Hair’s the thing:
For folks who are Black and Mixed-Black, that protein growing out of our heads is never neutral.
Hair texturism is as controversial and divisive as skin tones (colorism) and the shapes of our noses and lips (featurism).
No matter the actual texture(s), our tresses are always deeply political.
Why? Because we’re programmed by the ISMS in our communities, cultures, and society to assign value and either overestimate or underestimate our own and each other’s humanity based on our hair.
My hair story differs from that of many Mixed-Black women.
My mother, who was Jewish before Jews in the USA were considered white not only grew up with Black people, but her younger sister had Afro-textured hair. So, while Mom struggled with the hairbrush-breaking thickness of my hair, she knew how to groom and style it. Thankfully, I didn’t suffer the too-common uncared-for-hair syndrome that so many of my Mixed-Black sistren and brethren are forced to endure.
Since my multi-textured hair is more straight-ish than uniformly curly, my challenge was trying to understand and navigate my hair being called “good,” and the stereotypes and expectations accompanying that problematic label.
As a very young child, I was perplexed by the attention my hair attracted. The fawning compliments and obsession with styles and length lavished on my tresses always felt like part of a larger, problematic agenda. Since I didn’t have the context to better understand it, I accepted it as an inevitable nuisance in my life.
I was seven years old when some Black girls in my neighborhood predicted that my butt-length ponytail would cause me to be “stuck up” and “think I was cute.” So, I took action and cut it off. After those same girls fussed that I’d “wasted all that good, pretty hair,” I realized the game was rigged with no sanity in sight.
In high school, a bully set my hair on fire. In college, while I celebrated the wonders of having my very first Black teacher, she ridiculed my “blow” hair in front of the class as part of teaching Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes Are Watching God.
By adulthood, I was well versed in the nuances of hair politics. Still, no matter how long or short my hair was or how it was styled, everyone from loved ones to strangers on the street felt entitled to hit me with their preferences and opinions. Whenever possible I clapped back against the “good hair” label and all that it implied.
Then! Finally! Twenty years ago, my dear friend, the brilliant writer and natural hair advocate Linda “Mosetta” Jones requested an essay on my life with “good” hair for her groundbreaking (and still very relevant) book, Nappyisms: affirmations for nappy-headed people and wannabes!
NOTE: “Nappy” used in this context is not a pejorative, slur, or insult. Don’t believe me? Read the book! And, as her book explains, Linda earned the name “Mosetta” as “The woman who received a calling to lead the masses away from o-pressed hair to a place where they can be nappy, happy, and free!” (Nappyisms…)
Keep in mind that while the terms “good” and “bad” hair feel mighty antiquated in 2023, my hair missive was written before the widespread popularity of the now-standard hair type chart created by Oprah’s stylist, Andre Walker, in the 1990s.
While Walker’s chart has, thankfully, replaced “good” and “bad” with a less blatantly divisive number-and-letter system, it’s still seen as having issues, as this post on Mellohair.ca describes.
No surprise ‘cause progress notwithstanding, our hair remains as political as ever and the sentiments behind the “good” and “bad” terminology might have been rebranded but they’re still very much at play.
Straight from the scalp!
When Linda asked for my “good” hair story, it turned out that my strands had a great deal to say.
Keep in mind that I wrote this in 2003, before social media and long before we were having public convos on this and related topics. This message reps those times and while some of the references might feel dated, the spirit in which I wrote this remains unchanged.
So, without further ado, I give you my hair’s unfiltered opinion, straight from the scalp!
Who You Callin’ ‘Good?” The Confessions of Flo Blo
They call me Flo Blo.
I’m the hair that some people crave and covet, love to hate, and spend way too much time and energy obsessing about.
My good sisterfriend, Mosetta, the reigning diva of Nappy Pride, called and asked me if so-called ‘good’ hair—as I have been unjustly labeled—was overrated. Well, you don’t ask Flo Blo a question if you aren’t prepared to hear the truth.
Here’s my disclaimer: What I’m about to say may shock or offend you. I am not politically correct. But I speak from love and in hope of progress and solidarity. Strand to stand, sister to sister, root to root, we are one.
I was just a small batch of follicles when folks started callin’ me ‘good.’ Or more accurately referring to me as ‘that hair.’ You know, as in, “Oh, you’ve got that good hair.’”
For years I wondered why folks were singling me out. Was it because I grew down rather than up and out? Because I waved but didn’t curl or kink like so many of my friends? We’d get together and discuss it, my sister friends and I, worrying ourselves white trying to hold up under the madness of being branded “good” or “bad,” obsessed about, tortured, and abused.
Just so you know, we don’t like it. We just want to grow free, get some love and respect, and express our beautiful versatility and incomparable style.
To those of you who’ve been hooked on the hype and hypnotized into believing that having something like me on your head will make you more beautiful, desirable, acceptable, successful, wealthy, or beloved, let me just say in the immortal words of Malcolm X that, “You’ve been tricked. You’ve been hoodwinked. You’ve been bamboozled.”
To many folks I symbolize the maximum amount of status, prestige, and privilege that a Black person can attain. I represent the homogenized, pasteurized, ultra-diluted, un-kinked version of Blackness that has come to stand for an apparently “safe,” comforting, non-threatening “Negro.”
I am the striver’s dream, the integrationist’s icon, the badge of ultimate conformity.
Well, that’s what I symbolize and represent. But that’s not what I am. Don’t believe the hype!
The belief that anyone’s hair can be “good” or “bad” is deadly to the heart, the spirit, and the mind, distorting our proud, multi-faceted truths like a psychotic fun-house mirror.
I am not a standard of beauty, an indication of value, or a measure of anyone’s worth. I am not something to crave od aspire to. And I am definitely not the prize that anyone should have their eye on.
My texture, which is the logical result of blending gene pools from three continents, is simply a meaningless mass of protein to which some people have assigned far too much significance and power.
It doesn’t matter whether we are blow, nappy, permed, braided, loc’d, twisted, bumped, extended, weaved, fried-dyed-laid-to-the-side, fro’d, puffed, or cornrowed. All that matters is whether we are willing to liberate ourselves from this self-perpetuated slavery of the soul.
This whole “good-hair-bad-hair” concept—along with “fair” and “unfair” skin is a useless, self-destructive habit that we need to break. Because at the root, we are one.
From Nappyisms: Affirmations for nappy-headed people and wannabes! by Linda “Mosetta” Jones Copyright 2003 by Linda L. Jones.
You know I love to share the goodies…
These days, the ever-brilliant Linda Jones is applying her awesome talents to helping people heal through creativity. As The Writing Doula, Linda offers an array of services for tapping your muse and unleashing your creative voice—even if you’re not sure you have one. Be sure to check her out today!
Speaking of awesome, groundbreaking, must-read books, we’re still fund-raising for the first Be Your Mixed-Ass Self Anthology! Every single bit of support is much needed and deeply appreciated —’cause you know we need to get these Mixed-ass voices out into the world!
Thanks for ALL of your love, support, and awesomeness! I am because WE are, and appreciate you with my whole heart and soul!
Definitely can relate on the other side of the spectrum. My hair is 4c so I grew up hearing how so and so had "that good hair." Sadly many still believe in the good hair syndrome.
Good stuff! Thanks TaRessa!