Not Just Hair

Source: IOL

Yes, yes, I’m being typical and writing about what’s driving me up the wall this time around: Hair Issues at Pretoria High School for Girls (PHSG)! The debate around the prestigious school has taken many twists and turns (kid you not, at some point it became weaves vs afros, I don’t know how). But my first thought when I saw posts and videos and read articles about what’s happening at PHSG were: “This makes me so angry on so many levels”! My face got hot and my ears burned every time I watched a testament by one of the girls that attend the school. I have since had a few glasses of wine, calmed down and become rational.

My take on the whole thing: It’s being romanticized and reduced to hair! The child leading the struggle is not some hero come to save our children from relaxer forever, she is a child! None of them should even be having this debate! The reality is that this is not just about hair, it’s about a system that is in place that does not cater for nor meet our needs nor accommodate out various cultures, the problem is way bigger than hair. The problem is that some two decades into the democracy we are still fighting to be included in the system. All attempts at being inclusive of black people are almost an afterthought or a foot note in a journal of endless pages. Unfortunately for Pretoria High School for Girls, they are the platform and catalyst for a conversation that’s been a long time coming.

I took the liberty of going through the section on general appearance in the code of conduct of PHSG. To their credit they have more than most schools have on how African hair should look. But in its inclusivity it’s so exclusive. It says things like “hair shall not cover the elastic band”, if in a bun “it must be in the neck and not on top of the head”, ponytails must “not be visible from the front”.  This is all good and well when your hair is relaxed or you have braids on, but when you have an afro these all become rather difficult. I’ve been growing my afro for three years now, I still can’t tie a ponytail (when I do try, it merely looks like I’m trying to hide a dead bird in my head, a rather fuzzy bird), I don’t even know what a bun that lives in the neck looks like, I can never bring ALL my hair to my neck. Whenever I do tie my hair tough, it has to be at the top because that’s where I have the most hair.

Source: Twitter

Keeping in mind what I’ve just said about afros, the code of conduct does not accommodate afros (unless it’s plaited into corn rows). This opens up a different can of worms: the expectation that the black woman will not keep her hair natural, has no desire to keep her hair natural, and is not expected to keep her hair in its natural state. This is the real issue, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not an attack on those that do relax their hair, or wear weaves, or whatever, it’s simply a call to let the black woman be black and natural. A lot of people will argue that the girl leading the protest can tie her hair and whatever but the majority of us don't get hair that big. People can’t say she must then not participate in the protest because: we don’t see horses leading protests for animal rights now do we?

And we all know that’s what’s down on the code of conduct isn’t always what schools enforce! I went to a good school (as far as I’m concerned) that had the exact same lines when it came to general appearance (minus the lines about corn rows and braids and what not), but every time during uniform inspection they’d pull at my hair and say it was too long. Throughout high school I had hair shorter than most high-school white boys (this is for reference, I’m not making it a race thing). What students experience, and how the school system makes them feel cannot not be reduced to a piece of paper that no one can vouch for!

It’s easy to deem the students hooligans and rebels when you know nothing about the struggles of having natural hair as black woman in South Africa. The end game is to deal with a system and society that dictates how a black woman should look. Sure one can argue that one has to adhere to school policy or ship out, but how much shipping (this sounds so inappropriate, I don’t even know if it’s an actual word) before you run out of good schools!? Girls shouldn’t have to give up their natural hair in order to get a good education nor should they have to give up a good education to grow natural hair. That is the kind of mentality that got us here in the first place, exclusion based on appearance.

We shouldn’t even be having this hair conversation! It makes me angry that we are still talking about the same damn things that we’ve been talking about for the past decade! A lot of people argue that black people make everything about race, it’s hard not to make all our struggles about race when they stem from the fact that we are black! People need to stop saying that black people like playing “the race card” as if this is something that gets us all giggly and high when it actually comes from a place of frustration and discomfort. These are real issues that affect us not only as children but also eventually when we grow up and the fact that children aged 13 have to protest for such things is ridiculous and should be setting off alarm bells in everyone’s head. So it’s not just hair, it’s a system that’s hell bent on bending us to  fit a specific prototype! And the system  must be changed…

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