(written in July 2004)

When I first decided to sacrifice my hair to show solidarity for Dominique going through chemo, I debated just shaving it all off. I realised however that due to my employment this might be difficult to explain - if I worked anywhere else I could probably get away with headwraps, but working in a lawfirm didn't give me a whole lot of leeway.

However, since I've often been used to doing bizarre things with my hair anyway, I decided that for it to really be a sacrifice, so I could understand in a small way where Dominque is coming from, that I needed to really make it something I would normally never do to my hair. Something that would really have me freaked out and constantly wondering if it looked good or not. Something that would shake my esteem to the core.

So I decided to go with blonde, and straight.

Doesn't seem a big stretch, does it? Lots of interracial and black folks have platimum blond hair, and go under the hot comb or get the relaxer until their scalp is bleeding to get "bone straight" hair.

That's just it - I have always hated that. That desperate need for the sistahs and bruthas to get that "conk" job done in order to pass. And as I'm already a very light skin tone anyway, I've heard enough about my "passing" to last me a lifetime.

My hair has always been rather a traumatic thing for me to deal with. How I wished for long long hair, actually wrapping a towel around my head like a skit of Whoopie Goldberg's and pretending it was long blond hair. I wanted my hair feathered, straight, ANYTHING that didn't look "black". I remember the hours of sitting on the floor while my mother struggled to get my mixed-hair into cornrows, pulling my scalp so tight I felt like my eyes were going to pop out, only for me to try and wrestle it out of the hairstyle on the bus, in tears because the teasing had already started the instant I stepped in, and having a wild-ass afro that no cheap black comb was ever going to get through by the time I got to school, which of course resulted in more teasing.

Growing up in a town where the only black people these folks had ever seen was on "Good Times", having hair that automatically said to anyone "LOOK, a nigger!" was a nightmare.

As I got older I went to the opposite end of the spectrum - wore a Jherri curl, an African necklace, colours of Africa and a pillbox hat. I made a lot of pro-black noise as I was oblivious at the time at how much black folks hated me too - that came later.

I sneered in disdain while my sister spent hours on her hair and makeup to make her look as un-black as possible -straight and even wanting it dyed blond to my mother's chagrin and irritation.

Poor sis - she was trying so hard to fit in. She talked like a valley girl, she had hair like Oprah Winfrey and that "mall hair" bangs thing in the front that was at least six inches high. She lightened her hair as much as mum would allow and still wanted it lighter.

She'd go out and dance her butt off because girlfriend could MOVE, but would come home in tears because the boy she had liked had gone off with her best friend, who couldn't dance to save her life but was skinny and white - dating a black girl was "not done".

I tried having it straightened but it never worked. Years of having my hair fried with lye and chemicals made my hair as dry as straw. I looked like I was wearing a wig, and that hair "grease" stuff always made things worse.

It wasn't until I let my hair go "natural" in the unpermed/relaxed sense that it started to calm down and behave. I was able to do some "black styling" (braids and such) without feeling any sort of shame or embarassment, and learned not to hate the way I looked in braids. I dyed my hair all sorts of colours and made a statement with it that yes, us black folks can do the Goth look too, thank you very much.

Blonde, straight hair represents not only "mundane" to me, but goes deeper. It's the "trying to fit in" sort of thing. I've seen some sistahs pull off the platinum, bone straight look and look absolutely stunning. It is just seen as a hip hairstyle of the times. But on me, on someone interracial, it has been and always will be a sign that I'm trying to be white. With some people, that may be the case. But I've still got that "Oh I hate you because you're not enough of this or too much of that and therefore you're life must be better than mine" training that was beaten, spit into, or kicked into me at some point or another and so doing the blonde, straight thing is about the most traumatic thing I could do to myself or to my hair.

Hair is a such a big thing to a woman. Fuck a woman's hair up and she won't leave the house. Ever want to make a woman feel like shit, either tell her she's fat or her hair is a mess. Men can get away with having hair do all sorts of funky shit, but if a woman's hair isn't tended properly she is "letting herself go" in the eyes of John Q Public.

Having blond hair won't merely label me a "mundane", no longer fit to be around the black-clad, goggle-wearing sect whom has been my family for some time now, but it is also a subconscious statement (according to the world as a whole) that I am somehow embarassed about my heritage, or I'm trying to be something, or someone, that I'm not. I suppose someone will end up asking me if I like Lil' Kim or something...I don't even know who she is!

My entire wardrobe will look completely whacked with blond hair, so I'll need to change it.

So no, it's not "just blond". It's not "just hair". It's a hell of a lot more than that. For some of us, it's who we are. Or who we're not.

Doin it for Dom.

LuCy