Uncovering my mask as Black woman in a white world
My hair is an extension of myself. It tells about how patient I am, how long I can sit unflinching in a chair, how dextrous I am with my fingers, and how thick the skin on my forehead must be to resist the burn of a blow-dryer’s unforgiving hot air. It tells that I am a risk-taker, that perhaps I’m intimidating, because it’s always laid—that is, perfect—and that I wouldn’t leave the house if it were anything less.
Black hair is a labor of love. It can be coarse, unwieldy, and petulant—“I don’t think I will let you manage me today,” it dares, much like a child. “Maybe tomorrow.”
As a child, I had a working mother who barely had time to do my hair for me, so it was left to the mercy of my father’s rough hands. Letting my father do my hair felt more like cattle wrangling than a bonding experience, so I always preferred protective styles. I wore braids exclusively for many years; they were low maintenance, long, and mature to me. What had not occurred to me until later is that braids were also uncompromisingly and unapologetically Black.
I grew up in Canton, Massachusetts, a predominantly white town. I was the only Black child in my grade in school until the sixth grade, when another student became number two out of 50. I didn’t know then the names of the psychological and sociological phenomena that seemed to be an invisible force that pushed me into a trench, that untied my shoelaces before the race or that ripped pages out of an intact understanding of life that everyone had except me.
It is this state of grace that I reminisce about so often, that I never cherished. It is a sense of ignorance that I have envied ever since. I never noticed how my teachers imbued me with a sense of low self-worth by never calling on me or positively reinforcing my work or my responses. Or how my middle school education inculcated in me a sense that I had no capacity to be great or to dream big, and that I belonged in lower level STEM or English classes. I finished middle school with an overwhelming sense of inferiority, feeling that I could never be as good-looking or as desirable to be around as the white students because of my Afrocentric nose that everyone mocked so much, or the hair that felt different, looked different, and was styled in such a way that it made my being Haitian something to gawk at instead of appreciate.
When I went to high school, it really struck me that the world around me had constructed and imposed my self-concept, and I was powerless to fix it.
I landed in honors classes in every subject, right on my feet. I was shocked to be uplifted by my teachers, incredulous that they asserted that I could be somebody, that I did have the capacity to be great. I felt a quickly burgeoning sense of excitement, that I could be the picaresque non-conventional protagonist in my own story, like the ones I had written about in creative writing intensives years prior, the only place diversity in my life existed.
But something, nonetheless, was amiss.
In my graduating class of 268, I was one of three Black students. I understand now the Great Suburban Curse, the lack of exposure that perpetuates a cycle of ignorance and demonstrations of said ignorance. I believe that this very curse, this very cognitive distortion, put me at odds with my classmates and some teachers from the first day we met, perhaps even before we met. It put us at odds because they had never before been in a situation where a Black girl as jaunty or disputatious as me would force them to consider who they were and how their environment shaped them in terms of race.
My hair functioned as a mask; I styled it deliberately in order to mute my Blackness, to call it into question, and so that I could homogenize—so that I could be unremarkable. My skin color, of course, could never be changed. But a particular curl pattern and colors that were never quite Black pushed me into the realm of ethnic ambiguity.
There is nuance to prejudice. I felt that the way many individuals treated me was a result of tokenism. I am lighter skinned. I was never the victim of jokes about my looks due to my proximity to whiteness. Though my hair was grabbed, it was never mocked. I grew up in a middle to upper middle-class town and community and was never held back by socioeconomic disadvantage.
I could look biracial, or maybe Hispanic, who stayed out in the sun a little too long—I was never really “Black” to any of my white friends. I was “Meredith.”
I accepted this self-effacing principle because no one had told me that it was okay to be Black. It was always a faux-pas or a misfortune.
Many of my peers, harbingers of that curse, were resentful that I spoke without vernacular Ebonics, irritated that I achieved, and grit their teeth when I spoke my mind.
No matter how I styled my hair, however, I couldn’t protect myself against the virulent pervasiveness of their harsh, punitive, and anti-Black conservatism. The ruthless disparagement of immigrants, a cacophony of latently racist and offensive statements, and derisive laughter during race-based discussions spiked my blood pressure and overwhelmed me with dread. It took everything in me not to leave, but leaving was never something I was taught. Leaving was conceding.
My parents are Haitian immigrants; they reminisce endlessly about their long, smoldering days and short nights on the south shore of Les Cayes and remind me ad nauseum about how severe and intense their studies were. The world has seen Haiti through natural disaster and civil upheaval, but never through the lens of its culture: discipline and refinement.
Growing up, I read more than I spoke; I had created a rose-colored, escapist dream world that grew as I did. It was in this world, with faceless citizens and cotton candy foothills, that I developed a performative spirit. I was simultaneously the president, queen of the world, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and a witch; my imagination culled endless possibilities.
I loved people, I loved words, I loved to write, and I loved to speak; my high frequency prattling became academic and deliberate as I matured.
I was always the fun girl, smart enough, sassy. Aggressive. I hated that. I hated the impetuous and condescending audacity with which the ignorant called me aggressive. Called me scary. With the malice aforethought of a sharpened knife, people teetered on the offensive. They would be surprised when I spoke; it was a chafing platitude when students and teachers alike would say I spoke well, because I knew and they knew that in their tone lay a thinly veiled racial subtext: you speak well, for a Black girl.
What I had yet to learn about was the little sacrifices minorities make every day, the little battles we elect to keep our swords sheathed for. The reality is that white people have a grip on everything: a stake in every industry, a claim on every institution. A tenet of the West that we have come to accept as gospel is the principle of education as the means of upward social mobility. The “better” schools are the predominantly white ones, so we sacrifice our emotional wellbeing in order to ascend. The trouble is that if you have the misfortune of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, ascension is just not possible.
Now, I have been told that the crusade I have against this fathomless curse is pointless and unnecessarily draining. That has never stopped me from anything before.
Suburbia and its judicial torpor have flown under the radar for far too long. I see you, and you are ugly.
I went blonde this summer, fully blonde with no roots, as an act of defiance and daring, but even more so as an act of self-indulgence.
I had always wanted to do it but felt discouraged because I feared what people would think.
I feared that my mask would be uncovered, that people would claim I hated my Blackness and tried to hide my hair.
But blonde hair is phenotypical, not cultural; it belongs to no one except those who are born with it, or those who choose it.
Having blonde hair never made me “less Black,” as critics would suppose. My ability to even wear blonde hair speaks to the versatility and uniqueness of Black hair.
I was told that my messages about race relations were not empowering, that they were pessimistic. But you cannot have empowerment, development or restitution without accountability. As slow as the cog is turning, it is turning.
Blonde Meredith was colorful, unique, and confident; she drew the dormant components of my character to the surface. Blonde Meredith had more fun.
(If you’re wondering if this is a sign to finally go blonde, it is.)
I don’t feel damaged by childhood or my past. I feel inspired by it.
I have chosen to look racism in the face and dare it to tell me what to do. And I will continue to dare for the rest of my life.
