wow… all this about Hair?   At least you all have some.  (no disrespect intended)

My co worker lost all of hers in her fight with cancer.  Personally I think she looks fierce in a high fashion way with her short hair, but she wants her mane back.

Before my cousin lost her battle with cancer, she lost her hair too. 

As for the racism - there is a lot of talk of "what happened" "in the past" "we have always been" - why not focus on now and proactivity?  And I am saying this from an outside point of view as a 1st generation Cuban in the US.  And as you all know, Cubans are black and white, and it was never really an issue - we are cuban either way and never had the race issues I see here in the US.   As for now, I honestly don’t see much of it in my generation (X).  Neither do my black and white friends of generation X and Y.  We all are guessing that by generation Z, black/white issues will be gone. 

If the pantheon intended for us to look the same, we would.  Obvoiusly this is not the case.  My sister flaunts her wild "black" cuban hair, curls, frizz and all - and I am envious.  I have the straight "white" cuban hair that perms, curlers, hair product, and heat can’t even bring life to….and my sister never spares me her jealousy.  Age old lament of  "the grass is greener" between sisters, no? 

Amazing how true the statement "hair is a woman’s crowning jewel."  

People and Instant Sorting

My first husband and I both knew of Native American ancestry when we got married.  Both our children were instantly tagged Caucasian upon birth.  They were born with dark hair that grew in blond then gradually changed dark again.  Little white kids, but they’re anything but WHITE.  My eldest son was asked about race in middle school and everyone assumed he was Mexican.  It went, “why are you so dark, are you a Mexican?” When my daughter, now 18, transferred to city schools to try them out, there was a big open debate on her race in the biracial/ people of color scene.  Her once curly blond hair had turned dark and straight.  What she had called Pocahontas hair.  I wasn’t genetically engineering these children this is just what happened.  It seemed the American genes won out in their bodies.

But when my daughter with full lips people pay for these days and dark features became a way to decide if you were part of the group or not, I really thought, “this is crazy”.  I began to resent the questions on job applications that want you to check a box and squash the urge to write, “NUNYA” on them every time.  Give me a blood test I really want to know myself if it is that important to everyone.  No, it is not we still in every day life want to check and go.  Meet quotas and prejudge.  We threw them a curve with our children they were not easily sorted. (It strangely reminds me of eddie murphy’s skit on SNL about people of color dressed up as white people) I don’t know one of her grandfather’s ancestries not their bloodlines, due to the fact that as near as the twentieth century people adopted orphaned children to do work for them and sometimes they slept in a barn.  More than that, I am not raising puppies with the AKC we are people.

Now, we can make out like it is a two dimensional issue, but our president if you accessed his campaign site, seemed to think there were more than black and white issues going on in this country.  I agree with him.  I also agree with the term First Americans used in the Obama campaign because we’re now at this point in time, (despite the ugly things in the past) are Native Americans if we are born on the lands.  (I haven’t consulted the foreign nations around Oklahoma and other states to see how they feel about this term.)  Since, the media doesn’t want to ask these types of questions I guess it is up to us.  They seem to want scandal and numbers and I am just tired of it. We call the ones who went south or came from the south Mexicans and Latinos and Hispanics because of their language but they’re not usually involved in these discussions online.

Forgive my frustration; I did like the article it is informative to hear what people with different types of hair do to manage it.  It has opened a history box, you could call it Pandora’s box but that’s not what it is. We have not achieved the dream just because we elected one person to the highest office.

Hair matters it mattered to my daughter and her peers in high school.  I dye mine different colors at different times. What do you girls think of bald men?  I’ve always been attracted to attitude more than hair… which somewhat supports what other posters have said about women.

Ann & Keneisha, thanks so much for leting us in on your dialogue.  So many times, fear of looking racist prevents people from asking questions.  Something as mundane as "tell me about your hair" can be misconstrued and offensive when it was not intended as such.  I loved being a fly on the wall for your conversation!