Guest Blog: Gimme a head with HAIR. LONG BEAUTIFUL HAIR

Gimme a head with HAIR. LONG BEAUTIFUL HAIR

by Brontez Purnell

It started for economic reasons. I was spending 120 dollars a month trying to keep together my”tight fade” alongside the illusion (i.e. absolute fucking lie) that clean cut people in general give- responsible, sanitized, youthful, and Puritan. Dude. Fuck that. People smiled at me everywhere and my baby bare face-thought i was younger than i was and for some MISGUIDED reason young people get clout cause people want to fuck them. I personally dont trust anyone under 30, but i digress. I also i rocked Wayfaires at the time and got called Urkel so much i actually started to belive it. I started dressing like a total dweeb and laid in bed at night HOPING WISHING and WAITING for Laura to love me back. I looked for a Carl. I snapped out of that shit and realized what i become. I was sick of looking like the black dude from “Happy Days.” I fought back the only way I could-I grew out my hair…..like the fucking hippie that i try SO HARD pretend im not.

Now not to feel it but i’ll tell you what your must CERTAINLY have guessed by now. I’M A SISTER AND IM SENSITIVE ABOUT MY FUCKING HAIR. I could write you a slave narrative about it but i’ll go ahead and spare you the bullshit and say it like this-hair is taboo to me because growing up my mom REFUSED to let me have a fro because she saw a white girl at school touching it and FREAKED, she made me cut it that day. This clued me in that alongside the taboo of seeming “unkempt” in general there was the futher variable of how race takes part in it….examples i’ve noticed:

1. Did you see “Good Hair”? That part where the three sisters basically agree that an afro doesn’t look “professional”? I HATE THAT PART Dude. Fuck that.

2. I live in the Bay Area. Part utopia part breeding ground for the Liberal Honky Menace AS WE KNOW IT. These bitches are TOO OPEN. Ive talked with 4 other people with fros (3 black 1 jewish [ps jewish fro= "jfro"]) and agree in our ponderance of WTF?!?!?!?!? People you don’t know asking to touch your hair OR JUST TOUCHING IT!!! THIS IS NOT RACIAL BELLY ACHING. Let some white dude have hair down to his ass NO ONE but NO ONE goes up to him and is all like “AWWWW KOOL! CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR?!?!?!?” Dude. Fuck that.

3. I almost KILLED that pasty German indie-rocker! HE SUCKED and had the NERVE to say (in a tone that implied that he was being REALLY HELPFUL) “I like you better with SHORT hair why don’t you like, comb it or something?” It took all my courage not to a.) cry and b.) slap that bitch. I wanted to explain to him that i don’t drink water, eat vegetables, monitor my drinking, or even brush my teeth some days because i know the truth about life-that is, its perfectly fine to look like hell some days. Like WHATTHEFUCKEVER, ya’know? Its like when a lily calls you “ashy.” Dude. Fuck that. Remember when they didn’t know what that word meant? Now i have to carry lotion (AGAINST MY WILL) because as a black man the world wants me all oiled up and glistening, when of course, “ashy” is natural.

4. I was on Adam4Adam indulging in my Wendsday night ritual of sexually harrassing teens in East Oakland when i heard that little ringing noise and the red “NEW MALE” sign flashing on my inbox. A gentleman caller! But wait. This wasn’t a gentleman caller. This was a bitch! “YOU NEED TO CHANGE YOUR PICTURES” (they were from 6 months ago when i had a fade) “I SEEN YOU WITH YOU UGLY GLASSES AND YOUR NAPPY ASS HAIR” O H H E L L N O. It was the sheer absurdity of the fact that a dick pic was talking shit to me. That HUGE DICK was a HUGE DICK. My retort….

“You listen to me you little teenage bug-chaser with no future. Don’t fuck with me-I’m horny. And lonely. And grown! While your on here turning into a statistic why don’t you go to school, take an Intro to African-American studies and learn why we aren’t supposed to use TOTALLY NIGGERISH (and antiquated) terms like “nappy”- if you’d had bothered to Wiki it, you would’ve learned that the term is “Afro-Textured”.
Fuck your parents for having you,
Brontez”

(I thought of all the dead 60′s Black radicals and how they would turn over in their collective grave if they knew how this younger generation was still being taught to hate their hair-and if they knew how many white guys i had let fuck me. No, seriously, like SOOOO MANY….i wept for them)

Now at the end of the day i wasn’t growing my hair for some half baked attempt at some faux-Contemporary Black Power statement. I was getting older and losing my hair and this may be my last chance to have it ever again. Early mid-life crisis? Whatever. I mean the shit was turning grey and the clock was TICKING with nothing to lose i decided my shit will STAY nappy. I’m not cutting it until its six inches longer. FUCK THE WORLD. The revolution will not be cut short.

love,
brontez