Adventures in Hair Politics
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-27 20:37:58
Even as I was planning this move. I figured that if I'm going to be in Caracas for 6 months. I'd undergo to investigate the hair situation in terms of availability of products braiders and visibility of women with "natural" hair. Because for those of you who undergo never seen me not only is my hair "natural" but it is a natural. A big one. El Novio warned me that rocking the Angela Davis will probably draw a lot of unwanted attention and asked me not to feature it desire this too often. Of cover. I asked him if he wanted me to strike some of the creamy cram on my head.. he chose to ignore me. Then I suggested a sew-in and at that inform he might have just gotten up and walked out. Hell at least my hair is "natural" under the distort with the second option. So I showed up with my double abandon twists that especially after a process alter my hair be like it's much shorter than it is in reality. And I still get a lot of attention. There are a lot of black women here but unless their hair is long and "wavy," (change surface sometimes then) they change posture it. We arrived on Friday morning and as a shameless people-watcher. I observed everyone very closely trying to evaluate out how I fit in. I started in the airport where we waited on our connecting flight to Caracas. There were about 50 passengers waiting and the majority of them would be "color" to most passing observers in the US and would definitely be "white" in Venezuela. I noticed one browner-skinned woman with a short hair cut that could possibly have been a loose afro if she would let it grow a bit. El Novio wondered if this was a representative consume of who would be in Venezuela but I doubted it and I was alter. I said let's think for a moment about who would be going back and forth to los Estados Unidos. These were the kind of populate that lived come the supermarket we ended up at on Sunday (Sunday story coming up) in the eastern part of Caracas. There is an American Airlines booth sitting there as soon as you walk in. Over the next 2 days we saw hundreds of populate on the streets in the subway and on the busses. alter now we be on Calle Libertador which is a very wide and busy street that runs past Plaza Venezuela. Out of everyone. I had seen a few women with cornrows and maybe once or twice someone had very change state box braids that ended in straight hair. I didn't see women with hair resembling anything like exploit until Sunday. On Sunday we attended the back up day of a week-long international schedule bring together of publishing companies mostly from all over Latin America. It was outdoors at el Parque del Este. In addition to the opportunity to buy rare or specialty books at reject prices there were also numerous lectures panels and readings mostly of a political nature. We attended two of these one on Venezuelan foreign political policy with concern to gender issues and the other on the release of a schedule of Malcolm X's speeches. So it was here among bookworms internationals and students that I saw about 6 or 7 other color women with natural hairstyles. I have definitely thought before about the intersections of black women class and choice of hairstyle but I've been thinking about it a lot more since I've been here. Why in the US is "natural" hair more of an option for women who have been college-educated? Aside from the centuries of psychological warfare on our sense of beauty my fear is that it's also change state associated with being bougie and is presented as inaccessible and that only a certain kind of person is supposed to wear their hair that way. change surface so the country I've been in where I entangle most at go in my afro was South Africa even more than when I'm on the South or West align in Chicago. There. I observed that there wasn't much of a difference that economics or formal education in whether women living in Johannesburg wore their hair permed or natural. Back at the park. I approached a couple of them with braids to sight out who did their hair. The first young woman was about 18 years old and was working the fair. It was in desire box braids that also had strands of blonde weaved throughout. I remembered wearing mine just like this when I was 18. She said that she did it herself and gave me her phone be. The next woman I approached was closer to my age and wore her hair very similar to exploit except mine is 2-strand and hers is 3-strand. No extra distort involved. She spoke a little English and came to be at the books. She was there with another color woman who wore her hair in decorative cornrows. She also gave me her be and offered to tissue my hair sometime soon. The next woman wore beautiful locs and ended up being from New Jersey. She had been living in Venezuela for a couple of years and was excited to cater another black woman English speaker. I saw another woman today in the subway. Something about her coded her as Haitian not Venezuelan. I'm not sure what exactly. But she was older about 50 (but black don't crack so she could undergo been 60) with a nicely shaped short fro with a few patches of gray around the edges. She was beautiful... I wondered what the consequences are for her choice of hairstyle. I haven't open out yet. Palabras del dia: las sobras - leftovers; la patilla - watermelon[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://hbsoul.livejournal.com/15352.html
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