The (not so) Hairsterical Life of a Nappy-Headed Black Girl

By Jackie Cotham

Good hair, bad hair, what the hair is going on? They say it's supposed to be a woman's crowning glory, but for Jackie, a young, black girl from the deep South, it is everything but! Growing up black and female is tough enough, but coupled with coping with a head full of nappy hair in a world made up of people consumed by ignorance who would soon rather mock her existence simply because they don't understand it—well that's another demon altogether.

hair is going on? They say it's supposed to be a woman's crowning glory, but for Jackie, a young, black girl from the deep South, it is everything but! Growing up black and female is tough enough, but coupled with coping with a head full of nappy hair in a world made up of people consumed by ignorance who would soon rather mock her existence simply because they don't understand it—well that's another demon altogether.

The (not so) Hairsterical Life of a Nappy-Headed Black Girl follows the life of Jackie, its main character, who is exceedingly self-aware of her hair from the age of three through adulthood. Jackie will try just about any kind of shenanigans from wigs and braids to hair-scorching relaxers to find the answer to having the “good hair” that will somehow make her good enough. Throughout her futile hair journey, the many people she faces, both within and outside of her race, along with her many hair challenges force her to learn important lessons about life. The question is will she use them to accept herself as she is or become a bitter, angry black woman in a never-ending battle to fit into societal norms.

The (not so) Hairsterical Life of a Nappy-Headed Black Girl follows the life of Jackie, its main character, who is exceedingly self-aware of her hair from the age of three through adulthood. Jackie will try just about any kind of shenanigans from wigs and braids to hair-scorching relaxers to find the answer to having the “good hair” that will somehow make her good enough. Throughout her futile hair journey, the many people she faces, both within and outside of her race, along with her many hair challenges force her to learn important lessons about life. The question is will she use them to accept herself as she is or become a bitter, angry black woman in a never-ending battle to fit into societal norms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rose Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393646297

Jackie Cotham

Jackie Cotham is a serial entrepreneur, teacher, college professor and writer. Her many endeavors all stem from a love since childhood for reading and writing. After earning an undergraduate degree in Communications and Journalism and a graduate degree in Technology Education, she married the two passions and became an English teacher, and then an English professor at a local college. She also started her own businesses including a tutoring company, which helps children to become better readers and writers, a design company helping entrepreneurs to creatively market their small businesses and a training and development company that teaches women how to succeed in the workforce. Jackie’s love for teaching, desire to empower women and passion for writing made becoming an author a no-brainer. Since beginning her writing journey, she has contributed to several media outlets on issues related to women of color from job inequality to natural hair. Using her gift of gab, she also has her own author blog, appropriately titled, The Shameless Rant (www.jackiecotham.com) where fans can go to read about and discuss topics related to women, as well as receive inspiration and motivation to be able to take on the world.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Humble Beginnings

Everything I know about my hair prior to age four is somewhat of a blur. I recall my hairstory beginning at four mostly because that’s when school and all the madness began. It was when my mama began to comb my hair daily, tying coordinating ribbons and barrettes all over like I was a doll. My hair couldn’t have been more than three or four inches long, and Mama would part it into four or six sections, fashioning a plait in each one. Thank God I didn’t know any better because most little black girls at that time wore their hair in similar styles; however, after I became a teenager, looking back at pictures of myself caused me great distress.

When my mama wasn’t paying attention, I’d snatch those awful photos out of the albums every chance I got and tuck them under the nearest sofa cushion. Snapshots of me smiling from ear to ear with tiny, colorful sprouts all over my head, or even worse—pictures of me with almost no hair at all. That’s right, I was bald-headed! Which may also explain why I don’t recall any hair stories before age four—I didn’t have any hair!

Prior to then, my hair was what is now affectionately known as a TWA (teenie weenie afro). My relatives told me stories later about how Mama had my ears pierced when I was only three months old just so strangers would stop telling her how cute her little boy was. I imagine those comments served as fuel for her determination to grow my hair . . . at any cost. That along with the fact that Mama had some sort of fetish—no, obsession with hair! She thought that long, flowing hair was the epitome of womanhood, and without it, she was somehow incomplete.

Retrospectively, I believe she lived vicariously through her daughters. Though Mama was not without her own fair share of huge spongy ringlets, she kept them neatly pinned under a curly, black wig, only to be seen at night when she traded the wig for a silken night scarf. Her justification was that her delicate hair had fallen out several times over the years from coloring and perming and simply couldn’t withstand the stress of day-to-day styling. So, for the moment, she exercised her unhealthy hair appetite on me.

Around the time that I started pre-K, I remember coming home from school and Mama would unravel my tiny plaits and grab some bottles of homemade oils and potions and mix them together. She’d smear them all over my hair, and then she’d start to vigorously agitate my scalp. I guess it was supposed to be the equivalent of a scalp massage, but it felt like torture. She would squeeze and pulsate and percolate and churn for what seemed like hours. My head would bob up and down and back and forth until I was dizzy.

My daddy, with his regular dose of aggravation, coupled with his unsolicited humor, would enter the room and chuckle as he looked at the agony in my eyes. Then true to his heckling nature, he would say, You want your hair to grow, don’t you? Ya better let your mama work her magic or else you’ll look like a boy the rest of your life.

If looks could kill, mine was a 9mm Glock pistol! It was undoubtedly his fault that I had this black Brillo Pad sitting on my head in the first place. I was sure I had inherited this cursed head of hair from his nappy genes.

Daddy would strut out of the room laughing, his ten-inch, equally thick afro bobbing back and forth on his head, reminiscent of a watered-down version of Lionel Richie in his Commodores days, pork chop sideburns and all. I’d roll my eyes and continue to endure the agony.

When Mama was feeling especially driven, she would give me an extra-long massage. I learned to make an annoying humming noise with my mouth that sounded like a hundred bees buzzing around the room, which helped shorten my torture sessions. When she was done, I had to stay seated for at least five minutes. Otherwise, if I stood too soon, the room would spin a thousand miles per hour, and I’d stumble with dizziness, like a drunken fool, then end up flat on my back. My scalp would throb and tingle for several minutes too. Then, I’d walk around with my hair sticking up like a wild porcupine to allow my scalp to breathe before it was time for me to sit down for session number two—the combing session.

What was the matter with this woman? She spent twenty or thirty minutes shaking the hell out of my head and made me sit to have my hair combed for the next day because she didn’t have time to fight with it in the mornings before school—talk about brutal!

This was our daily routine for at least two years or so. I can’t be sure how long exactly, as it is possible that all of the shaking shook something loose in my memory. What I do know is that by the time I was in first grade, I had an afro that would’ve made Chaka Khan proud. After that, our family started to regard my mama as the miracle lady. Onlookers would stare at my hair in awe and make comments like, Is that a wig? Or those who knew me in my bald days would say, "Oh my gosh! How did you get her hair to grow like that?" It was like Mama was Jesus at the wedding at Cana and they’d witnessed her turn water into wine!

Lesson #1 - There is hope even in what seems like the most impossible situations.

Chapter 2

Hot Comb Hell

Having all that hair wasn’t as great as it was cracked up to be. I may not have had the TWA anymore, but at the age of six, I had bigger problems thanks to Annie Malone and Madam CJ Walker—the hot comb. Now that my hair was longer and thicker, Mama needed reinforcements to help tame my mane. It was right about that time when I first realized that my hair was nappy and that I was black. By now, I’d seen enough TV commercials showcasing little white girls with straight hair playing with dolls bearing equally smooth, shiny hair, and could easily differentiate between my struggle and the absence of theirs.

Every Saturday morning, like clockwork, Mama would wake me up and I would drag myself into the bathroom to get cleaned up. Then I’d plop down onto the big dark oak kitchen chair that she would take from our dining table and place next to the stove. I would eye that hot comb sitting on the burner of the stove like it was the angel of death, cloaked and with a scythe in-hand, coming to take me to my final resting place.

Grease popped into the air as the thick petroleum-based goop met my big, bushy locks. The room smelled like an old Chevette with worn tires burning rubber in the streets.

OUCH! I would yell as little drops of the hot grease landed on my arms, forehead, and neck, leaving tiny burns everywhere and sending me into a complete conniption. I wanted to yell some other choice words that I’d heard from my parents around the house, but I, even in pain, was no fool.

Mama was an average-size woman and quite attractive; however, one should not be fooled by outward appearances. When she had had enough of our shenanigans, her mocha complexion would turn the color of beets, and she would spew curse words like a trained sailor, which was our warning to run for cover because we knew that she was about to pick up the nearest object and use it as a behavioral correction tool. So, I sat still and dealt with the smell of burning hair and oils that suffocated me in the smoke-filled kitchen. I thought, Why me, Jesus? I wondered if this was some kind of punishment for something that I had done but was unaware of. The list of possibilities was too long to speculate.

I asked Mama why she was torturing me out of all of her daughters? I was the youngest and sweetest (so I thought), and I never saw her torment my sisters the way she did me. My brother, who was the oldest, I understood, but she had two other girls to torture. My sister Nikki, who was ten years my elder, was the rebellious one. She had smooth cocoa skin that would wrinkle like an old paper bag every time she got angry. Then she would squint her big brown eyes and purse her full lips at Mama in protest. If Mama said up, she insisted it was down. If mama said cold, she demanded it was hot. The two of them were like oil and water, which might explain why Nikki never kept more than two to three inches of hair at any given time. She knew how Mama felt about hair and was committed to opposing her at any cost.

My other sister, Leslie, was the meek one, the people-pleaser, if you will. She usually did as Mama said without so much as a mumble. Then behind Mama’s back she’d roll her bold green eyes and suck her teeth irreverently. She was seven years my senior and even at the age of twelve, she still had a marvelous head full of dusty brown hair that sat like a wild bush against her almond-colored face. Why couldn’t Mama fry her hair with the hot comb instead of mine? I later learned that by that time, both of my sisters were old enough to have relaxers and I wasn’t, but they’d surely had their turn in the hot seat years before when they were my age.

When I would go into one of my fits in the hot seat, Mama would flip to a page from a Jet magazine and say, Look at this. She’d show me a photo of picture-perfect little girls with shiny ponytails with curls on the ends. Do you want to walk around here with a nappy head or do you want to look like this?

I pondered that hot comb on the stove and thought that if it took me getting scorched to death to look like the girls in the magazine, I would opt for the nappy head! Mama’s ultimatum was really a demand because I really had no choice in the matter. I had been told many times before, when my hair was a poofy mess, that I was not about to be out in public, embarrassing her with a nappy head. So, what sounded like Either let me straighten your hair or walk around looking a mess, was really You are not about to make me look like a bad mama by walking around with that sheep’s wool on your head!

My mama, like most black mamas, was no-nonsense. What she said was what she meant. For at least half of my life, I thought your little black ass was a part of my name, as it was used regularly toward me, usually right before she started looking for a correction tool to get me back in line when necessary. So I sat there week after week, praying for it not to rain because that meant two or three rounds in the hot seat in the middle of the week. The sessions would last for an hour or two depending upon how much I winced, moaned, and squirmed in the chair. And God forbid, if that comb so much as grazed the tip of my ear, somebody might as well have shot me, because I would commence to jumping out of the seat and doing a dance reminiscent of somebody catching the holy ghost in a black Baptist church. Then I would take off running at top speed and end my performance with a dramatic fall to the floor on the opposite side of the house. I would lay there, still as a corpse, hoping my mama would believe that she had finally killed me and just leave me there to die in peace, but I had no such luck.

After I had scared her with my first two or three performances, she became unsympathetic. She would just stand there, unmoved, and then she’d scream from the kitchen, Girl, if you don’t get your little black ass back in here, this hot comb is gonna be the least of your problems. I’m not about to chase you around this house!

All I could think was, Boy, if you wasn’t my mama, I would . . . And so that became my routine for several years. And it didn’t get any easier. The heat seemed to only get hotter, the smoke thicker, and my hair continued to grow incessantly.

Lesson #2 - Life wasn’t going to be easy, but at least God had given me hair that equipped me to deal with the struggles that were ahead.

Chapter 3

Stevie’s Little Sisters

Midsummer heat in South Louisiana cloaked us like a second skin. My little cousin, Shannon, and I would sit on the porch eating frozen juice cups, looking for shade where none existed. It wasn’t that we wanted to be outside. It was that our mamas would kick all of the children out of the house during the summer months to go and play after they’d tired of looking at us. Since there was no school to pawn us off on, they sent us out to play most of the day. On one of those days, we were fortunate enough to get rain, so Shannon and I sat inside Mama’s living room, playing our usual game of good hair, bad hair since we had nothing better to do. This very creative game that we’d invented involved three things: a stack of Jet and Ebony magazines (staples in every ’80s black household), a discerning eye to decipher the women with good hair from those with bad hair, and our little index fingers.

We’d sit there for hours flipping through the pages of the magazines until we found a hairstyle worthy of our finger-pointing. Everything from the ever-popular mushroom hairstyles to the bob to the shiny Jheri curl got a finger. Back then, the longer and greasier the style, the better it looked to us. I had begged Mama to let me get a Jheri curl on numerous occasions, so I could look like the people pictured on the Luster’s products, but she refused. All of the popular R & B singing groups—the Force MDs, Full Force, even Ready for the World–all rocked Jheri curls, but only one of Mama’s four children was lucky enough to experience it: my oldest sister, Nikki—the rebel.

After one of their usual battles, Mama relented. I recalled her saying, I don’t care what you do, but I know what none of y’all is about to do. Y’all ain’t about to mess up my good sofa with all that activator mess in your hair!

Mama’s furniture was her pride and joy, even more than her own children it sometimes seemed. Anytime one of us attempted to sit on her good living room sofa, her super senses would kick in, even from another room clear across the house! I swear she could hear the sofa cushions shifting from a hundred feet away.

Get your little black asses off my sofa! she would yell.

So it was a cushion on the floor for my sister and her Jheri curl until she moved out of the house. Shannon was also lucky enough to get a Jheri curl later on in life, but back then all we had were those magazines and a dash of hope.

What y'all doin’? My aunt Ann had wandered into the room.

"Mama, can I get Jheri curl? my cousin asked.

I already told you you’re too young for that. Maybe in a few years, Shannon.

My little cousin pouted and rolled her eyes. Well, what about this? she asked, pointing to Stevie Wonder on the cover of a Jet magazine. His head was covered in tiny, long braids with matching beads on the ends.

My aunt tilted her head slightly, surveying Stevie’s hair. Hmmmmm, I think we might be able to do that.

Me too? I asked excitedly, springing from the floor.

Mmm-hmm, I guess so if your mama agrees. She nodded. My cousin and I began to squeal with excitement, jumping up and down like two wild bunnies. Jackie, go and ask your mama if she has any foil paper in the kitchen.

I raced out of the room and returned a few seconds later. Yep, she’s got some, I said.

Okay, I’m gonna go down the street and get some beads from the dollar store. Y'all be ready to start your hair when I get back. Shannon and I giggled and danced while we sat anxiously anticipating her return. Neither of us had ever had braids with beads before.

When my aunt returned, we were sitting there like two puppies awaiting treats for good behavior. She pulled out a big black hair rake, a jar of Blue Magic hair grease, and several packs of colorful beads. I handed her an unopened roll of foil paper that I had gotten from Mama’s cupboard.

Me first, me first! my cousin begged. I wasn’t opposed to that. I had never seen my aunt’s braided work before, so just in case she didn’t know what she was doing, I thought it best to watch her style Shannon’s hair before allowing her to lay a finger on mine.

I observed her as she parted my cousin’s hair into sections. Then she began to pull and twist as my cousin hunched her shoulders in discomfort. I listened to her make hissing noises and watched her wince in pain for about another thirty minutes as my aunt transformed her hair from two small shaggy pigtails into something from a TCB relaxer ad. My cousin had several neat cornrows positioned diagonally across her head leading to the back of her neck. Cute little plaits dangled just below her neckline.

Oh, this is gonna be fantastic, I thought. Even if it didn’t look completely pain-free, it couldn’t be any worse than the trauma of the hot comb. I continued to watch as my aunt fashioned color-coordinated beads to the ends of the braids. After she added four beads to each one, she balled a small tight wad of foil to secure the ends so the beads wouldn’t slip off. Why hadn’t my aunt shared her talent for hair braiding with us before then? Her skills were impeccable, and here we were suffering all this time in pigtails and barrettes.

When she finally finished, it was my turn and I could hardly contain myself. I shoved my cousin aside and flopped down on the thick, shaggy carpet. My aunt began parting my hair into sections and slathering Blue Magic into each part, as she’d done with my cousin. So far, so good, but I was still waiting for the proverbial shoe drop. In the meantime, I watched my cousin look at herself in the horizontal wall-length mirror that my daddy had installed in the living room. She walked past it, striking various poses and blowing kisses at herself for several minutes before finally stopping. The mirror was just low enough for her to see herself from the neck up.

I guess she wasn’t satisfied with the partial view because she started jumping up and down feverishly while she watched her braids swing back and forth as they made an annoying rattling noise. I twisted my face up in irritation, hoping my aunt would make her stop, but the madness continued for several minutes. Her mama’s lack of concern for her antics must’ve been her green light to proceed to the next level of irritation because she began jumping even higher, landing with a thud, shaking every picture on the wall. The tiny crystals on my mama’s chandelier swayed back and forth ferociously.

My blood was boiling, and my aunt had to be either deaf or crazy herself not to be agitated by the ridiculous display. Shannon was lucky my mama had left for work because I know what she would’ve done. She would’ve snatched my cousin’s soul out of her body for jumping around in her house like a frog in a pan of hot grease. I decided to follow my aunt’s lead and ignore her. After all, how much longer could this last before Shannon began to tire.

Bad girls . . . talking ’bout the sad girls . . . She added her very own Donna Summer track to her act! Toot-toot, aww beep-beep . . . toot-toot, aww beep be—

Bam!

My aunt had had enough of her stunt and catapulted the jar of Blue Magic hair grease across the room and struck my cousin in the back of the head.

Sit your ass down somewhere! my aunt bellowed. "Can’t you see I am trying to finish your cousin’s hair?

My cousin laid on the floor like a wounded animal, holding the back of her head while I doubled over in laughter. She sat in silence with a look of defeat in her dismal eyes for the remainder of the time my aunt finished my hair. Once she’d put an end to the distraction, my aunt was done in no time. I stood and walked over to the mirror. It was a masterpiece! My and my cousin’s hair were styled exactly the same, but of course, mine looked better.

After Shannon recovered from her near-death experience with the hair grease, we stood in the mirror together, shaking our heads and admiring the colorful beads. Where our stiff plaits and afro puffs had once sat motionless now flowed wonderful strands of click-clacking, face-slapping braids. And we didn’t hold back on the head turning and neck rolling. As a matter of fact, we found any excuse to move our heads a little extra just to see our hair shake and hear the sound of the beads.

Hey, let’s go get our sunglasses. We can be like movie stars, Shannon suggested enthusiastically.

We raced into my bedroom and each grabbed our brightly colored K-Mart sunglasses, then it was back to the mirror to shake our heads and put on a performance—no jumping of course! My cousin put her glasses on first and looked into the mirror. I chuckled at the sight.

Do you know who you look like? I asked.

Nope, she giggled.

Stevie Wonder’s sister!

We both let out loud bursts of boisterous laughter. I put my sunglasses on next and looked at my cousin. The riotous laughter continued.

Hey, let’s sing a Stevie Wonder song.

Okay, I agreed. How about ‘Jammin’? That’s my favorite.

My parents had played Stevie Wonder’s Hotter than July album like it was the only music they owned. I knew it well. My cousin agreed, and we stood together arm in arm, swaying back and forth singing and giggling. Of course, we only understood about five lines from the entire song, but we made up the rest as we went along.

Everyone’s feeling pretty blah blah blah blah . . . July . . . hmmm hmmm hmmm. They couldn’t touch us even if they tried hmmm hmmm hmmm. Didn’t know you would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.

We motioned our heads from side to side while fingering the air like a piano, doing our best Stevie Wonder impressions. We looked like two complete fools, but we didn’t care. We had freshly greased scalps, neatly woven braids, and of course, our beads; and we were Jammin’ just like Stevie Wonder, sunglasses and all.

Lesson #3 - Harnessing creativity—a part of the African DNA. With a little imagination, we could pull off most anything.

Chapter 4

Nothin’ Kiddie About This Perm

Thank you, Lord! I knew you wouldn’t forsake me! You sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land, and now you’ve finally sent someone to save me! My savior’s name was Fred Luster, creator of the PCJ relaxer, and I was finally old enough to get one. No more Saturday heat torture sessions in the kitchen! I was ecstatic. . . . I was elated. . . . I was ready! By the time I was in third grade, my hair had gotten so long and thick that I think even Mama was ready to hang up her hot comb and head into retirement, and she had nominated one of my other aunts as her successor. My Aunt Ira, who was also my godmother, had a cosmetology license and would be performing my first hair transformation.

One muggy Sunday afternoon, we arrived at her house nestled in a quaint middle-class neighborhood on the opposite side of town. Mama led me into my Aunt Ira’s living room, where I was draped in a large bath towel and seated in a folding chair in front of the TV. Placed neatly on the coffee table beside the chair was a box labeled Pressing Comb in a Jar. Pictured on the box were smiling little brown-skinned girls with shiny, black, curly ponytails who, based on their expressions, also appeared to be happy for me. This was looking better than the hot comb madness already.

My aunt started the process by opening the box and taking out a big white jar, three small white bottles, and a small plastic tube. She opened one of the little bottles that said activator and mixed it into the big white jar with a popsicle stick that was also in the box. This was beginning to look like a science experiment I had seen on an episode of Mr. Wizard, which was a bit unsettling. Next, she opened the plastic tube and squeezed out something that looked like Vaseline and began slathering it around the edges of my head, starting at the front of my right ear and working her way around my head until she reached the place where she began. She then took out a long, skinny rattail comb, and using the tip, she parted my hair into four sections. She twisted each section tightly into a knot and secured each knot with a silver hair clip. Then she began dipping the toothed