Last week was a strange week for my hair. For two years now
I had been working with my natural hair, normally when I’m home in the UK I
blow my hair out and flat iron it once a week (I know I can hear all you natural sista’s tutting at me and cursing
about heat damage), but after one week in the Caribbean with my body going
wild over the temperature change, having and achieving straight hair without
chemicals was a bit of a joke as I would just sweat the curls right back in
whilst I was still struggling to straighten them out of my hair, so I decided to
take it to the natural hair bloggers and find a way to manage and style my hair
with no heat what so ever, but to also kept it healthy and moisturised. It didn’t
take long for me to get into a routine of operation hair management at all, and
before I knew it, it had all become like second nature.
Dealing with the attention that my hair attracted was no
problem at all as this is what my Island’s people’s hair looks like anyway if
you’re into the natural look, so stares were few and far between where my hair
was concerned, stares for my style, now that’s a different story.
So after being stuck on an Island with somewhere between
39,000 and 40,000 habitants for 9 weeks it was way past time for me to take a trip,
as I could vastly feel myself going mad with boredom and lack of diversity.
So after a lot of research and route planning I was off to
the Virgin Islands and to my new favourite place, Puerto RRRRico. But it wasn’t
until I got to Puerto Rico that my hair started to get some unwanted attention.
The stares and the comments were not from the locals, as
Puerto is a pretty diverse Island when it comes to ethnicities. No, the attention
was from the likes of me or should I say the foreigners.
Encounter #1
I met a really cool guy who was playing the saxophone for
the band that was playing at the Arts festival across the street from my hostel
in Old San Juan, only later to find out that he was not part of the band at all,
he’d just rocked up with his sax and asked if he could play with them! To say
he pulled it off is an understatement. Anyway, after the band had finished
playing the heavens opened and pissed it down so we all ran for cover and ended
up in the bar across the street. As we were waiting to go in I could feel this
dude staring at me, which is always the perfect way to make a gal like me feel
uncomfortable. So when we got inside we started talking, I discovered that he
was from Czech Republic but lived in London, and knew someone that I also knew.
(The world is a small place my friends),
anyway he kept looking at my hair until he plucked up the courage and touched
it!
Now I’ve read my fair share of articles usually titled ‘Don’t
Touch My Hair!’ and comments from women with natural hair and their issues with
people touching it. If I’m to be honest I never saw what the big fuss was with
people touching their hair… until it happened to me.
I didn’t physically react to his touch but did feel violated
and that’s when the penny dropped and I realised what all those women were so
angry about.
The hair toucher then said “I like natural hair, I don’t like the extensions” which to if he
hadn’t touched my hair I would have like to reply “Right on brother!” but my mind was still in a state of shock and
also discomfort.
Him touching my hair wasn’t like one of my girlies or family
member touching my hair and telling me they like the style, it was like and literally
was a stranger touching part of my body without an invitation to do so, which
left me feeling like I wanted to revert and say “thanks for a great convo and all but I’m off, I don’t take well to
people I don’t know caressing my body!” But lucky for me I’m pretty good at
smiling through things and understanding when people don’t mean any harm. So I
did just that.
Encounter #2
Two days later I made friends with two Italian dudes as you
do, and spent the entire day with them. For the majority of the day I could
feel one of the Italian Stallions looking at my hair, eventually he said “you should make Rasta” to which I just
smiled and continued doing whatever it was I was doing. Later that day he
finally just went in for the kill and touched my hair, no wait to be precise he
squeezed my hair twice like a pom-pom on top of a woolly hat on a cold winters
day.
By now my mind was thinking WTF is this, for two years absolutely
nothing and in the space of 2-3 days my hair has seen more action than my bed
has seen for… well I won’t reveal just how long that’s been.
This time I felt less violated and more angry at the fact
that someone who I barely knew despite spending the day together crossed the
line and touched my body without my permission. You may think I’m taking it to
extremes because people who you don’t know touch you all the time, but it’s
never that personal, it’s usually by accident to which if they have any manners
is followed by a “Sorry love” or a
touch on your shoulder to get your attention, you know, that sort of physical contact.
But this kind of hair touching/molestation is something entirely different.
Encounter #3
I was standing in the queue for immigration at the airport
in Puerto Rico, when this D-bag walked up to me and said,
D-Bag: “Is your
hair natural?”
Moi: “Yes”
D-Bag: “Congratulations
you get a free pass”
(Moi looks around to
see if she’s being Punked)
Moi: “A free pass
for what?”
D-Bag: “I love
women with Natural hair!”
Moi: “I don’t
Understand. How does this get me a free pass and what for?”
D-Bag: “You see
this ticket right here?” (Shows Moi his
boarding pass) “Well this says silver so you can come with me because I’m
VIP and you won’t have to wait in that long ass line, you can just come straight
through with me, VIP treatment baby!”
Moi: (Laughs and calls him a dickhead in her mind)
“No thanks, me and my natural hair will take our chances in this queue”.
Although it baffled me for a short while, as much as I wanted
to and may want to in the future, I can’t get mad at people for things they do
not know. My hair just simply is not their hair, and no matter what they may do
to it, it never will be. People of ethnicities with thicker hair can apply
chemicals to their hair to achieve that European look and sometimes even that
feel, believe me I know, I once had the white girl flow with a fresh relaxer
and a good blow out. Weaves also allow people to achieve this look, but show me
the hair product that allows non ethnic’s (if that’s even P.C) to achieve this
natural thick Afro, full bodied, tight coiled, spiral curled hair and I bet you
any money the hair molestation will stop because the fascination and curiosity
will end as they’ll be able to play with their own hair all day which will be
as close to our hair as possible! But until then I will be as patient and understanding
as I can be, but in return I ask that you also understand that by unapologetically
touching my hair, you are unapologetically touching part of my body and this
freaks me out. So if you can, just ask and I’ll decide who touches what.
Lucky for the ethnic fool in encounter #3 he did not touch
my hair, he knew better and he simply would’ve had no excuse to either because
his hair was as afro and as natural as mine. Plus his sleaziness would’ve
freaked me out even more that the other dudes and that would not have gone down
well in an airport.
Love Sara (A little
lady experiencing something new). xxx
All Images sourced from Google.
