Untamed
Free
Wild
Forceful
That hair has been growing
breathing to a rhythm of it’s own
for generations
like the thick-lipped, white-teethed soul that lives beneath it
deeply rooted
regenerable
sensual
like nothing you’ve ever seen
and no man should dare suppress it’s flow
no law should stand before it,
cold and irreversible
no human thought should ever mistake it’s intensity for violence
unless the evidence is irrefutable
no racist finger should point in it’s direction and accuse
no voice
no fist
no guns should be raised
against the ones who’s blood runs
just as red and warm and unsafe as yours
in the world
wherever you are
wherever you come from
Many years ago,
growing up,
I’ve seen that hair smoothly metamorphize from Nat King Cole’s to Ella’s,
sometimes from Mahalia’s to Sarah Vaughn’s
I’ve come to know that hair as if it was my own
taking a different form every day
in my parents’ home
in Bucharest
– jazzy evenings in the living-room with the giants long before I even knew what crooning was –
And boy did I fall in love for the first time as that hair revealed Michael Jackson!
Living in London,
that hair has become more and more palpable
so palpable, I wrote this as I was watching a woman brushing her little girl’s hair in front of me, in the tube
“A black woman’s hair…everything starts at a very young age. The mother takes special care of the little girl’s hair, as it is extremely curly – so curly, it almost defies gravity. A black mother brushing her little girl’s hair and turning it into braids with unbelievable patience. Sometimes for hours. The two sides of the head might even be asymmetrical and it looks even more beautiful like that. The head becomes a map, a work of art. A little black girl’s head is a wonder. When they grow older, black women wear wigs so real, you can’t even tell they’re wigs. They seem as natural as their own hair. Perhaps they’re slowly forgetting their mother’s touch with a brush on their head. That’s a shame, because a black woman’s head is a wonder.”
I almost fell in love with a black woman once, at a carnival
also got into an argument with a black woman
– shortest argument of my life, as she knocked me out with just two sentences –
and even became an Erykah Badu fanatic
– until I wasn’t –
everything changed when I discovered Gil Scott Heron, Maya Angelou, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, Slick Rick, Mos Def and other poets who made old school hip-hop and rap “a big thing”
and to this day I think that Kanye’s best album is “808’s and heartbreak”.
What I’m actually trying to say is…I feel somewhat responsible for what happened to George Floyd. Men whose skin color is the same as my father’s and that of the man I love have done this to an unarmed, nonviolent and highly claustrophobic individual just because he happened to be black. This is a homage to him, although I am not sure how helpful it is, just as I am not sure how posting a black square on Instagram with a comment such as “#blacklivesmatter” or no comment at all – is. But black lives matter indeed. And if you don’t think they do, then you’re definitely part of the problem.
We’ve all been borrowing from them, be it music, hair styles, dance moves, we’ve all been secretly (or openly) admiring their confidence, those perfect bodies and tight skin that never seem to age, the inherited sense of rhythm, the ease with which they sing the most difficult songs – like it’s their birth right, the passion and fire they carry in their bones.
Perhaps the time has come to give something back.
They’d better be some protests happening soon and if they are, hope I’ll meet you all there!
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