Crazy Crap Item #204: The part where I attempt an essay on a seemingly arbitrary topic

So, today is Thanksgiving. And I suppose I should compose some paean to the day--thanks for our many blessings, mullings over the sacrifice of the pilgrims who founded our great nation, panegyrics on founding fathers and fruited plains.

But instead, I feel like writing about a topic that just keeps popping up in my life over the last few weeks. And if it doesn't initially seem like it's a topic relevant on a day of national thanksgiving--of celebrating the plenty in our lives, the traditions we share, the communities that bring us together--then stick around. You might just be surprised.

The topic is hair. Specifically, black hair. Now, of course, I have black hair (see profile photo), but that's not what I mean. I'm instead referring to what we used to call "African American hair." Someone told me recently that "African American" is over, and now it's all about "black," but I may be confused on that point. So for the sake of this exercise, I will stick to the term "black hair" to refer specifically to hair on the heads of black people--those of African American descent. I just can't see typing "African American" over and over and over on a holiday.

But to resume my theme: I'm embarrassed to admit that it wasn't until I was well into my 20s--teetering, in fact, into my 30s--that the idea that black hair was significantly and fundamentally different than white hair entered my consciousness. It's not that I hail from some snooty, all-white suburb. San Gabriel, Ca., my home town, was integration-central, but in our neck of the woods, the idea of "race" entailed the almighty triad: white/Latino/Asian. And I think, in terms of demographics, the Latinos were winning. There was a small handful of black kids in our school; few enough that, paradoxically, the fact of their blackness was incidental. So my exposure to black America was slight, at best.

So fast forward to--gulp--graduate school. One afternoon, I stop by the apartment of my friend Nicole. We had plans later that day, and since I was killing time, she told me just to stop on by. When I arrived, she had some mysterious cream smeared along the roots of her hair. She said, "Sorry, you caught me in the middle of an African American hair ritual."

This is the embarrassing part: It had never before entered my mind that Nicole straightened her hair. That OF COURSE she straightened her hair. That her hair, which always was so carefully coiffed, didn't just grow out of her scalp that way.

Now, this realization was strange and embarrassing because, although I did not grow up in a neighborhood replete with black kids, I had somehow picked up the knowledge that black people generally have curly, kinky hair. That cropped close, it makes tight little curls. That grown long and picked out, it makes wild, wonderful Afros that I've always secretly coveted. In fact, as a child, I purchased at a local flea market a little fashion doll that was black, and I always loved her tight little 'fro. I used to pat it lovingly after dressing her up for a night on the town. So, clearly, I had lurking in my brain a basic knowledge of black hair and its characteristics.

So it was with great mortification that I realized not just how remarkably ignorant I was--but how unable to see what was right in front of me. And trust me, that's an unsettling realization.

Fast forward about six years. I'm out of graduate school. I'm part of the work force, taking the Red line downtown everyday to work. During my commute, sometimes I'd read, sometimes I'd gaze out the window. But sometimes, I'd just stare at the heads in front of me. And since Chicago--though still shockingly segregated--holds a healthy mix of black and white, often the heads I found myself staring at were black.

It was at this moment that little kernel of realization planted by Nicole and her hair-straightening ritual took root. I started to notice--really notice--the remarkable variety in black women's hair and how they had dressed it. I became aware of the many options they were choosing from--straightened, au natural, extensions, colorings. And wigs! Why had I never noticed how many black women were wearing wigs?

Next, I began to reckon with the sheer amount of effort that went into these creations. The straightening alone, I knew, must be time-consuming, annoying, and must be done with steady regularity. But then there were pasted-down curls and squiggles of hair, arrangements of braids, careful interweavings of hair, natural and synthetic.

Dear God, I thought. How much time must that take? Hair-wise, I've always been pretty darn close to au natural. There was a spiral perm in the late '80s, but that was never repeated. My entire first year of graduate school, I stopped getting my hair cut at all, just to see what would happen. Turns out, it got really long.

My main point is, besides washing, cutting, blowdrying, and a very infrequent spritz of hairspray (for special occasions), I don't really spend a heck of a lot of time on my hair. And I resent the small amount of time its maintenance does require.

As I pondered the hair of my train-mates, I began to appreciate that, given how little inclined I am to dress and attend to my hair, I'm lucky I've got white-girl hair. It's straight. It's durable. It grows ridiculously fast, and it can be easily coaxed into just about any style. Or it can be pulled back in a ponytail and ignored.

So I mused on this fact, and decided I needed to learn more. Pushing aside all apprehensions about being one of those annoying liberal white folk who want to appreciate the "black experience" as a way to show how enlightened they are, I gingerly instant-messaged Nicole. My message was something along the lines of: "So, this black hair thing, it takes a lot of work. What's up with that?" But, I hope, with more grace, tact, and clarity.

Nicole, being a patient and amiable soul, helpfully enlightened me. She opened my eyes to the world of black hair maintenance. The regular visits to the neighborhood salon that take up the entirety of one's Saturday. The painful process of cornrow braiding. The ongoing, never-ending toil to keep one's hair up to code. (Believe it or not, I still have the transcript of the conversation saved in a Word file. It was that significant to me.)

But she also gave me a glimpse into the culture of the black hair--that when she used the phrase "African American hair ritual" so many years before, she wasn't being glib. She was referring--tip-of-the-iceberg style--to a rich, complex node of community life and culture. She told me how the local salon or barbershop was a neighborhood institution. One spends so much time there, one can't help but make it a center of shared culture.

Her account put me in mind of a salon that Eamon and I used to pass when we lived in Rogers Park that advertised "Styling, Weaves, Braiding, Neighborhood Folklore." We'd always loved that sign; now I felt I actually, in some way, understood more fully its significance.

So, I decided, I wanted to learn more. Mind you, this was before the outbreak of Barbershop, Salon, and Hair Show movies. This was before Tyra compassionately explained to a white girl contestant on America's Next Top Model that, yes, extensions hurt like the bejesus, and you have to pat them so you don't scratch your scalp and cause more problems down the line. So really, I was ahead of the white-folk curve, I like to think.

Naive and presumptuous as I was, I thought maybe I'd try to write an article about this phenomenon. I did a little research to see what else was written on the topic, and ran across an exhaustive book about the history of black hair. I was so blown away by the book that, paradoxically, I have kept no notes from it, not even its title. Googling like a fiend just now, I suspect it was Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps.

How, you may wonder, could I have failed to keep note of the book title--especially considering I kept an entire transcript of my IM conversation with Nicole on the same topic? The truth is, as I read the book, I could not escape the dawning realization that any role I'd try to play in recording or reporting on this cultural phenomenon was pretty suspect. Who was I? The great white translator of black experience? Did I think black writers couldn't sufficiently describe, analyze and celebrate this tradition on their own? And who was my audience? Clearly, black folk already know about this stuff. So I'm just talking to a non-black audience, which once again raised this spectre of the great white translator. Ick.

So while I pored over the book, intrigued by its scrupulous tracing of the history of black hair culture, stemming back from its African roots, through centuries in America, and up to today, I realized this was a conversation I needed to enjoy as audience, and keep my big, blabby mouth out of. As a result, I took no notes. Not even the title. Dang.

But the topic has stuck in my head. And in the last few weeks, it just keeps coming up. A friend of mine who is a teacher in the public school system was recently bemoaning the fact that she only just learned about the need to "pat" new cornrows to lessen the pain till they loosen up (revealing, in her mind, her ignorance about her students' experience). I've mulled over accounts I've read of cross-racial adoption--in which white parents must educate themselves in hair maintenance for their child, and how hard it is to cross that cultural line.

And then last night, Nicole posted as her status on Facebook the following: "Nicole is looking forward to the meeting of the White House and the hot comb."

As I drowsed into consciousness this morning, all these notions stewed in my brain, and I began to ponder the paradox at the heart of black hair culture. As was explained in that wonderful book I read, black hair culture grew out of the need to try to conform blackness to whiteness--to force kinky hair into straight silky locks--as a way, if not to gain the power of the dominant race, at least to align oneself with it aesthetically. At best, it was a means to get a toehold into that power. But at the least, it was a way to avoid calling attention to one's "difference"--a difference that could, as history all too clearly attests--be deadly.

But there's more to the story. This drive to conform, of course, starts as a sort of imposition from without. But soon enough, it's internalized. Black culture forms its own rules about how one manages one's "difference" via hair. There develop standards within the culture itself for the proper upkeep of one's hair--standards the dominant culture (white America) hasn't a clue about. It becomes self-policing.

And if that sounds grim and disappointing, there's actually a flipside to consider--one that's far more encouraging and even inspiring. In creating these internal standards, black America creates its own law, its own identity.

This can lead to concrete power. As recounted in the regrettably untitled book I consulted, the development of black hair culture both drove and was fed by the rise of black-owned businesses that served a black market, a chief example being Madame C. J. Walker, a pioneering entrepreneur in the field of beauty products designed especially for black women.

So some blacks gained real power--financial, political--from the industry that arose around black hair care. But hand-in-hand with this--and probably with more impact on the lives of everyday blacks--the culture of how one cares for one's hair provided a powerful community-building force: the neighborhood barbershop and/or salon. As Nicole had recounted to me so many years ago, the trip to the salon was like a weekly hajj to Mecca, and that many women travel miles to return to their childhood salons after they've moved out of the neighborhood. And where salons weren't plentiful, an aunt's house or Grandma's kitchen could fulfill the same purpose.

Mulling over this, I think back to my own childhood. I had a close, loving family. I was briefly a Girl Scout. (Hated it.) I was a member of several choirs. My family went to church. But I can't say I had a "community." If anything, I'd say my experience was "anti-community." We belonged to one parish, but another church was closer, so we went there. We weren't "joiners." I never felt a love for my Alma Mater. I've yet to go to a football game at the two universities I've attended, and can't even imagine going to an alumni event. Hell, I didn't even attend any of my three college graduations (undergrad, masters, doctorate).

Only now, as an adult, do I grasp what it means to be in a "community." I live on a fantastic block. As I've often recorded, whenever possible, we gather at the benches in front of Ruth's house and while away the hours sharing recipes and gossip. We keep an eye out for each other, and lend cups of sugar.

It's in experiencing this sense of "community"--and how it's formed by some accident of habit or behavior or geography--that I feel like I begin to experience something like the black hair thing. Here on 1500 Norwood, "community" has formed around the ritual of the sitting on the benches in front of Ruth's house and the fact that 6-year-old boys need to spend at least 3 hours a day simply running around and shooting fake guns at each other. For black communities, it's the fact that every week, you must spend hours tending to your hair.

I have no doubt that black hair experience has caused psychic scars for many--the push to conform, the belief that one must alter one's appearance to be acceptable. But I know that it's also provided strength and cohesiveness, a sense of shared experience that has empowered millions. I have no doubt that the civil rights movement found its impetus in the barbershop chair or while a small child wept from the sting of chemical straightener on her poor, red scalp.

And that's the weird, rich paradox of America and of human nature. Don't think any phenomenon will have a single, predictable outcome. Oppression become conformity becomes solidarity becomes a dream of power.

And then, suddenly, you've got hot combs in the White House. Amen.

Crazy Crap Item #203: The part where I prove to be a girl of small ambitions

Lately, I've noticed a strange trend in my dreams. No, not the unearthly appearance of spirit visitors that lately garnered such attention.

Rather, I've discovered an uncanny ability to realize I'm dreaming while in the midst of my dreams, and to react to the situations around me armed with this knowledge. I chalk it up to the fact that I've taken to the habit of arising at a normal hour, then rolling back over for an extra hour or so of sleep. These strangely reasonable dreams tend to occur just before I arise for good.

Here's an example: I recently had a dream that I was on a business trip (clearly a sign I'm dreaming), and was taking a work-out in the hotel gym. As I step on to the exercise equipment, I notice I am wearing my very costly silver watch. So I remove it and fling it to the ground. I hop on to exercise, and almost immediately realize that this is not a smart move. One does not simply fling one's fancy watch onto a gym floor, where it could be broken or purloined!

I hop off said equipment, and begin to search for my watch. I quickly discover that nearly everybody in this gym has done the same thing, so there are watches everywhere! How, oh, how shall I ever find my watch!! How could I be so stupid as to do this?

At which point, another part of my brain chimes in and says, "You wouldn't. Nobody would. This is clearly a dream. You can look all you want for that watch, but when you wake up, you can check your jewelry box, and it'll be there." I realize that this is probably true. I regret I can't somehow go check right now, but I assure myself this makes perfectly good sense. I abandon my search and go on my merry, dreamy way.

(For anyone who's interested, my dream-self was correct. The watch was in my jewelry box.)

So this morning, a similar thing occurs. I dream that I'm on my way to some sort of rehearsal, and realize that I need to grab a meal first. I stop in at a very seedy fastfood joint. Zany hijinx ensue--too disjoined to try to recount--but I end up ordering a chicken sandwich, a donut, and a diet Coke.

As I wait for my order to come up, it suddenly strikes me that I have no idea if I have any money to pay for this meal. I pull out my purse, which--as it turns out--is a triangular, "Hello Kitty"-inspired affair, made of transparent plastic and trimmed in pink. Since it is transparent, I quickly see that my big black wallet is not inside. It is totally empty.

But before I can even worry, that same, oddly rational part of my brain says, "This is a dream. You make it go any way you want. Just put your hand in the purse and pull out a $10 bill. That should cover it."

I do, I pay for my meal, and go on my merry, dreamy way.

It's not till later this morning, as I'm recounting this dream to Eamon that I realize I could’ve told myself to reach into my purse and pull out …. A $100 bill. A credit card. The Hope diamond. A gold-plated tiara.

But, no, I pull out a $10. Because that should just about cover it.

Dream big, little lady. Dream big.