This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America(14)

We may never find it, but we must keep digging anyhow. It is an arduous battle to piece together our existence while we are trying to resist during our individual lives. I do believe in the Audre Lorde saying that you cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. But we’ve been working in that house for centuries. We may know the tools better than the master, and we must know all the ways in which they operate in order to destroy the master’s power over our lives. We must consider white womanhood. If we abandon that prematurely without studying its influence, then we will not know all the ways in which that power functions so that we can trap it before it traps us. But we must not dwell on it for too long. For as long as white women have been appropriating our bodies, we have been insulted and afflicted. And frankly, I am tired of being in such an abusive relationship that I never agreed to in the first place. There was never any honeymoon period. There is no need to consider those who take without giving, speak without listening, and use feminism as a way to unify without analyzing black women’s differences and their complications.



I had no desire to see my natural hair until I went to Princeton and I saw many black women abandon the creamy crack and hot comb. Maybe it was due to a lack of sufficient funds or black hair stylists around the area, but nevertheless, I was inspired. One evening, two of my closest friends helped me to undo my Senegalese twists and wash my hair. Once the water hit my scalp, my strands did not rotate around one other in the stream. Instead they transformed into tight coils whose definition could only be seen if they were separated from one another with the use of hands or cream that consisted not of sodium hydroxide but shea butter, jojoba oil, coconut oil, aloe vera juice, and avocado oil, among other things. There was no pain, no burn. I stared at myself in the mirror, afraid to touch my own curls out of fear that they would snap off in my hands. I felt naked, unsure of my own natural beauty.

I went to a dorm party later that evening, and there I received more compliments than I ever had with any other style. At first, I was confused. I wondered if people were just being nice because they knew I was deathly insecure and they wanted to make me feel better about my hot mess of a hairdo. My afro barely touched my shoulders. How could anyone consider this beautiful? But they did. I will never forget the increased breadth of sensation I experienced when I walked out of my dormitory and felt the undulations of the wind coursing through my scalp. I didn’t have to worry about when I would need to schedule my next perm because the wind had gotten the best of my style. I’ll never forget how self-conscious I felt walking from one end of an Ivy League campus to the other, worried that I would feel less deserving than I already did. But damn, did it feel good to be free.

When my mother found out about my natural hair, she worried that my hair would break off because I wouldn’t be able to take care of it. So I watched YouTube video after YouTube video on how to moisturize, preshampoo, wash, deep-condition, and create two-strand twists. When I washed my hair with SheaMoisture products while showering and stepped out to return to the mirror, I did not immediately grab a towel to cover my body. Instead, I watched my hair spiral into tight coils again, the water hiding in and around my scalp, and I became aroused. I thought maybe this was because I was naked and watching water bead down the hills of my breasts, but I was looking only at my hair. For years, I had complied with a tradition and restrained my sexuality, the appeal of my hair, through perms and relaxers and hot combs. But this place, more than any other site on my body, was the domain of my humanity.

And if I step away from the mirror altogether, I can really look at myself: my skin, my large afro, and my curvy frame. The realization of who I am is more visceral. I look down at my thick thighs and my large breasts, and I know that I have this body. This body is mine and I hold on to it. I want to know how I exist in my own imagination. The black female imaginary is what happens when you see yourself as another black woman may see you. The black female imaginary is what happens when you look at yourself, when your body is what you hold on to and your mind focuses inward to inquire about who you are, not outward to actively combat what is out there. I know that as a black woman, I am a problem. I am a contradiction of what it means to be human, but I am still here anyhow. I speak, I talk, I think, and I walk with a swivel in my hips. Perhaps it is the black female imaginary and not whiteness that is strange and mysterious, but I prefer it to be that way. When I see other black women whose behavior and decision making towards their appearances I cannot understand, I know the parts I’m searching for in me are already in them and vice versa. We need to collect our many imaginations together in order to build a body of knowledge. We are fighting just by living.

I have been natural for over ten years now. My hair is longer than it’s ever been. Defining my curls takes a concerted effort. My afro is thick. My shrinkage is massive, although I prefer it this way. My hair holds much more than it ever has, and I feel like I am living who I really am. Rubbing coconut oil or shea butter into my curls becomes a meditative process, a way in which to maintain my beauty. If my hair is considered wild, so be it. I prefer it that way. Thankfully, a huge natural hair movement is happening. Many natural hair bloggers, video content makers, and even regular black women are emerging in our culture, so the dichotomized images of black hair are becoming less so.

Sexuality is harnessed through black women’s manes. Its wildness and expansiveness is a sight to behold. It is something that many institutions try to tame but cannot. And I, for one, enjoy living my life as a provocation.