What started out as trying to find at most, a new conditioner for my sad ends has led me right into the middle of the strange condition that is our ethnic identity.
Or rather, the lengths we have gone, and will continue to go without intervention, to alter that identity.
It started off with the argument I've heard for years: Black women relaxing their hair as opposed to going natural. As far back as the hot comb, women have been going back and forth with the hair issue- throwing crude labels at each other in order to justify their stance. Black women who relax are wannabes- desperately trying to fit in a dominant white society that would never allow them to fit in, regardless of a change of hair. They are fake for supposedly trying to whitewash their identity. Black women who go natural are wannabes too- earth crunching, regal types who are so far up their asses, because they haven't "forsaken their true heritage", and therefore are that much closer to Africa. Somewhere in between those divides, there's the debate over mixed women and their "good hair", which allow them to simultaneously "assimilate" into white culture and still be "true to their roots." I don't agree with either side, really. I'm tenderheaded* as I don't know what, so I started relaxing my hair to avoid the painful horror that is braiding; I'm considering going natural because I want to avoid the painful horror that is the touch up*.
That tidbit of conflict linked me to more issues that haunt the community that has been affectionately and empoweringly named "The Brown Girls." Asian, African, South American women the world over risking health and identity by aggressively using bleach creams popularly touted in mainstream culture as the only way to be successful and happy- by literally whitewashing their heritage off of them. Eating disorders rising in Hong Kong women; Asian girls opting to undergo "double eyelid" surgery to erase one of the strongest defining characteristic of their ethnicity. Black women spending thousands of dollars on lip reductions.
On an even more eerie, yet far less discussed note, white women getting collagen injections, butt and breast implants, spending countless hours tanning. Tanning! Think about it- the dominant race actually going out of their way to become darker! Though much of these procedures, especially in regards to Caucasian women, are considered to just be a part of today's popular culture and are generally positively viewed upon, a closer look will reveal that white women are just as much a part of the identity crush as any other ethnicity(though perhaps not more so).
So what's going on here? Feel free to think about that, expand on that- just as long as you post it in the comments. :)
SupremeGirl
On an even more eerie, yet far less discussed note, white women getting collagen injections, butt and breast implants, spending countless hours tanning. Tanning! Think about it- the dominant race actually going out of their way to become darker! Though much of these procedures, especially in regards to Caucasian women, are considered to just be a part of today's popular culture and are generally positively viewed upon, a closer look will reveal that white women are just as much a part of the identity crush as any other ethnicity(though perhaps not more so).
So what's going on here? Feel free to think about that, expand on that- just as long as you post it in the comments. :)
SupremeGirl
I admit that, for about ten seconds, I kept my hair natural b/c I wanted to be an "authentic" black person. But that really isn't the reason, it's just that I don't think my hair will take a perm anyway. And it seems like quite a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteEspecially now that I attend a predominately white college, I think more and more about race and identity and who the hell I really am. There was a discussion a few months ago among the black students about dating at Swat. And an ignorant guy said that he refuses to date black girls because they have double eyelids. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. How does someone look past every defining characteristic, and head straight to the eyelids? I don't even know what my own eyelids look like? That was weird all around.
A black friend and I were joking about our "natural, never-fade" tans. Why do white people tan? It seems as if they want our physical characteristics, we want theirs, but no one wants to touch the whole package (the mindset, the emotions, etc.).
I tend to think that white women have it all: they're white. Sure, they're female, they're oppressed, whatever. Women's lib was all for them. The suffragettes weren't exactly picketing for black women in the early 1900s. But I think they understand themselves just as little as we do. Theirs seems to be a struggle w/ gender issues, though, while ours is race and gender. And usually, race comes first. I never really thought of myself as a black woman until I started college and joined a Women of Color group. I always thought of myself as black, but there is that gender aspect that tends to get ignored among black people, generally.
I'm rambling. I'll stop now.
Carolyn
Carolyn-
ReplyDeleteHere you are welcome to ramble as you like. Most black people tend to see race over gender- or even themselves! And I think that most minorities don't really feel they are minorities until they end up joining an ethnic group- usually in order to find some sort of belonging in a school where they stand out, and sometimes for the wrong reasons.
Thanks for reading!
-SG