn’t want to look like
a boy. It devastated me. Here, Eurocentric beauty norms play such a
role in how my girls determine beauty and femininity. As long as we
allow these ideas to remain so entrenched in our systems they become
normal.
This eight-year-old girl will continue to believe that her natural
hair is not normal, that it needs to be changed to fit the standard of
beauty set by some white person on TV. Why should she conform to
standards designed to accommodate girls who do not share her hair type
and bone structure that she can never attain?
I have heard girls say:
“But you can’t be a princess, you are not white.”
“But all businesswomen are white.”
“Look at your hair, you need to relax it.”
“When I am bigger I want straight hair.”
This is what happens when young girls draw upon the images in the
media to determine their definition of beauty. Even though there are a
few exceptions, our media is white, our school codes of conduct are
white, our storybooks are white, our priorities are white, our
structures are white. Nearly everything is white and male.
The root of the problem, is not the roots of a young girl’s hair. The
root of the problem is institutionalised racism. The root of the
problem is where gender and race intersect.
The saddest part is that some of us do not even realise this.
Please read the entire article published on South Africa Today News -
Note - this article was written for
GroudUp by Anonymous
