‘We’re black, beautiful and proud of our hair-itage’

THE protest at the Pretoria High Schools for Girls fun fair at the weekend has brought hair politics, identity and debates around racism back into the national discourse.

Yet again, we black people find ourselves having to explain and justify our anger. And it is not an “alleged” racism as some print media publications put it.

That it happened at school is pivotal and significant. It is at school that children begin to question their identity, their sense of being and whose lives matter.

The codes of conduct teach the youngsters about acceptable behaviour, how to conduct themselves, their rights and responsibilities.

The codes/rules prescribe how uniform should be worn and that hair be kept neat at all times.

But school codes of conduct can be value-laden and politically charged. You see this in language policies where African languages cannot be spoken on school premise under the guise of promoting competence in English and Afrikaans.

Schools we are told, are English-medium schools, but this only serves to manufacture the hegemony and dominance of one particular racial group. Schools thus become the sites of reproducing white supremacy – whether unintended or intended is debatable.

You may ask, what has hair to do with it. Schools’ hair regulations for black people is regarded as an affront. Hair has always been a constant battle and continues to be one for the black populace.

An attack on our hair is an attack on our heritage, our cultures, our pride, our identity and our position in society. A battle we are yet to win. It is about violence, exploitation, marginalisation, stigmatisation, a sense of inferiority and power relations. It is about politics of difference. It is not a philosophical debate as some would argue. It is about our ways of being that demands of us to remain true to ourselves. It is about subjectivity, our personal experiences of oppression versus emancipation. Importantly, hair determines access to economic opportunities, progress, whether you get your next meal.

For the majority of former Model C schools, the idea of “neat” is one whose hair is either caucasian/ European or straightened black hair. The framework in which rules and regulations, codes of conduct are designed mirrors white supremacy. We need to challenge these regulations which seek to render us invisible. We need to challenge the wording of rules that forbid dreadlocks and spikes.

The rule that forbids young boys from shaving their heads is a continuation of the colonial project to emasculate the black man. For the black man, a shaved head symbolises masculinity, authority, and dominance. The black African has to shave their head after a funeral or initiation; their custom and traditions are undermined by the hair rules and regulations. Do you not see the injustice?

To examine these tensions it becomes imperative that the topic be placed within the historical context of black lives. Black people’s hair has been historically devalued.

For many years, the black populace, as the marginalised group, has had to battle for acceptance, integrate with the dominant white population and their norms by ways of assimilation. It’s very convenient for many to say forget about the past. But the past continues into the present.

During slavery, hair became a matter of labour. It served to divide and create envy among black people. Those whose skin was dark with kinky hair worked as field slaves and the house slaves had to wear wigs resembling their slave masters. The house slaves were granted privilege, prestige and superior status. It is no wonder that black people came to hate how they looked.

They were subject to ridicule because of the colour of their skin and texture of their hair. The pencil test in apartheid South Africa was the greatest tool of segregation, so powerful that it separated families. What separated siblings was how long the pencil stuck in one’s hair after shaking their head. Our mothers and fathers did all they could to straighten their hair so they could be desirable. They were fighting for approval and desirability.

This created a huge demand for an industry that sold products to alter the hair of black people and created an advertising industry that promoted the alteration of their hair. Fast track to today. Black people and hair politics is about access to economic opportunities.

Hair determines access to economic opportunities and, by extension, access to an education. The school regulation of hair, which compels us to straighten our hair is reminder of this painful history.

One cannot blame young blacks for feeling sold out, for the new social order and its economic structure continues to benefit the white minority, ensuring their privilege remains secured.

Black people are not asking for special treatment, to be exempt from hair regulations. It is about our identity. Our hair does not grow silky-soft downward and we refuse to change it. We beg, no, we demand, that this be not trivialised.

We are tired of being treated as second-class citizens, 22 years into our democracy, based on the texture of our hair. Caucasian or silky European hair symbolises worth, esteem, wealth, health, beauty and prestige, while black people’s hair is seen as uncontrollable, untidy, a bird’s nest, and so on.

As the subject of discourse and never the object, the whites of this country will never get it until they walk in our shoes, until they become the object of the discourse.

We must also challenge the use of the word “natural” in defining the state of our hair. Why do we refer to our Afros as natural hair and Caucasian hair as just hair? What makes our Afros “natural hair” and white hair, normal? By attaching the word natural to black people’s hair we are also perpetuating the peculiarity of our hair.

The black child refuses to be silenced and undermined. The battle is about reclaiming our spaces and our voices. It is about reclaiming our rightful positions, power, re-description and transformation. The regulations for hair at schools are acceptable only when the structure is altered; this is a problem because our identity as a people is altered. That’s what matters; our hair matters.

Andiswa Makanda is a producer at Talk Radio 702

An attack on our hair is an attack on our heritage, culture, position