It's All About the Curl

From a contributor. Thank you, K.

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My daughter is racially mixed: her father is African-American, and I am of European descent. I’ve always thought that my daughter looks just like me, only with brown skin and curly hair. We’ve compared our features in the mirror—same nose, same eyes, same mouth, same facial structure. Strangely enough, though, when people see the two of us together, they alway ask me if she’s adopted. (To be fair, that’s especially true when we are with her brothers, who have much lighter complexions than her.) Americans can’t seem to look past the color of her skin. The only people who seem to be able see anything but color when they look at her are Asians and Indians. People in these groups are likely to say something like, “What a cute daughter you have. She looks just like you!”

A few weeks ago, we got my daughter’s hair relaxed. I wasn’t too happy about the idea (I loved her curly hair), but she’s been asking about it for a long time. When she came home from a visit to her Dad’s with half of her hair in dreadlocks (he doesn’t believe in combing), I decided that drastic measures were in order. We went to a good hairdresser and I forked over an unprecedented $140 to get my daughter’s hair straightened.

I guess the high price tag was worth it, because my daughter looks like she was born with straight hair. It looks totally natural. The weirdest thing is the reactions that I now get from people. At the hospital the other day (she had to go in for an x-ray), the intake worker said “What would you like me to list as her race?” I’d never been asked that before; people just check the African-American box without question, or maybe with an “African-American, right?” Later on at a playground, a parent asked me “Is she mixed?” Is she mixed?!?! No one ever asked me that before; they just assume that she is at least part black. When I said “Yes,” the parent asked “With what?” Even knowing that my daughter was mixed, the questioner didn’t assume that the mixture included African-American.

It’s almost a surreal experience for me. Her skin color hasn’t changed, but the change from curly to straight hair has moved perceptions of her from “black” to “possibly mixed.” And when her mixed heritage is confirmed, people don’t even assume that the non-European part is African; people have guessed Puerto Rican, Indian, even Italian.

Here I was thinking all my life that people are racist about skin color. And it turns out it’s really about the curl in you hair. Makes you think…