AMARAH GHORI
Special to The Leader
Hair.
Everyone cares about their hair in some way, shape or form.
I learned what it took to care for my natural 3C hair at a young age.
My earliest memories start with me going to preschool in my predominately white school; being a person of color there, I was an abnormality.
That wasn’t something I paid any mind to though.
I grew up immersed in two cultures, so much so that two people being different races didn’t confuse or stand out to me: it was my normal.
My mother, a Black Jamaican woman, raised me with my Pakistani father.
I was a mixed child, but not many people could decipher that, so to them, I was just Black. The whole other part of me was being erased.
The first time I thought about the differences between me and my peers was when I went into the school and I had my hair styled into a “puff” at the top of my head.
I remember going in and hearing kids whisper to each other, “Why does her hair look like that? It’s so poofy.”
That was the first time I ever felt self-conscious.
By age five, I knew I was different. They would call me “poof-ball” as they laughed in my face, unaware that those comments would be something that I would carry with me for the rest of my teenage years and into early adulthood.
At that age, I didn’t even know enough about what it all meant, nor did I fully know how to describe the emotion I was feeling.
Embarrassed. Ashamed.
Many other words could go in place of the other, and I know now that I was too young to comprehend it. Because of that, I never went home and spoke to my parents about the situation.
It came as a shock to my mother when I would later tell her that story in my teenage years.
From then on, I was always overly concerned about my hair being “too frizzy.”
I worried about how it looked in a ponytail. I worried about how it looked down. I worried if it looked too dry. I hyper-fixated on making my hair look perfect.
I became comfortable only wearing my hair in a slicked-back braided ponytail. My mom would always do my hair like that before school. The hair gel, bristle brush and my headband always set the tone for my day.
If it didn’t look right, I worried and I never wore my hair down because I feared what people might think or say.
Fast forward to fourth grade picture day.
My mom really wanted me to wear my curls out for the picture. I wasn’t convinced that it was a good idea, as I knew my anxiety would take over and my hair would be all I would be able to think about during the day.
After a lot of convincing, I gave in and let her style it out in the way she wanted. Once the picture was taken, I felt a sigh of relief that it was finally over.
I could finally stop stressing about how my hair would look in the picture and could put it up into a bun.
But before I could do so, I heard whispers and got uncomfortable stares from other students as I walked through the halls.
I heard someone say, “Did you see Amarah’s hair today?” as they laughed and made a face of disgust. I wondered if they made these comments because my hair was too “poofy.”
Defeated, I put my hair up like I wanted and continued the rest of my day knowing that I would never want to wear it down again.
As I’m getting older, I’m realizing how impactful these instances were for me as a child and how these experiences live with me and shape my being.
I’m still always wondering if my hair looks good enough.
Even now, if I wear my hair down, I’ll wonder if it looks too “poofy.” Hair bias is real and it’s something that many Black women have to deal with.
On top of the stress I give myself, it’s frustrating to know that I have to worry about whether my hair is “professional” enough for someone else too.
It’s a harsh reality that many women of color have to face.
If we don’t have hair that is “presentable,” then we are made fun of or belittled — whether that’s in the workplace or day-to-day life.
It’s something that we can’t control but it’s up to us to embrace ourselves and our natural beauty. My curls are beautiful and I know that now. Having different celebrity figures in the media to look up to helped me understand this idea.
One of the first shows that I watched that made me appreciate my hair and features was “Black-ish.” Yara Shahidi and Tracee Ellis Ross always had their hair out and it was big and beautiful. It made me see that you can live in your beauty and not change it.
In an interview with Vogue magazine, Ross talks about how the lack of representation in the media is what made her struggle with her hair.
That’s something I resonate with too because when you’re not around people that look like you enough (which was my case growing up), or if you’re surrounded by people that don’t have hair like yours, it can feel isolating. Ross was one of the first people that I looked up to because she didn’t care what others thought.
She owned her hair and she owned her look.
Ross even created a hair line out now, called Pattern Beauty.
This line is something so impactful for me because it makes me feel beautiful and reminds me that someone else has experienced what I have when it comes to finding the right products to appreciate your hair.
We can’t control what others say to us or how they react and the way we look to them, but we can control how we react and what we do from there. I want you to know that if you have curly and coarse hair, your hair is beautiful and don’t let anyone stop you from owning your looks.
You too can find meaning in your hair and being yourself.