Once I was in a supermarket in Accra, Ghana. A strange man approached me.
“Hi, you must be South African,” he said beaming. “Yes, I am, what gave me away?” I asked. “Your hair. Or lack of it. Few Ghanaian women would be brave enough to do that.” I was bald at the time.
It was not only Teddy who decided on my nationality based on my hairstyle. At the market, at the hotel, at the bureau de change, from a cab driver, I was marked as being South African. Which, ordinarily would not have been a bad thing but this instance, I wanted to avoid. It was 2008.
The reggae icon Lucky Dube had just been shot in Johannesburg. From the generally gentle Ghanaians, “You, madam, are you from South Africa?”
Me, “yes I am.” Speaker, “But what is wrong with you people? Why did you kill Lucky Dube (pronounced Dub)?” Me, “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I am really sorry.” Commiserating and full of guilt before realising that hey, I did not kill Lucky Dube.
While passing through Nigeria during this same trip, a handful of men at Murtala Mohammed Airport gave their comments freely. [Insert Nigerian accent here] “Sister, has someone in your family died?” I was asked more than once. “No, why?” Answer with a question like the good Christians many Nigerians are.
“So why did you do that? Why did you cut your hair? A woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Even in the Bible it says...” In South Africa, most of my friends and family members have at one time or another written a status update about women’s hair.
In Kenya I have read some opinion pieces about women’s hair from different people. One columnist a few weeks back stated that men should steer clear of women with short hair as it denotes too much independence. He was not quite clear independence from what.
I concluded maybe it was independence from the salon. Another columnist, a ‘conscious’ brother sort, decided he was going to highlight his distaste with the weave.
How it was unAfrican, unnatural un-what what. Only problem is that I have spotted said brother with the beweaved many a time. Another full page article explored the whole short hair, long hair debate. One of the people interviewed in the article – someone who obviously owns a salon/kinyozi- stated that they do not cut a woman’s hair unless they have the permission of her husband.
There was no follow up article on men’s facial hair and whether the kinyozi only ever cut a man’s beard after they have got the permission of the wife.
The politicisation of black women’s hair has got so bad that I have considered writing an “I have a Dream” speech for it. I discuss these hairy issues because I have been growing my hair for a year and I seriously need to see a dif- ferent hairstyle in the mirror beyond my twists, braids, and afro.
I thought about locks but they are too permanent and I am fickle. I thought of a perm but quickly dismissed it because my hair is too thin and besides, I am still tortured by visions of the anti-perm slogans in taxis in South Africa and Zimbabwe reading, “I love your perm, but not on my window.”
I even thought of a weave, beweave it or not, but decided I may have to wait and see whether I can make a trip next year to the World Cup so I can get 100 percent Brazilian.
Pre-Brazil, I may just return to the bald head. But whatever I decide, I really hope this time around some random people on the street will not feel entitled to comment on my – or any other black woman’s - hair unless it is to compliment me.