Don’t Touch My Hair
As my hair grew, so did my activism
Thuggish. Immature. Unprofessional.
I have heard it all when it comes to my hair. For years I listened and bought into what everyone told me. How could I not? I was a teenager fighting a racist family court system for custody of my son. I was a young Black man trying to navigate the professional world. I am an African who has been placed in a colonial settler state on Indigenous land.
My very existence, down to the length of my hair, is constantly under attack as long as I don’t seek to fit into colonizer standards of beauty and professionalism. As I examine my journey with my hair, it allows me to reflect on the culture of Black folx in regards to hair and the way our parents raise us.
To me, long hair was normal. My father sported braids for most of his adult life; I grew up watching him get his hair braided my entire life.
I can remember my pops picking my afro out before school. I had so much pride when he would finish and say something like, “There you go youngblood, now you sharp!”
A decorated combat-veteran from the Vietnam War, my father was recruited personally to the Black Panther Party by Huey P. Newton…
