Ten. The age I was when I began to assimilate myself for you, compress myself for you, and even change myself for you. But at ten how could I comprehend the damage it will have upon me, upon my self-worth.
Because at ten when I sat in class, white fingers in my hair, white eyes they stare, looking at my exterior. Trying to control my hysteria as I pushed back the tears wanting to escape my eyes. Whilst, their eyes roamed my blackness for free. They tried to untangle my roots, my rich heritage. Tried to put me together, like I wasn’t whole. Wondering why my hair don’t blow in the wind like theirs do, which left me wondering that too.
For a long long time, I didn’t see my reflection on the TV screen. European beauty standards on white and black faces were the only thing to be seen. I didn’t see me. I didn’t hear my praise, so at ten I began to assimilate myself for you.
You see, my curls were tight. Each kink a story to be told, a story so old, so bold colourful in words. A story where my ancestors were the leading characters, not some mannie, nanny, bitch or whore. A story where they soaked their crowns in shea and the finest oils.
Yet somehow the legacy that was passed on to me got lost in translation. Afro combs swapped to hot combs, my lioness mane chemically tamed until my crown was nothing but a symbol for a clown. To some a laughing matter.
But imagine this, at ten for the first time, a burning sensation spread through my scalp like wildfire. A stinging sensation overwhelming, I felt my skin blister underneath the layers of a toxic formulation. The smell suffocating. The pain left my head aching. But for ten years, every six weeks, I would assimilate myself for you.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know where it began. Slave masters preaching that we were not masters of our beauty. A false reality. Nonetheless, mothers passed it on to their daughters and four hundred years later this potent lie still haunts us.
Straight blonde hair is beautiful in its own right, but how can I deny the wonder that grows on my head. How can I not give it a chance to grow before I coat it in its killer? How can I destroy a natural symbol of me?
I was twenty when I stopped assimilating myself for you. I began the journey of finding myself, losing myself in a history that for too long remained a mystery. The history that praised my sister queens and I. And I began to love myself loudly, realising in vain I wait for others to whisper my praise when I could sing it.
Sister queens love your natural hair. Your beauty immaculate your status divine, to assimilate oneself is only to dampen your shine. You are regal. You are sublime, the greatest wonder of all mankind.
Yaa Yah 