Coconut Hair

Ms Price · (#1 (**permalink**))

Coconut Hair
It’s taken Clare Gorham 30 odd years to realise that the most integral part of the black female identity is hair care - that great goddess that most black women have paid regular homage to throughout their lives...
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[/align]If, like me - you are black and have only recently been alerted to this imperative cultural significance, then you feel bereft and under-qualified when it comes to navigating your way around the black hair industry - the products, the terminology, the treatments available, the 'must-haves’, or the don’t-have- too- often-otherwise- your- hair- will- drop- outs, the best quality weaves, where to get the best pieces. It’s a whole cultural empire.

But before I carry on, there is a reason for my cultural faux pas. I am, what is known in the black community as a ‘coconut’. It’s like the English equivalent of an ‘Uncle Tom’- it means you’re black on the outside, white on the inside.

I was trans-racially adopted in the 60’s, that’s my excuse for being a coconut. Then when white people adopted a black kid they weren’t made to dance over hot coals to prove how much they knew about the black cultural identity, unlike today. They thought the most important element of adoption was consistent, unconditional love, - which is what I had.

However, what I didn’t have, was access to an Afro hairdressers. In fact I didn’t even see an Afro comb until I was 13 - which totally revolutionised my life. It meant no more sitting in snooty hairdressers in Wimbledon village, surrounded people who were slightly indignant that one of ‘my kind’ was in their hairdressers, having my knotted, bird’s nest untangled by one of those nasty fine-toothed combs. God, that was agony. As a result, I had dreadlocks throughout my 20’s, then I invested in a pair of clippers and d.i.y’d it.

But now - I’m in the ‘Black Hair Care Club’- I was initiated 2 years ago by a friend. The experience proved quite humiliating on the day - I started to resemble the embodiment of a ‘coconut’ at large in Brixton. Not a great look.

There was the accent/language barrier. I couldn’t understand them because of their thick Jamaican accents, and they couldn’t understand why I didn’t know the difference between 'texturising', relaxing and steaming, nor why I sounded like Felicity Kendall. So I told them that I was adopted, and my black cred. and viability was instantly relinquished - but it had to be done.

So now, 2 years on and trial and error has told me that you have to tell them when to take the ‘relaxing' treatment off your hair, otherwise the solution, a mixture of ammonia, chloride simply burns your scalp. It starts off with a faint prickle, then an eye-watering sting, and then you lose the will to live. And oh, how they laughed that first time, when I was a silently burning fledgling, too timid to tell anyone that my scalp was on fire.

Now, I love it, I’m quietly confident, I know the terminology, the cooking time, I know I don’t want it tongued, gelled, or steam ironed so it resembles a fibre glass wig, and if I did have Patti Boulaye style hair extensions, I’d pay extra, get real hair, not vinyl as it can be a fire hazard.

But, apart from anything else, I love to sit in there and just watch, and listen - an I end up yearning to be like them - seemingly assured, steeped in their all-prevailing culture as second and third generation Jamaicans. Theirs is another reality where cellulite showing through spray-on customised lycra flares looks positively sexy, where exquisitely bejewelled fingers clasp deep fried dumplings and where the fashion police are ignored as horizontal stripes are worn, belted on hugely undulating sexy bodies.

Being a coconut has its advantages, but every couple of months I go there and envy that cosy, supportive, culturally exclusive camaraderie that those hairdressing salons evoke, where dub reggae plays on a loop and everyone talks and laughs really loudly-except me- who talks as little as possible, for obvious reasons.
Is there a group you long to belong to?

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[align=left]Hey everyone[/align]
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[align=left]As a black female of part jamican linage, I don't know what to make of this story, in regards to the 'cultural significance'. Is this woman selling out or just being honest? [/align]
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[align=left]Is this a common trait of black woman today and why is black hair care such a bloody taboo?[/align]
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[align=left]Your views please[/align]
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[align=left]Ms Price.[/align]
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Miss Nellia · (#2 (**permalink**))

Ms Price wrote:

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Coconut Hair

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My first reaction when I started to read was one of anger, because the 'sista' comes across like a typical out-of-touch with her own people type of person that I can't abide...... she is acting just as ignorant as white people do when it comes to their fascination with our hair...

But then she genuinly didn't know much about black hair because she wasn't raised by a black woman that could teach her all she would need to know.

The only people that need to be talking about black hair, is black people TO black people... we don't need black people talking about our hair to white people.

I get very irritated with their ignorance and fascination with black hair.... we have the most beautiful and unique hair of all the races... we can do more with it than any other....

Is she just telling a story.... or is she trying to cash in on her ignorance?
I don't know Ms Price.... I think for me she get's the thumbs down. (just my personal opinion)

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ChubbiChix · (#3 (**permalink**))

I love natural black hair but I always though a coconut was a west indian person and an oreo was a white on the inside person. But anyway thats why I do my own hair or go to hair dressers that do natural hairs style.

Ms Price · (#4 (**permalink**))

Miss Nellia wrote:

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Ms Price wrote:

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Coconut Hair

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My first reaction when I started to read was one of anger, because the 'sista' comes across like a typical out-of-touch with her own people type of person that I can't abide...... she is acting just as ignorant as white people do when it comes to their fascination with our hair...

But then she genuinly didn't know much about black hair because she wasn't raised by a black woman that could teach her all she would need to know.

The only people that need to be talking about black hair, is black people TO black people... we don't need black people talking about our hair to white people.

I get very irritated with their ignorance and fascination with black hair.... we have the most beautiful and unique hair of all the races... we can do more with it than any other....

Is she just telling a story.... or is she trying to cash in on her ignorance?
I don't know Ms Price.... I think for me she get's the thumbs down. (just my personal opinion)

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hey Miss Nellia

Its true what you are saying, the reason why i choose to share this was because I take my hair care very seriously, so it grows healthybanana.gif, and for another black female,to make our hair care techniqueslook so 'ethnic' and strange makes me tic a little.

It's bad enoughthat when we buy hairproducts from the black hair shops, and there is a blond blue eyed girl telling you which hairconditioneris better for yr hair

we don't need a whole cultural fixture on our hair. The Jamaican part just made me cringe.

Ms Price

Michelle33 · (#5 (**permalink**))

Miss Nellia wrote:

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Ms Price wrote:

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Coconut Hair

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The only people that need to be talking about black hair, is black people TO black people... we don't need black people talking about our hair to white people.

I get very irritated with their ignorance and fascination with black hair.... we have the most beautiful and unique hair of all the races... we can do more with it than any other....

I totally agree and this goes for a lot of the sellout back journalists out there who don't check themselves before they put out one-sided, and often stereotypical articles into the white mainstream press. More often they only consider their ego's.. the thought of themselves saying "I've had my work published in the Standard/Times/Guardian" etc does it for them. I actually think it's time to out some of them.

Vintage · (#6 (**permalink**))

"I always though a coconut was a west indian person"

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ANYHOO - the author didn't seem to learn anything except how to get her hair done (and be quietly condescending)... worthless article...

liberiangirl · (#7 (**permalink**))

i am a bit wary about white people learning more about our hair...... if they learn how much time and money we spend on our hair they will see it as a new business venture. That will be more money going our of the pockets of the black community.... not that this isnt happening already, what with the asian monopoly on black hair shops and products.

And what does she mean by this comment:

"Being a coconut has its advantages"

Mezmerized · (#8 (**permalink**))

Instead of writing about "black hair" she sould be realy wasting her limited intelligence writing about the consequences of white people adopting Black children, because since her writing is bad and she is hardly concise about what she istalking about, at least all Black people have to do is just look at how messed up she has turned out and NEVER ever hand another Black child to live with whites.

I have read that article twice and i STILL do not understand what she is going on about!

I think its official, we have Blondy Coconuts in our race...lol

MyThoughts · (#9 (**permalink**))

liberiangirl wrote:

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i am a bit wary about white people learning more about our hair...... if they learn how much time and money we spend on our hair they will see it as a new business venture. That will be more money going our of the pockets of the black community.... not that this isnt happening already, what with the asian monopoly on black hair shops and products.

And what does she mean by this comment:

"Being a coconut has its advantages"

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LOL, is that what she said...damn...and there I thot that black people never actually aspired to be coconuts...like duh...silly me

Ms Price · (#10 (**permalink**))

Mezmerized wrote:

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Instead of writing about "black hair" she sould be realy wasting her limited intelligence writing about the consequences of white people adopting Black children, because since her writing is bad and she is hardly concise about what she istalking about, at least all Black people have to do is just look at how messed up she has turned out and NEVER ever hand another Black child to live with whites.

I have read that article twice and i STILL do not understand what she is going on about!

I think its official, we have Blondy Coconuts in our race...lol

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So true...lol

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Miss Nellia · (#11 (**permalink**))

@MS Prize & Michelle33

I hope she gets all that she is searching for and I hope that she buck up on a sista that will tell her a thing or two!!!

Slightly off topic....but the other thing I hate to see is children in hair extensions....... what the hell mother allows a child to go out in public with hair extensions... this perpetuates self hate in the minds of these children... Are we now telling our children that our hair is not good enough in it's natural state????

I was on the high street the other day and saw this woman with five children, one boy and four girls ages between 4-12, each and every one of the girls had extensions down their backs, and the oldest one had blond pieces through it.

9/10 African girls at my school wear weaves or extensions.

@chubbichix

Coconut, bounty chocolate, oreo biscuits are all names for a white person in black skin..... don't know where you got the West Indian thing from.