“I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am not your expectations, no no…I am the soul that lives within.”
-India Arie1
Part I: Bo Derek
I gently swung the bathroom door open and raised my eyes to meet a white presenting seemingly cis gender woman standing in front of the mirrored sinks. Immediately this person drops their gaze without expression, returning to their hygiene items. I step in further while taking in what I have just witnessed: a white presenting person with full on cornrows and hair extensions brushing their teeth.
As I walk over to an adjacent sink and look at my own reflection in the mirror I see the same hairstyle on myself: cornrows with hair extensions. My face reflects decidedly African features and light brown skin. Being a person who is half Black and half white, the journey I have been on in deciding where I fit into spaces and the privilege to choose African hairstyles has always been apparent to me.
I dig out my toiletries and commence my hygiene routine just as the person down the sink is doing from me. This is a usual routine for anyone camping in the area with no running water so it was safe for me to assume they were there for hiking, climbing, etc. In fact, later on I did see them at a climbing crag.
“B*tch. F****** Bo Derek.”2 I think to myself. My negative reaction to this is not because we basically wore the same dress to the ball: it is because I assume this person to be white wearing a commonly Black hairstyle. Yet at the same time I also know people of mixed heritage who are more white presenting also rocking Black hairstyles, so who was I to assume they were not Black?..
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