On hair.

I really enjoy reading the blog Womanist Musings, written by a Canadian mother named Renee who describes herself as a "pacifist, anti-racist, WOC." Because of our different cultures and races, Renee often picks up on things that I never would've noticed, and I really appreciate that her voice is out there.

Take, for instance, her recent post on the criticism of Angelina Jolie's and Brad Pitt's daughter, Zahara, and her "nappy" hair. First of all, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that people out there in Internet Comment Land feel they have the right to pick on a child's appearance. But Renee's right - this is part of a larger box that our culture puts black people - particularly women - in. As a white woman, I've done all manner of crazy mess to my hair - spiked it, bleached it, permed it, chopped it all off. And I've never felt pressure to do any certain thing to it. I've never worried, for instance, that people will look at something I've done with my hair and assume I hold radical political beliefs (a stereotype played on in last year's New Yorker cover with Michelle Obama wearing an afro).

I never gave much thought to African American hair until I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X in my teens. At one point, Malcolm writes about getting his reddish-colored hair "processed," or straightened, and how painful the chemical process was. I got to see the modern version first-hand in college when I went with my roommate to get her hair straightened (funny enough, the only salon in our corner of BFE Virginia that did this was run by a 400-year-old white woman). Two things I will never, ever forget as long as I live: one, how long it took, what it smelled like, the look of pain on my friend's face; and two, how happy she was afterward, laughing when her "white girl hair" (her words) blew in the breeze.

People do a lot of expensive and sometimes uncomforatble things in the name of beauty. Like many (I suppose), I like to think that adults can make their own decisions about what to do with their own bodies. But when I girl like Zahara Jolie Pitt (who's what, mybe 8 years old? 10?) is already hearing people tell her there's something wrong with what her hair does naturally, that's just gross.

It's not something that I and a lot of others here in our little white bubble encounter too often. In the absense of diverse points of view in our lives or mainstream media, I'm glad I live in a time where access to the 'net and dedicated bloggers like Renee can show me things I may not have thought about before.