Facebook Publication Date: 9/27/2020 0:09

Another video where my hair loss mentor perfectly articulates my feelings.

When I first started losing my hair oh, I was on a mission to find a wig that looked exactly like my hair would have looked if I have been able to keep it.

And it was a very deep Secret.

I told almost no one and because I was lucky enough that it looked natural enough I didn’t have to.

But I did feel it.

And I also felt that while I was not being dishonest, I was not sharing my entire and full self.

That takes a toll, particularly for people who, like me, value authenticity.

I only began to tell when I stopped going for a perfect match with my old biological hair.

I was never friends with my real hair! It was fine, hard to style, easily damaged, and a pain.

Two things that first came to me during my journey.

One, that I could tell the truth about my hair without shame, and now that I have done so the years have been amazing when people have come to me telling me about their own hair loss.

If you are a woman the odds are better than even that by the time you hit your forties and fifties you will have mild to significant loss and you will start to care about it a lot.

Knowing that you have options gives you the freedom to make choices oh, and to not feel victimized and immerse yourself in self-blame and self-hatred.

I also politicized it.

Hair is so fraught, and such a marker for femininity, and who we are as women is wrapped up in what’s on top of our heads.

So to make it less of a punishment and more of an empowerment I stopped seeking to mimic the hair that I once had oh, and started shopping around for the hair that I wish I had!

Turns out there’s a lot of hair I wish I had which is why I have a lot of different styles and a lot of different colors.

It shows up on my videos for Lace on Race.

In a given week I do anywhere from one to even four videos and almost never am I wearing the same wig twice.

I rotate them out a lot.

And of course people notice.

There’s no way that I can go from black one day to Auburn the next day 2 mermaid hair the day after that, and from chin to elbow to mid length without people noticing.

It can become a conversation starter about how we present ourselves to the world, our exterior selves and who we are inside that should stay consistent and congruent.

Telling people up front particularly when I’m complimented is a big deal.

I’m in racial Justice Circles, and that has an economic and class analysis welded to it.

And it looks as if I have very expensive hair!

So to tell people is to make the covert overt in this regard.

And that is empowering for me and for others.

Wearing our afflictions outwardly and openly and channeling them for good; it’s part and parcel of a social justice Praxis.

And part of that for me is my hair.

The Women’s Hair Loss Project

The Women’s Hair Loss Project

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