Hair Day

I'm all for curiosity, honestly I am. I bath in its glow often enough; my job on the New York City subways solely consists of looking at any and everyone until they notice and consequently think me strange or "interested." That said, there exists a sort of morbid curiosity when Black folks are the subject, a curiosity centered often and rigourously on our hair; nappy, straight, curly, dreaded, natural, whatever. I for one am tired of people wanting to touch my hair - it was excessively pronounced when I had dread locks, but even now I get into a conversation about my hair an average of once a month and that's too much. This is not a new frustration, it's just one whose day in the sun is seemingly never-ending.

My brother attends Bard College in upstate New York, their claim to fame being an alumni list of rich and famous, and a professorial residency by the Nigerian literary geniuses Chinua and Christie Achebe - both being the select few residents of color on campus, well count my brother and his Black Student Organization and you get maybe twelve Black people out of about 1500. So to be fair, a small school, but disproportionately colorless to say the least. Perhaps that explains the recent faux pas in a suggestion emailed to all campus clubs of color. In consideration apparently for the lack of access to grooming facilities on campus, the Office Of Multicultural Affairs offers this solution:

...the idea of having a Hair Day where the office will pay for hair stylists, hair braiders, a barber to come do the hair of melanated/of color/descendants of the enslaved and colonized students for free. The idea is that the office will pay for them to come, and it will be a day for Bard students of color, with priority given to Black and Brown folks to get their hair done...

So am I being touchy when I say WHAT?!!@#@#!@ Of course not, the plain fact being that one simple consideration never crossed the minds of those who thought up this ridiculous idea of Hair Day; no one wants to be put on display.

It is granted that it might be difficult for students of color to get their grooming needs met in far off places such as Annandale-on-Hudson, heck I had the same problem in Manhattan when I went to NYU - "Super"cuts, I think not - the problem is, when it comes to Black people, everyone wants to give us what we "need," but no one ever considers the ramifications, the end result being, a polarized set of opinions in the mainstream. Where someone else sees here an attempt to include students of color in the mainstream, I see an attempt to exclude and put on display. The title of this email might as well have been "Hey Colored Folks, You Ain't Looking So Fresh!"

I don't know about you, but a free hair cut, while a bunch of morbidly curious folk stand gawking at your "exotic" hair, is not far removed from placing me on stage and paying for the priviledge; well at least then there would be some revenue sharing involved - maybe 70% for me, 20% for the barber, and of course 10% for the organizer, thats you Bard College, I'm not greedy. So I'm up for it, if you would like to watch this Black boy get a hair cut, the charge is fifteen bucks a show, and you can touch it and everything, and that's no joke.

Ridiculous!