I convinced her to go to the ER at our small town hospital, for her scalp was literally splitting apart and bleeding bright red, running down her brown temples and forehead and neck onto her lawn collared dress.

The people at the hospital ER [not black] were kindly and horrified. What happened to you?? they asked as they cleaned and patted and washed and placed strong ointment on the long open scars of her scalp. Mattie, called ‘old Mattie” was 45 or thereabouts, but seemed 80 because of her careworn head skin with raised keloid scarring.

I was 18 years old, fresh out of beauty school in my small hometown. I’d gone to beauty school with many blacks and was known as a queen of fingerwaves, stand up pincurls, and using a curling iron without burning anyone. My private practice built up fast — with black women of all ages–

mainly because I carried around a treasured book I kept taking out and taking out of the library one town over… about Malvina Hoffman sculptures in the Chicago Natural History museum… called ‘hall of man’ with over 60 full sized sculptures from actual travels, of Africans and Middle Eastern tribal people across those continents. SO beautiful were their hairdos, keeping their hair in their NATURAL state, without chemicals… without straightening hot irons that burned the scalp so badly.

I became known for being able to sculpt hair ‘natural’ in the old tribal styles…some of which I wrapped like halos, others like slick back front, with giant puff of soft hair at the back, others with ribbons winding throughout in braids, and others, keeping those tiny waves like in beautiful sand underwater, rippled hair cut just sharp to fit the cap of the skull with my razor–

and others pulled into any manner of sculpture… that enhanced the face and shoulders and body… for black hair grows outward and upward, not downward like the hair of some of the other races. Black hair has a gift for fanning and flowing and ‘standing out.’

Then came to me Old Mattie, and she would only go to the hospital if i went with her, which I gladly did. And she nearly died from the infections her scalp had gotten from someone using a hot iron on her hair since she was a child… burning her with the barrel iron tip, whilst trying to ‘straighten it’ … putting unspeakable chemicals on head in order to ‘straighten hair’ that came with the tiniest sine wave ironed right into it by Creator and parents. Trying to make beautiful soft and bounding hair into some straight, strange lank thing…

Bernie McGuirk and Don Imus and their nasty ‘nappy headed ho’s’ repartee that took such delight in demeaning, dehumanizing black women basketball players whose hair did not ‘look right’ to them… were not at old Mattie’s bedside in the hospital, while a sepsis spread through her body and she nearly lost her life… from trying so hard to be… what? Acceptable? To whom? The likes of?

Old Mattie survived, but with large places on her scalp where hair would not grow again, as hair does not normally thrive through dense scar tissue. Yet, countless more women [not only African Americans] still bought into the idea that what they were gifted with at birth was third rate, whether in size, shape, color, tint of skin, or hair.

And not for reasons of health, but for reasons of having ingested the inhumane poison of the overculture: that there is only one way for a woman to look that is acceptible, that is some one or two or ten or ten thousand’s personal idea of what is beautiful– a uni-beauty against which all women are measured like livestock.

¡Ya basta!

But then came the late 60s and the 70s and encouragement to decide how each soul wished to be as THEY saw fit. Things changed for many African American women who said, I want my own form of beauty, without being forced to conform to a RACIAL type I am not and never will be. I take pride in being beautiful as I was born. And so African American hair –which is ALREADY GOOD hair, the best… was grown out and upward, as was its penchant and its gift.

Though natural hair of African Americans might look wiry to some at first glance, that’s a one inch shallow observation. To touch the natural hair of most African Americans is like touching cloud, like touching ebony feathers, like touching the softest brown wing of a dove, so soft it is, so so soft and cushioned. So beautiful.

Alrighty then, this week Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel dictated AR 670 US ARMY revised regs to say that black women must just, you know, do somethin’ about that hair!

Viz: “black women may wear their hair au naturelle in twists or braids if they choose, but they must be narrow twists or braids — no more than a quarter-inch in diameter.” [ [¼ inch, that is, only one/quarter inch: about pencil eraser diameter] . Some have said this has something to do with Hagel’s worrying abut helmets fitting right. That is not it. Some women, if even braiding down to ¼ inch braids have such high volume of hair, that flattening all of it to ¼ inch will make nothing smaller; you still have the same amount of hair as before. Basic math.

NPR reports “(The Army has forbidden twists and dreadlocks since 2005, but wasn’t specific about size. And while thin twists are still allowed, dreadlocks remain prohibited.)”

So… African American women are singled out to be forced to meet norms not easily associated with the pride and heritage of their race… and specifically their hair which for many, does not ‘twist’ easily without loose ends springing free– as is meant for that kind of hair… it is living hair, often with a mind of its own, not just dead protein laying there.

How to ‘make that unruly hair behave’ seems the underlying trope in Hagel’s regs. Why sure, to conform, just chemicalize it, hot comb or hot straighten those renegade hairs. DONT think about neat and tidy while taking racial attributes into account. Just do as I say, for the 200th year in a row. {Ironically the US ARMY corp was first to integrate races in 1948. But, now this. }

I’ve heard all the arguments for uniformity [reminds me so of Catholic school too], and sure, I’m a 21 years USAF wife, and knew the drills so well I could have marched them myself. But/and, there have been forever in all parts of the world, the tribal and ethnic groups who have served proudly, Zoaves, Hussars, Foreign Legion, Rajastanis, and so many more… and they were not barred by skin, or hairstyle, or turban or [for men] mustache, or horse, nor lack of one.

[Hegel’s office is said to have made some noise about helmets not fitting right certain hairdos. Please. Make the helmets fit the head, not the other way around. BALD men also pose helmet drift and slide. Ought they wear wigs? Good idea. Great to insure ‘proper fit of helmet.’] According to a US Army PowerPoint presentation, none of the three hairstyles [above] would be acceptable under the new regulations. Three beautiful hairstyles worthy of artful prize. ]

My point being this: if in dire straights or in combat, I am never going to ask a soldier why they are wearing dreads. Or why they dare to be bald. Or why they are french braiding their dreads into breadloaf size tail down their backs. All I want to know, is are they brave, are they strong, can they freakin shoot straight, can they run fast, can they dead-man-carry me if need be. I really dont give a hoot nor a holler about their ‘hair style.’

Yet, the issue really isnt ‘hair style,’ nor helmets. It’s a ignorance about the natural state of people other than oneself. We can never ever go back to the days where women felt they ‘had to’ straighten their hair with destructive to lungs and body and scalp chemicals, or fire hot irons– in order to keep someone who is not them and not like them, from looking askance and blurting, ‘Whoa, what’s going on with your hair! It’s like… wow, weird hair.’

It isnt weird hair. It’s beautiful black hair. And women like old Mattie almost died because others tried to pressure them into trying to look like their hair grew straight and down, instead of out and up like raven wings.

I say, let the ravens and the redwinged blackbirds fly free. Dignity is the heart of each day, for even the Holy Words, tell us a woman’s long hair is her crowning glory. Corinthians didnt say, act like you can easily conform to standards that come so easily– to another race other than your own. Corinthians praises that a woman has full hair [no matter what length]. Praises her beauty of her tribal group. As was true then. As ought be now.

CODA
According to a US Army, none of the three hairstyles in the photo would be acceptable under the new regulations. So much for tidy and neat and… beautiful… which are NOT opposites. They are, in black hair, as in all kinds of hair belonging to all different kinds of people… to each her own, to each his own… a perfect marriage.