A Crown of Suffering

When I think of Black hair, I think of a beautiful variety of curls, kinks, and waves. I also think of the most slayed weaves, braids, and even wigs. I think of huge afros or silky wraps, but I also think of suffering. Black women have experienced the pain of getting their hair styled even from adolescence, having to sit still enduring the burning of a relaxer or even getting their hair braided. By adulthood most Black women have grown accustomed to the price  to pay to be “beautiful”. We pay top dollar to have our hair exactly to our liking and spend hours at a salon to get the desired look. Even those of us who do our own hair, can attest that we set aside an entire day just to wash our beautiful tresses. When our non-black counterparts hear of the all day experience of getting our hair styled, they are shocked. Yet to us we have accepted such “suffering”.

I find it interesting or maybe ironic that Black women endure suffering in so many aspects in hopes of a beautiful return. A line from Natasha Trethewey’s poem, “Hot Combs” helped me achieve this revelation. “The heat in our kitchen made her glow that morning I watched her wincing, the hot comb singeing her brow, sweat glistening above her lips, her face made strangely beautiful as only suffering can do.” Black women have known suffering since their existence yet they are able to obtain beauty from every situation. Whether it be the beauty of strength, the beauty of pain, or the beauty of survival. Black hair is a conversation that can be dissected in a thousand ways but in every one of those ways you can be sure that the experience was one, of beautiful suffering.