Listen well: African women are talking about their hair.

I just finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s novel, Americanah, and was totally taken by her wonderful vivid description of a hair-braiding salon in Trenton New Jersey. I never realized it took six hours to have one’s hair braided and that it hurt so much! Being a person who hates going to the hairdresser – I don’t like getting my hair pulled- and who rarely styles her hair I also found myself quite amazed by the time, effort and even health risk that are involved in achieving the alternative soft wavy look many black women favor.

J.D. Okhai Ojeikere photographs of Nigerian women hairstyles have fascinated me recently.  They do feel abstract and impersonal however. While that is part of their appeal I loved getting Adiche’s insights into women’s daily lives and hairstyle practices. Suddenly, something that had felt distant and looked like an abstract art form came to life.

To give you an idea of how intricate, sculptural and varied these hairdos can be, here are wonderful photographs taken by J. D Okhai Ojeikere who sadly past away very recently.

These images come from his series Hairstyles. In the street, at the office, at parties, he photographed women’s hairdos from behind and highlighted their sculptural qualities and the play of forms. Beyond their aesthetic qualities his series offer a mix of ethnographic and anthropological insight into Nigerian culture.

I am a woman and I assure you hair matters very early on the life of a little girl. I remember trying different hairstyles as a child: braids, ponytails, with lots of colorful bows. It was about vanity but also identity and pleasure. However, in African culture and tradition cornrow braiding has much greater and deeper significance. It is much more than an expression of personal vanity. It has communicative power and traditionally speaks of religion, kinship, status, age and ethnicity. When a black woman chooses to braid her hair she is embracing and honoring her cultural heritage.

Adiche, born in Nigeria but now living both in Nigeria and in the US brings her personal Nigerian perspective to the discussion of race in the United States. In Adiche’s third novel, Ifemelu the outspoken Nigerian heroine is returning to Nigeria. In preparation of her return, she wants to have her hair braided. With no braiding hair salon in upper class Princeton where she was on a research fellowship she goes to Trenton to have her hair braided.

Ifemelu has all the characteristics of what Adiche calls an Americanah: After 14 years in the US she has given up some of her old habits and adopted American ways.  Sitting in a hair salon having her hair braided for six hours by ladies from French speaking West Africa she munches carrots and granola bars while they are eating spicy and greasy food. She reads an American novel while they stare in rapture at Nigerian Nollywood movies, which she dislikes.

Adiche weaves through out the novel the theme of Ifemelu’s black kinky hair and its care, here an index of Ifemelu’s race and gender. The evocative  hair braiding episode  followed subsequently by the many references to hair become a metaphor for Ifemulu’s struggles in the US as an African immigrant.   A Nigerian African contending for the first time with her blackness in a predominantly white society, Ifemelu gradually emerges as an independent and authentic woman.

Ifemelu is a blogger in the story. She is not afraid to speak her mind about issues of race and has the refreshing perspective of the outsider on America’s political correctness that looks so foreign to people that come from abroad. I loved the frankness and outspoken nature of her posts and it made me realize that my own posts could be spunkier.

All simplistic notions of race and identity particular to the western perspective and America’s “ tribal” approach to difference are challenged: People from Nigeria are different from people from Senegal, or Kenya or Mali, even though Americans would prefer to bunch them all under the term “Africans”. African-Americans are different from what Adiche calls American- Africans and there are many shades of “blackness”. She defies easy categorization, highlights differentiation while not minimizing prevailing deeply rooted racial prejudices.

Lets get back to the subject of hair.

“Can you imagine Michele Obama wearing her hair natural?” says Ifemelu.

Michele Obama has to have her hair relaxed and has to risk burning and scarring her scalp to achieve a look that voters are all comfortable with. The question begs to be asked. Would Obama have been elected if Michele wore her hair natural and short? Kind of crazy to think that we, voters, would have taken her hairdo into consideration. Yet, I think many would have.  So before any of you start thinking it is ridiculous to be spending so much time on ones hair, lets remember the magnitude of the consequences. Thank you Chimamanda Adiche for pointing it out! I take so much for granted and I really appreciate when I get a new awareness.   Hair is no joke in this country! It has huge symbolism though that is not the case everywhere in Africa. Trust me in the middle of the bush in Kenya it is a subject far from a woman’s mind.  However it does matter to the young male warriors!

According to Zina Saro-Wiwa, another Nigerian artist who has just returned to Nigeria after years abroad, one needs to pay attention to how black women in America are dealing with their hair these days. In spring of 2012 she made Transition a documentary video for the New York Times about the new natural look that many black women in America are adopting. She calls them “transitioning” women and points to a quiet revolution that is taking place.  I met her just as she had shaved off her hair and was keeping it short and natural. She was at the same time dealing with the long overdue grieving process over the violent death of her father Ken Saro-Wiwa. Determined to embrace her history, and in a courageous act of self-acceptance and honesty she included in a video recording of performances around the idea of “Grief” one scene where she allows herself to show her grief unabashedly and without any visual adornment. Her hair is cut very short and all the emphasis is on her expression.

She highlights the significance of this movement and its potential impact.

“[But] black hair and the black body generally have long been a site of political contest in American history and in the American imagination. Against this backdrop, the transition movement has a political dimension – whether transitioners themselves believe or not. Demonstration this level of self-acceptance represents a powerful evolution in black political expression. If racial politics has led to an internalization of self-loathing, then true transformation will come internally, too. It will not be a performative act. Saying it loud: “I’m black and I’m proud” is one thing. Believing it quietly is another. So the transition movement is much more profound and much more powerful – and I believe it offers lessons in self-acceptance for people of all hues and all genders.”

Zina is now in Nigeria working on  commissions for a couple of US museums and opening a pop up contemporary art gallery in her father’s old offices focusing on life and its struggles in the Niger Delta.

I find both Zina and Ifemelu’s determination, courage and self –acceptance deeply moving and inspiring. I thrive to be true to who I am and that includes cultural heritage and personal experience. I have learned from an early age that most people are attracted to you for the parts of you that are like them and not for what makes you different and separate.  With that in mind, choosing to honor difference, like Ifemulu or Zina are doing, can seem a risky proposition at times and yet I think it holds an abundance of richness. Holding at once what makes us similar and what makes us separate is the key to a rich and peaceful life and world.

From this point of departure – the hair salon – we follow the trials and tribulations of the two main protagonists Ifemelu and Obinze, who are lovers in high school in Nigeria then part ways as they try to improve on their choices in life. Obinze, a soft spoken young man with a passion for the US, cannot get a visa and ends up in London scrubbing toilets. He is deported back to Nigeria after he has been found to be working with false papers. He finds material success in Lagos. Ifemelu goes to university in the US where she struggles terribly to make ends meet. Her perseverance pays off and she becomes a very successful blogger. Despite her success she feels something deeply lacking in her life and returns to Lagos where she eventually reunites with Obinze.

The overriding narrative of boy /girl in love, going their separate ways and finding each other again is a time worn structure. More interesting are the insights into the life of Ifemelu when she was a young girl in Nigeria, highlighting the gradual disappointments and frustration with the way things were going in a country trying to find its way after independence.

Most of all, I love how Adiche highlights difference and creates a rich tapestry of colorful and unique experiences which are a powerful antidote to the toxic dangers of prejudice.