Originally published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer – April 14, 1998.

I have been liberated! That’s right, I’ve cut all of my hair off. And I don’t
miss it. Not one bit. I wish I had done it years earlier. I went from 8 inches
of shoulder-length brown hair to half an inch (maybe). As a black woman, I am
happy to leave behind the necessity of rolling up my hair every night in
uncomfortable curlers, or wrapping it, hoping every stray hair is in place.

I am trying to forget the worries I had that my new unpermed growth would
make my hair look too big. No longer do I have to put off the enjoyable things
in life like swimming and hard exercise. I am enjoying my newfound freedom:
swimming at the local Y, traveling and packing light (no hair dryers and curling
irons), sleeping late in the mornings.

I am 26 years old, and for half my life I went to the beauty parlor every six
weeks to have my hair chemically straightened. That’s at least 112 trips; at $40
per salon visit, I’ve spent at least $4,480. Barber shops are cheaper. I’ve
thrown away the many bottles of hair conditioner, hair moisturizer and oil sheen
that lined the top of my dresser like soldiers doing battle in the “keep my hair
straight” wars.

In the last 13 years I have gone swimming only once. And on that occasion I
ran home and immediately washed my hair, hoping that the combination of my
chemically relaxed hair and the swimming pool’s chlorine wouldn’t cause all of
my hair to fall out, like my friends said it would.

Sweating heavily was, of course, out of the question. When my mother was into
Jazzercize, I would accompany her only if I planned to wash my hair that day.

For years it has made me sad that we black women put ourselves through such
torture to look Caucasian. Before I cut my hair, and even now, I sit on
Cleveland’s trains and buses in the mornings watching black girls and women comb their chemically damaged and thinning locks into place, trying to maintain their straight hair image.

I have seen my friends and family do battle with unending dandruff as the
chemical relaxers turn their healthy scalps into dry, flaking skin that no
amount of dandruff shampoo can cure.

For the last few years, I resisted cutting my hair because friends admonished
that I would never be able to get a job unless I had straight hair. Until a few
weeks ago, I agreed with them. Cases like the one in which a black hotel
employee was fired because she came to work with braids still lingered in our
minds.

Now, I am older, more mature and think for myself. The day after I cut my
hair, I thought I would have a difficult time attracting clients to my law
practice. I believed they would see me as too revolutionary, or different. It
didn’t happen. My worst fears never materialized. My clients have only
complimented me. Court officers and colleagues take me as seriously as ever.

I decided I can’t waste my time on what has become a trivial matter. I’m
still the same person as I was before, with the same talents and intellect.
Maybe all of my Caucasian female counterparts who are spending millions damaging their hair to be blond will learn from my experience. It’s not what’s on your head that counts, it’s what in it.

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