Solange Knowles's "In Past Pupils and Smiles" Taught Me to Love My Hair, Again.
As the only Black girl in my middle school class, my hair greatly affected how people saw me. The girls in my school would put gel on their otherwise straight hair to make it curly. Without thinking about the curls my hair had already formed, I decided to take it upon myself to do the same, but no amount of gel could make my hair look like theirs.
It was a huge deal when I wore my hair naturally without gel to school. My peers, even the very few Black girls at the school, wanted to touch my hair when I wore it naturally. It felt like I couldn't win. I couldn't have the curls everyone else had, and I couldn't wear my hair naturally without it becoming a show. My hair eventually started to break off because of the amount of gel I put on it. A hairband could barely hold my once full afro.
Black women's hair has always been a marker of their identity. Hair has been used to mark a woman's social status, social class, age, marital status, and more. When colonizers brought enslaved people to the Americas, they shaved their hair to dehumanize them and strip them of their culture. Women with straight hair are more likely to get jobs than those who wear afros. Black women's hair has historically been a social marker of their identity.
While attending Howard University from 2014 to 2018, hair was a significant marker of social status. On campus, Black women's hair played a crucial role in identifying their social status. Notably, Miss Howard University, or any woman in a position of power, such as the student council president, always wore a weave or straightened their hair. Many times one could possibly identify which sorority a woman was part of or aiming to join based on their hair alone.
Not knowing how I fit into the social scene at Howard made it hard to know how I should wear my hair. Even though I was at an HBCU that prides itself on the diversity of Black students it brings in, it felt like high school, again, where hair was a marker of my identity rather than the skills and knowledge I had to offer.
Black women have pushed back against these norms that their hair must play a role in their social status. Cicely Tyson went against the norm by wearing cornrows in a major motion picture, "East Side West Side." Cornrows had been historically viewed as an unfinished hairstyle until Tyson changed the narrative. Angela Davis altered the meaning of the afro when she notably wore her hair in an afro during the Black Power movement, which affected how people viewed the afro. The afro became a symbol of Black power because of Davis. Melba Tolliver wore her afro while anchoring the news coverage of President Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia Nixon's wedding in 1971 for ABC. ABC eventually fired Tolliver for wearingher hair in an afro on live television. However, she continued her career at WNBC. These women changed the narrative of Black hair in America.
Solange Knowles' new photo book titled "In Past Pupils and Smiles" (Anteism), a 188-page monograph that includes photos and interviews from her self-composed and directed final performance at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale de Venezia, also pushed against the norms associated with Black hair and inspired me to reflect on my experiences.
Looking at John Mollison's photos in the book of Black dancers wearing their natural hair taught me to love my hair again. The representation of beautiful Black women wearing their hair naturally in a book made me feel connected to the rawness and confidence of the women in the photos. Even though they all wore their natural hair, they all brought their uniqueness to the photo. Millison's photo showed that even if every Black woman has the same hairstyle, they are still distinctively different.
I felt like my hair at Howard and in high school had to be the ultimate marker of my identity and individuality. However, seeing women in Solange's book all wearing the same hairstyle while being able to see their uniqueness felt like a confirmation that my hair doesn't need to be the only marker of my identity. "In Past Pupils and Smiles" empowered me to continue to wear my afro without fear of judgment.
