Hair-Gate 2010

I’ve made a decision on “hair-gate ‘10”. I’m not going to say a word to the teacher or the director.

It probably won’t be a popular decision. It might look like I chickened out. In a way I did. In a way, I didn’t.

See, I’m not your average “non-confrontative” person. In fact, I’ve been known to perhaps, at times, get up in people’s faces and let them know exactly how I feel about things. I’ve lost friends because of this, because of not backing down, or feeling I was right and they were wrong. I’m no door mat. My first instinct is to fight for what is just, that is why I spent 4 years in grad school and my career being a social worker. But I’m not going to address the issue with her new teacher and here’s why:

This teacher has access and influence over my most precious *possession* (I don’t own her but can’t think of the correct term here). She can smush Charlie like a bug, on a daily basis, and leave no physical marks. She could belittle her, ignore her, pinch her, or worse, for 9 hours a day and I might never know. She has way too much power in this situation for me to rock the boat. Do I think she would do those things? Of course not! If I did, Charlie wouldn’t be enrolled in school there. But she COULD if she wanted. She has unlimited ACCESS. She could just play favorites and damage Charlie’s self-esteem or other little twisted mind games. She could do those things if she was mad at me or resentful.

I also don’t think that the teacher took her hair bands out for a malicious reason. Yes, she’s ignorant of African American culture. Yes, she’s ignorant of how long it takes to do Charlie’s hair and the pride I take and the love I put into it. But I do not think she was thinking anything like: ”Here’s a black child and I don’t like black people and so I’m going to take her elastics out.” She was most likely annoyed that some of them were breaking, maybe concerned over kids eating them, maybe in a crappy mood and short tempered. It’s passive racism, the same way CVS not having black skin toned band-aids is systemic racism. Still hurtful. Still no excuse for. But I don't think it came form a deliberate place to hurt us.

So, weighing the possible good that can come from this, versus the possible repercussions, I'm not going to address it. What I will do is, over the next few weeks and months, educate her on Charlie's hair process. I will mention plenty of times how long C sat for her hair last night, or ask her, "What do you think of C's awesome braids? I did them myself! See how much work went into each one?" and slowly teach her.

I’m going to buy the stronger elastics and see what happens.

If she does anything like this again, I will definitely go to the director.

And I will be watching VERY CLOSELY for ANY racist overtones coming from her.

I'm on guard.

GRRRR.

Is this Hair Racism??

See post below for details in case you missed the originating post. Here are a couple of my responses to comments:

Kiki, I checked the handbook after you suggested it. It has stuff about keeping fingernails short, but nothing about hair or hair accessorizing.

In response to your lovely long comment (thank you you obviously thought a lot about it) I, too, would be thrilled if someone DID C's hair nicely. In this case though, I did her hair, and someone UNDID it. Without asking. I do think it's slightly racist, maybe not purposefully, but lordy if black kids have to go through this everywhere they go to school, it does seem mighty exclusionary. Also, everyone KNEW she was a white teacher and I never mentioned her color. They just knew a black teacher wouldn't dare undo C's hair which takes a lot of work to do.

But Kik, imagine if you spent an hour on Ola's hair, and did intricate braids, and then when you picked her up, they were all undone.... How would you feel? Then add in that the teacher's a different race, the majority race...

I did ask the director about the little rubber bands and she said they were fine.

Michelle, I did not talk to the teacher this morning because there were other people in the room and I didn't quite know how to approach it... I had imagined she would be alone like usual, not with some other parents in there. That threw me for a loop and I chickened out. Maybe tomorrow. I need to get my momma bear hackles up and protect my baby, or at least inquire politely about WHY she took them out.

I was thinking today, maybe she took them out and the teacher who sometimes does C's hair was going to put in the better kind of elastics that that don't break as easily, but ran out of time? That would have been fine with me. It just didn't feel like that was the case though....( because of the main teacher's attitude the day before about having to pick up pieces of elastic.)

So far, I have been lucky. Even though I live in "the South", I have not experienced any overt racism towards C. Not that I noticed anyway. I hate to think this was our first experience of it, because I was so proud of our little city. But I suppose *they* are everywhere, North, South, East and West. And *they* are ugly everywhere.

Camil2, I have given two of the African American teachers permission to do C's hair. They do a great job, but they only do her hair when I have left it in an Afro. They have never UNDONE something I did (even if I did a poor job). They just plain know better. This DID remind me of the teacher who cut off that girl's braid, although this is NOWHERE NEAR as bad as that. If she had done that, I would have been calling the news stations.

One of my regular readers, who was in ET with me picking up her son, wrote me an email (which I didn't ask permission to post) but basically the first sentence was that this teacher is racist and the reader obviously felt very strongly about it. That was her first reaction reading what happened.

Thanks for all the input. I'm glad I wasn't off base to be irked by this. For a second there, I second guessed myself and thought I was irritated by my work day (which I was) and that I was over blowing the hair thing. Your comments let me know I was on track to feel angry and offended. And I did originally write that she was a white teacher, and then decided I should erase that, as possibly offensive on my part, like I would be starting something by hinting at racism. But since all the commentators knew she was white anyway, I do think that proves if not racism, at the LEAST a cultural ignorance.

I'm in a BADDDDDD Mood.

GRRRRR.

Stay outta my way!

I'm cranky, angry. If I could, I would take the world by the scruff of it's neck and SHAKE IT. GRRRR!!!! I would lift my lips and show my sparkling canines and tell the world to eff off.

Which is better than being sad and depressed, but not much.

I don't like Charlie's new teacher. There I said it. Chances she will read this are about one in..... how many blogs are there? A zillion?

She is not warm like Whitney was. She is snotty and has no sense of humor. Although, it appears that C has stopped biting, so I should be grateful for that. And I am. i just wish she was fun and friendly.

When Charlie came home from vacation with beads, she complained to the director that the beads were a choking hazard. Whitney denied this and told me not to take them out until I was ready to take them out. The beads were small, and had large holes in them. Whitney said the state classes she took expressly said they were not chocking hazards and were part of the African American culture.

Ok, whatev. I took them out when they were ready to come out. Only then did the director tell me what the new teacher said about them. I didn't argue I just ok, we won't put beads in her hair again. I asked if the little rubber bands were ok, and the director said yes, "if the kids eat them they'll pass right through."

So yesterday I spent an hour braiding her hair. When I picked her up, her new teacher commented that the elastic bands break. "I found pieces of them all over the floor." She didn't say I shouldn't use them, but she had an annoyed attitude. I counted how many were off: 4. Four rubber bands the size of a dime. "All over the floor"??? Riiiight.

I guess she expected me to undo all the braids that night. Right away. Well, I didn't. I had a hundred other things to do than RE-DO my daughter's hair that I had already spent a lot of time on and gotten express permission from the director to use those rubber bands.

Today when I picked her up, ALL the rubber bands were off. About 20 of them. The teacher wasn't there, she was in someone else's classroom. Am I wrong to be pissed she took them out??? Without asking me??? All that work gone! I bet if she ever had to do braids on a 18 month old she wouldn't have DARED take them out knowing the torture work invigorating challenge that is braids.

So, if I'm not allowed to put in beads, and I'm not allowed to put in rubber bands, how exactly does she expect me to do Charlie's hair? An afro every day???

Doing her hair is part of our bonding time, it's time when I get to take care of her. I enjoy experimenting and learning new ways of doing her hair. I do not want to do an afro everyday.

An afro is for when we don't have time, when we're "uninspired", when we're "lazy", or just to give her hair a break and be totally natural. I like to make her look special and like I cared about her hair.

That's not really why I'm angry though. That's peanuts compared to what REALLY pissed me off. It's work stuff.


Ok, so to counter balance my negativity:
1) I'm grateful Charlie stopped biting in her new classroom.
2) I'm grateful I have a well paid job that is quite secure.

Sometimes I just need to vent and spewing this stuff out into the universe via Internet is strangely satisfying.

Thanks for listening.

Who do you hate today?

Dr. Seuss's Birthday Celebration!

Charlie's daycare celebrates birthdays the same way I do: all week long!

This week was Dr. Seuss's birthday. What an fabulous children's author. I love all his work. My all time favorite is "Yertle the Turtle", mainly becasue I love his name. "Yertle". It just makes my tongue giddy.

Monday was "Crazy Hat" day.
Tuesday was "Crazy Shoes" day
Wednesday was "Crazy Hair" day
Today was "Pajama" Day.

Due to biting stress and stress from missing work due to snow again, I totally forgot about the first 3 days. To make up for it, yesterday I helped Charlie dress in all of the above: crazy hat, shoes and hair.

Here she is "dressing herself". She can put on shirts and pants on her own, and is working on shoes.





Here is her "crazy hair" which was just taking her braids out.


Here is her total outfit, with hat and sparkly ruby boots.


Here she is after sneaking into my drawers and stealing a Dali T-shirt and putting it on all by herself.


The most excellent news, that I'm scared to write about for fear of jinxing it, it that she has gone ALL WEEK without biting! She was switched into a slightly older class with slightly stricter teachers (I think) and it stopped. I am bringing her a Lifesaver everyday so she does get a reward, but no chart. The Director ended up nixing the chart, not because she thought it wouldn't work, but because she thought the teachers couldn't be consistent enough (with 12 kids to a class, I understand). Anyway, whatever works is FINE.

Another achievement? She COVERED HER COUGH today. I'm amazed at all these seemingly small things she picks up on. Wow. Blown away.

And here she is playing a game we call "Hoarders". Ahem.
(Yes, that's my bra on top. C STILL is enamored of breasts and everything to do with them. She calls them "bay-bees".)

Who is your favorite Seuss character? Or book?

A Week In Pictures

Ready for beach action.


Being courted by her cousins.


Queen of Sheba, life is tough...



With her aunt and cousin.



Modeling the latest in beach wear, including her Opa's hat.











An exhausted baby is an... eventually quiet baby.


Getting her hair done in braids. I've been told by several African American women that putting braids in her hair is "ghetto" and I shouldn't do it. But considering we were on an island and 90% of the female population had braids... Notice my sucked in cheekbones. I'm almost Kate Moss, huh?

Total strangers actually gathered to watch Charlie dance and take pictures of her. I kid you not. I've never seen anything like it. One man even told me "She's a rock star in the making". A male teen said: "She's the cutest baby I've ever seen." I cannot begin to describe the commotion she caused everywhere we went. It got to be a bit uncomfortable towards the end of the week, when women jabbering in strange languages came over and stroked her skin without asking and like they'd never seen black skin before. One couple stared at her so intently it was like they were checking out a strange animal at the zoo. Even upon returning to the States, when I thought life would go back to "normal", a man let me get ahead in the customs line (he let me cut about 50 people in line), and people were STILL ohh'ing and ahh'ing. I hope now that we are home things will settle down again.


One of Charlie's beautiful cousins, Zoe.


She had much fun with her grandparents too.


My angel.

HAIR! ..... Again.....

I LOVE doing Charlie's hair.

Unfortunately, she hates it.

I don't like torturing her, but I do love running my fingers through it. It's so thick and lustrous. I enjoy working conditioner into each last strand, taming the wild fray, twisting my fat uncoordinated fingers into learning how to do braids. It's kind of like having a live doll to practice on, something I never did as a child. I just wish she enjoyed it more. I do try and massage her scalp to make it more pleasurable for her, and I'm careful not to pull (but I'm sure an errant hair gets tweaked every once in awhile nevertheless). I've come up with several "original" 'do's, mainly because no one is teaching me so I'm inventing things as I go. Experimenting.

At first I was intimidated, having read how "difficult" it is to do black hair. But now I really enjoy the 20 minutes each morning. I enjoy it so much that sometimes, if Charlie is not too tired, I'll ask her to sit for another 20 at night so I can experiment.

Here is a lovely article from The Washington Post that my dad sent me awhile ago. I just got around to reading it. She describes the hair time as a bonding time between mother and daughter that she will greatly miss when her daughter grows up. I will too.

By Lonnae O'Neal Parker
Sunday, January 31, 2010

"Soon now, these days will be gone from me.

As I settle myself on the couch, my 11-year-old daughter, Savannah, brings me her hair basket: comb, water bottle, hair grease, barrettes. She plants herself on the floor, squarely between my knees, and I begin my work. There's the everyday hair-doing, but wash day takes more time, and slowly I separate the thick, kinky tangle growing from her head. I rub in a dollop of grease -- Kemi Oyl or root stimulator lotion, but mostly just dark blue Ultra Sheen (I like the standards) -- to make the hair obedient, and part it into sections, clipping each firmly to her head.

My hands are slower and gentler now than they were when she was younger and I was younger, with a career to chase, and an older daughter who had her own head of hair for me to do, and another baby yet to come.

Sometimes, if I was pressed for time, I could get by with a few surface brush strokes and a liberal application of gel to make the girls passably presentable, but it took 20 minutes of work to make them look special. Twenty minutes to make them feel pretty so that neighbors would comment on the straightness of their parts. Twenty minutes to be reassured that I'd sent my children into the world making clear that they were valued and loved. Twenty minutes. Every day. Minimum. Apiece."

Read the rest here.



This is a crazy lil 'do we call "the coolio".



This lasted a few seconds.... my attempt to keep her hair neat for the next day. HA! Not yet, I guess.

These pictures take my breath away!

It's a combination of the early morning sunlight, her expressions, the softness of her hair.... her face....










Thanks to my Uncle John for the pictures! He's got a great eye and a super camera. Actually my aunt has a camera that has a "beauty" option which erases most wrinkles and spots without blurring the picture. It's really incredible. Maybe one day I will get the guts to post those before and after beautification pictures of myself!

Hair, Glorious Hair!

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short!"

I'm celebrating because I found the MOST AWESOME hair care website. Not only can you order cheap barrettes, ballies, beads (flowers, hearts, ponies, stars) head bands, snaps, and on and on.... but you can ALSO order hair care PRODUCTS. And not only THAT, but there are ALSO VIDEOS on how to do COILS, CORNROWS, TWISTS, BOX BRAIDS, FLAT TWISTS, CRISS CROSS CORN ROWS, PIGGY BACK PIG TAILS and stuff I've never heard of!

Go here to have fun, and learn tons!


So I tried out the TWISTS and the COILS doing what the lady in the video teaches and it works beautifully! Now, cornrows I'm going to need more practice. My fingers are just NOT that agile yet. But every day I'm getting better. Charlie is allowing me to play with her hair for about 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes after dinner. We have worked up to this. She definitely is just tolerating it, but she likes seeing the result in the mirror when I'm done.

Today, her African-American day care teacher COMPLIMENTED ME on her "Coolio style" hair do!!! What a compliment :-)

What I did was I separated her head into 9 equal quadrants and put a pigtail in each quadrant. Then I braided each pigtail with conditioner and left them overnight. In the morning I took out the braids and Charlie ended up with 9 fountains of curls! It was funny and cute.

What are some good hair sites you've found? I know about Happy Girl Hair and Tightly Curly, both good sites with great info. I'd like to find some others. In particular, I'd like to watch a teaching video for Bantu Knots.

Thanks and go check out these sites! They are great. Thank God for the Internet.

Charlie's HAIR

Look what I did!


Ok, what is this called? Finger twists, I think. Or maybe pencil twists?


Anyway, I saw this technique on a blog (Cathy's I believe) and tried it on Charlie. It turned out looking pretty cute and since there was a minimum of pulling, she didn't cry much. There are many, many super cute little ringlets. The pictures don't do it justice because the flash captures her scalp more than it shows off her curls. But anyway. I'm proud. I like how it turned out.




Now, on to BRAIDS.



Ok, parents, how on earth do you get the kids to sit still long enough to make even one braid?? Do you do each braid in installments?

My Exotic African Princess

I did Charlie's hair for the second time last night, while she was sleeping. I'm finding it challenging!
1) I have never paid much attention to any hair, my own or others
2) I've never had experience with black hair
3) I'm not coordinated in the fingers
4) Charlie will NOT sit still, she is so observant that she is constantly swinging her head around to see what's going on behind her. So I have started doing her hair while she's sleeping... which means it's not divided into quadrants very well

But I'm trying!

So last night, after doing her hair during a nap, I decided we needed to protect the hairdo until morning (because we are meeting blogger friends Laura and Tami today! Yay!) and I want Charlie looking her cutest. I know black women wear hair scarves and the like to protect their hair do's and keep them looking fresh. So this is my attempt.

How cute is she????

(Yes, every post will probably be mentioning her cuteness from now on.)

Anyway, the scarf thing did not last long! She pulled it off seconds later, messing up her hair a bit.



This morning, it's almost as messy as if I had not done it at all.

Back to the drawing board!


Moms.... do you use anything on your infants heads to keep their hair neat? And where do I buy it????

Any white moms nervous about black hair care?

I am! I have straight blond hair that I wash and drag a comb through and that's it. Actually, I don't even know how to fix any type of hair! I'm clueless! I never learned how to braid hair well, or do French twists or any type of "styles". One time I tried blow drying my hair with one of those round brushes and ended up having to cut a large chunk of hair out after it got hopelessly twisted around the brush! Since then it's been "what's the easiest and fastest" for my hair.

I know that it's really important for me to learn how to do Charlie's hair in a way that both looks good, and protects it from breakage. I've been reading up a lot on the topic and I'm dedicated to being very good at this! From reading up on blogs and talking to friends, I know that well taken care of hair in the African American community is a sign of self-respect and pride, and messy hair is the opposite. If a child is seen running around with unkempt hair, mom gets the blame. There is no way I want my mom-hood to be judged based on Charlie's hair not looking great! I have a couple of offers from my colleagues to give me some lessons and I'm going to take them up on it. Of course, I also want her to look cute with braids, puffs, twirls, beads.... I'm thinking I'll ask at a salon if someone might be willing to give me some lessons once Charlie arrives. At least teach me which products are good for her type of hair, which I won't know until she gets here. Checking out the products at the drug store is overwhelming to say the least. There must be about 40 different types of moisturizers alone, and that's not even counting the relaxers, perms, and other products I have no clue how to use!

I'll get it, though. I will get it.

In my research so far, I came across this blurb. I wish I could see this movie!

"When Chris Rock’s daughter, Lola, came up to him crying and asked, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” the bewildered comic committed himself to search the ends of the earth and the depths of black culture to find out who had put that question into his little girl's head! Director Jeff Stilson’s camera followed the funnyman, and the result is Good Hair, a wonderfully insightful and entertaining, yet remarkably serious, documentary about African American hair culture. An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, Good Hair visits hair salons and styling battles, scientific laboratories, and Indian temples to explore the way black hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of black people. Celebrities such as Ice-T, Kerry Washington, Nia Long, Paul Mooney, Raven Symoné, Maya Angelou, and Reverend Al Sharpton all candidly offer their stories and observations to Rock while he struggles with the task of figuring out how to respond to his daughter’s question. What he discovers is that black hair is a big business that doesn’t always benefit the black community and little Lola’s question might well be bigger than his ability to convince her that the stuff on top of her head is nowhere near as important as what is inside. "

http://festival.sundance.org/2009/film_events/films/good_hair

5 points for helpful hints! Per person.