Is That Your Real Hair?

And how my mixed-race daughter has inherited the same curse as me

Arrrr, yes, I’m so frustrated. My mixed-race daughter just came back from piano class where she was repeatedly micro aggressed by her white piano teacher and her husband.

You see, over the Christmas break, I made my daughter some long box braids with grey-blue extensions. She sort of looks like a version of Hurricane from X-men with her new hairstyle. With the number of people walking around with braids in Geneva, hell, with the number of people walking around the world with braids, you’d expect that white people would have by now understood the mystery behind how Black people can have long hair one day, and short the next!

Yet, some stubbornly refuse to understand and so my daughter was literally interrogated when she got to her piano teacher’s house. Amongst the questions asked was that one stupid one white people have asked me over and over again for decades: «Is that your hair?»

So for context, my daughter participated in a recital at their home about a month ago. She had her short, stylish, boyish haircut at the time. The piano teachers even complimented her on it. How in the hell could they then ask her, barely a month later, if the waist-length tresses flowing down her back were her real hair? I mean really.

My daughter and I laughed about it, but really deep down inside, it bothered me. Why? Because, since I was a child, over 40 years ago, white people have asked that question. After decades of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and even the former First Lady Michelle Obama rocking braids of all lengths, don’t tell me that white people still haven’t figured things out?

If I sound a tad bit angry, it’s because I am. First I don’t understand this unhealthy obsession white people have with Black people’s hair and second, I don’t get why normally intelligent white people believe that we can grow waist-length hair overnight. It just sounds totally ludicrous.

And so yes, I say that my daughter has inherited this curse too. This curse of always being asked about her hair by white people. As I sit here myself, I wonder if one day she’ll be having the same conversation with her own daughter. Will my granddaughter, great-granddaughter, or great-great-granddaughter inherit the curse too? How long will this basic, casual form of racism continue?

Because make no mistake, it is racism, subtle, curious, and smiling, but it is a form of racism all the same. White people should just refrain from taking such an unhealthy obsession with our hair, from touching our hair, and from asking us stupid questions. We are simply sick and tired of this, so please stop it.

Thank you for reading my perspective.