As summer approaches, I know that I have to deal with it. I can’t put it off much longer. I can’t ignore it. Ignoring it only emphasizes my total lack of ability to deal with the issue.
It’s hair. The black woman’s Kryptonite. More specifically, it’s my daughter’s hair.
I must confess that I threw in the towel regarding my own hair about five years ago, when I decided to stop “relaxing” my hair. (This was even before I watched the Chris Rock documentary Good Hair, which, honestly, would only have hastened my decision.) I would twist my now natural, unprocessed hair using moisturizing lotion, leave it that way for a week in what I admit were adorable little curly- cues, then untwist them for a week, letting it volumize into it frothy Chaka Khan goodness. After a while, I just stopped untwisting it, shampooed it, and let it “loc.” With a little help from a friend (namely, dividing each loc into manageable, even portions), I committed to the whole loc experience and just let it grow. I no longer look like an extra from Roots, The Miniseries; I can now gather my hair back into an elegant, thick ponytail, professional enough for the courtroom.
One of my first thoughts when the doctor held my hand and gently told me about my cancer diagnosis was, I’ve spent four years growing my locs to shoulder-length – and I won’t look good bald. I don’t have a bald-head head. . . . Fortunately, this go-round with cancer didn’t require chemo, so I get to keep my hair at least until it recurs. I’ve become a little vain about it, I suppose, if only because I now don’t hate my hair so much.
It’s a curious detente between me and my hair, an uneasy alliance: if you agree not to make me look stupid, I promise not to shave you off into a paper bag. I even embrace my grays, having earned them.
But now I have a daughter, and she, too, has hair. Scooby has inherited either her maternal grandmother’s Caucasion genes, or her maternal grandmother’s Chinese genes. At any rate, her hair is curly and long, thick as a briar patch, and it is her worst enemy.
This goes beyond the “good hair/bad hair” debate. No, this is about her identity as a girl. Given the choice, she’d go to the same barbershop as her brothers do – and get the same cut (buzzed to the scalp, so there’s only a faint shadow to suggest where the hair goes.) This is the girl who, at five years old, took the sharp scissors to her front curly cues and cut them off because they were flopping in her eyes. When reprimanded by her grandmother, her response was, “Well, maybe we can just cut the rest off, too.”
I send her off to school looking, in my mom’s words, like a ragamuffin, her hair inartfully pulled back in an uneven ponytail, wisps already escaping at the front. Consumed by guilt, I just don’t have the energy to contemplate struggling with her head for an hour every night, listening to her tortured, however exaggerated, cries. Long gone are the days of tiny braids held down by colorful barettes and plastic balls attached by elastic bands. Her full head of hair demands tight French braids or a pattern of corn-rows just to get through the school week.
I’ve had teachers send diplomatically worded notes home: I’d be happy to do Scooby’s hair during our rest period . . ., or Here’s my number if you want to bring her over on the weekend . . . . I read them as saying, You’re a terrible parent of a girl; let an expert take over. I’ve written notes myself, asking daycare teachers not to braid her hair in such tiny plaits; I just don’t have the six hours to spend to delicately pick out each and every pencil-thin braid.
I want her to look good; I really do. But I don’t want her to have the ridiculous obsession with hair that her six-year-old friends are already developing. I’ve heard conversations among her friends about the amount of time they’ve spent in the salon getting their weaves. You’re a smart girl, a good girl, a pretty girl and a strong girl, I say to bolster her self-image. I don’t add, as my mom did – and still does on occasion – if you would just do something with your head.
She’s all of those things without conditions. She’s just not a girly-girl. She’s Calamity Jane; she’s Amelia Earhart – she couldn’t give a toss about pink and dresses and anything frou-frou. She refused to play with the Barbie she got for a gift until her brother pointed out that Barbie was just another action figure, like Max Steel. I love that about her. It’s just that sometimes she does look like a little brown Q-tip. And that’s my fault. My braiding is off-center; my schedule is too crammed; and I’m just too intimidated by the wild, ornery, gorgeous thickness that is my daughter’s crowning glory.
I think this is another one of those times when, as a mom, I’ll just have to swallow my pride, crush that long-held dream of being able to do all things wonderfully, and take her to the salon every six weeks. I’ll concede defeat as the stylist surveys the tangles (and lint) on top of Scooby’s head with a judgmental eye. I’ll bribe her with ice cream to sit still in the chair. And I’ll smile as she looks at me uncertainly when the chair swings around and tell her that she is even more handsome (she doesn’t like the word “beautiful”) than she was when she came in – and that was way hard to do.
Oh, I’m trying so hard not to be defined by my hairstyle, as I don’t want Scooby to be. I want her to navigate this world with her head held high. I guess I’ll just have to take the steps I need to make sure that head is well-coifed.
Or maybe I’ll just give in and let the barber shave her head.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Jesus Economy
Dear Mr. Columnist,
I usually enjoy, and often agree with, your columns in the Sunday Globe. One of the refreshing things about your columns is that you rarely engage in knee-jerk, reactionary opinion pieces, the kind that make me want to tear my hair out. Even when I don’t agree with your position, I can usually see how you got there, and am reminded that reasonable minds can differ.
So I read your March 6, 2011, column, titled, “Separation of Jesus and Congress,”* with some reluctance. Here it goes, I thought, it’s Christianity-bashing time. Eighteen inches of Those people and their proselytizing and so on. I’ve read that column way too many times before, in way too many newspapers and magazines.
But that’s not what your column was about (and, hey, thanks for that!). Instead, you were talking about a “liberal” Christian group, Sojourners, which has taken out advertisements asking, “What would Jesus cut?” I put liberal in quotations because I don’t know if that is your description or theirs. In fact, I don’t know anything about this group, save for what you convey in your column. But I digress.
You take issue with Sojourners’ position that the priorities the House Republicans are offering for federal budget cuts are unbiblical. You ask, rightly, whether it is really rational or fair to believe that nobody advocating cuts to social welfare programs could possibly be doing so from an ethical, even, I might add, biblical, perspective. And I agree with your rhetorical point: it is a biblical tenet woven throughout the Scriptures to live within your means, avoid debt, spend wisely, and generally be a good steward of the resources given to us by the Father. Budgetary cuts certainly fit within this framework.
But then you go on to say this:
A more fundamental problem with the “What Would Jesus Cut?” campaign is its planted axiom that Jesus would want Congress to do anything at all. Yes, we are emphatically commanded by Scripture to help the poor, to comfort the afflicted, and to love the stranger. But those obligations are personal, not political. It requires a considerable leap of both faith and logic to read the Bible as mandating elaborate government asssistance programs, to be funded by a vast apparatus of compulsory taxation. I admit that I am no New Testament scholar, but I cannot recall Jesus ever saying that the way to enter Heaven is to dole out money extracted from your neighbors’ pockets.
And here’s where I part company with your otherwise sensible take on these matters.
The obligations we have toward our neighbor are absolutely political as well as personal. We live in a democratic republic: we elect the leaders and by electing them, we tell them what our priorities are. It is a cop-out of the highest order – hypocrisy, even – to pretend that their decisions are not our decisions. When we go to the polls, we pull the lever next to the name of the person who, we think, most closely represents our ideals for society: is she pro-choice or pro-life; is he for or against health care reform. And the person who wins, by however small a majority, is the representative of that population who sent him or her to the Hill.
When we, therefore, send someone who says, in effect, I’m going to balance the budget by cutting social programs and decreasing funding for the poor and needy, we are making both a political and personal choice. We are choosing the government we want and emphasizing our own values.
The Bible demonstrates, in both the Old and New Testaments, very generous social programs. Take a look at Deuteronomy 24, which directs that farmers not go back and harvest every bit of their crop (which, of course, would otherwise be their right; it is their land and their crop); rather, they are to leave some for the widows, orphans, and aliens to glean so they can eat. It’s this generosity that Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, relied upon to live because they had nothing else. That’s a social program, mandated by the law given by Moses. It is in that same tradition that churches today take up benevolent offerings – usually on Communion Sunday – to give to people in need. The Judeo-Christian tradition has internalized this, both personally and politically.
You futher state:
To be a lawmaker in a democracy is to choose, and the choice is often between alternatives for which reasonable arguments can be made both ways. For religious believers, Judeo-Christian principles may sometimes offer guidance on difficult issues.
No, Mr. Columnist, to be voter, to be a citizen, in a democracy is to choose. We choose our philosophy; we choose our leaders; and if they don’t adequately represent our values, we choose someone else to take their place in the next election. You can’t duck the hard choices by pushing them off onto the lawmakers. We are the lawmakers. We make the choices.
So you’re right, God isn’t a Republican or a Democratic. He is not a liberal or conservative. He does not reside in either a red state or a blue state. He is just, and He is righteous, and He expects us, His children, to be as generous and giving as He is Himself. Nothing we have belongs to us; it is our Father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
The Old Testament prophet Micah laid out the mission long before the Son of God made His earthly appearance, and it is by no means limited to Christians.
He has shown thee, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8.)
What would Jesus cut? He would, as a voter, insist on cuts being targeted away from the helpless, the hopeless, and the needy. He would remind our lawmakers that God’s law requires us to leave the edges and corners of our fields for widows and orphans to glean.
*Jeff Jacoby, “Separation of Jesus and Congress,” Boston Sunday Globe, March 6, 2011.
I usually enjoy, and often agree with, your columns in the Sunday Globe. One of the refreshing things about your columns is that you rarely engage in knee-jerk, reactionary opinion pieces, the kind that make me want to tear my hair out. Even when I don’t agree with your position, I can usually see how you got there, and am reminded that reasonable minds can differ.
So I read your March 6, 2011, column, titled, “Separation of Jesus and Congress,”* with some reluctance. Here it goes, I thought, it’s Christianity-bashing time. Eighteen inches of Those people and their proselytizing and so on. I’ve read that column way too many times before, in way too many newspapers and magazines.
But that’s not what your column was about (and, hey, thanks for that!). Instead, you were talking about a “liberal” Christian group, Sojourners, which has taken out advertisements asking, “What would Jesus cut?” I put liberal in quotations because I don’t know if that is your description or theirs. In fact, I don’t know anything about this group, save for what you convey in your column. But I digress.
You take issue with Sojourners’ position that the priorities the House Republicans are offering for federal budget cuts are unbiblical. You ask, rightly, whether it is really rational or fair to believe that nobody advocating cuts to social welfare programs could possibly be doing so from an ethical, even, I might add, biblical, perspective. And I agree with your rhetorical point: it is a biblical tenet woven throughout the Scriptures to live within your means, avoid debt, spend wisely, and generally be a good steward of the resources given to us by the Father. Budgetary cuts certainly fit within this framework.
But then you go on to say this:
A more fundamental problem with the “What Would Jesus Cut?” campaign is its planted axiom that Jesus would want Congress to do anything at all. Yes, we are emphatically commanded by Scripture to help the poor, to comfort the afflicted, and to love the stranger. But those obligations are personal, not political. It requires a considerable leap of both faith and logic to read the Bible as mandating elaborate government asssistance programs, to be funded by a vast apparatus of compulsory taxation. I admit that I am no New Testament scholar, but I cannot recall Jesus ever saying that the way to enter Heaven is to dole out money extracted from your neighbors’ pockets.
And here’s where I part company with your otherwise sensible take on these matters.
The obligations we have toward our neighbor are absolutely political as well as personal. We live in a democratic republic: we elect the leaders and by electing them, we tell them what our priorities are. It is a cop-out of the highest order – hypocrisy, even – to pretend that their decisions are not our decisions. When we go to the polls, we pull the lever next to the name of the person who, we think, most closely represents our ideals for society: is she pro-choice or pro-life; is he for or against health care reform. And the person who wins, by however small a majority, is the representative of that population who sent him or her to the Hill.
When we, therefore, send someone who says, in effect, I’m going to balance the budget by cutting social programs and decreasing funding for the poor and needy, we are making both a political and personal choice. We are choosing the government we want and emphasizing our own values.
The Bible demonstrates, in both the Old and New Testaments, very generous social programs. Take a look at Deuteronomy 24, which directs that farmers not go back and harvest every bit of their crop (which, of course, would otherwise be their right; it is their land and their crop); rather, they are to leave some for the widows, orphans, and aliens to glean so they can eat. It’s this generosity that Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, relied upon to live because they had nothing else. That’s a social program, mandated by the law given by Moses. It is in that same tradition that churches today take up benevolent offerings – usually on Communion Sunday – to give to people in need. The Judeo-Christian tradition has internalized this, both personally and politically.
You futher state:
To be a lawmaker in a democracy is to choose, and the choice is often between alternatives for which reasonable arguments can be made both ways. For religious believers, Judeo-Christian principles may sometimes offer guidance on difficult issues.
No, Mr. Columnist, to be voter, to be a citizen, in a democracy is to choose. We choose our philosophy; we choose our leaders; and if they don’t adequately represent our values, we choose someone else to take their place in the next election. You can’t duck the hard choices by pushing them off onto the lawmakers. We are the lawmakers. We make the choices.
So you’re right, God isn’t a Republican or a Democratic. He is not a liberal or conservative. He does not reside in either a red state or a blue state. He is just, and He is righteous, and He expects us, His children, to be as generous and giving as He is Himself. Nothing we have belongs to us; it is our Father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
The Old Testament prophet Micah laid out the mission long before the Son of God made His earthly appearance, and it is by no means limited to Christians.
He has shown thee, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8.)
What would Jesus cut? He would, as a voter, insist on cuts being targeted away from the helpless, the hopeless, and the needy. He would remind our lawmakers that God’s law requires us to leave the edges and corners of our fields for widows and orphans to glean.
*Jeff Jacoby, “Separation of Jesus and Congress,” Boston Sunday Globe, March 6, 2011.
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