A Homage to Hair

(Source: Old Sudanese Photos Facebook group)

My grandmother once told me, a woman’s hair was her crown, her glory, her beauty.

This is of course on those days that many ladies will relate to; when your hair chooses to cooperate. It avoids unnatural movement, tangles and frizziness. I have always had those big kinds of curls that fall down my back in a thick curtain of swirls and spirals. And I wear those rampant coils of jet black hair freely with no constraints of bands, clips or pins. You may ask why I am so proud of such rawness- which you may not see represented properly in today’s youth with the emergence of heating products and creams that can transform your hair from crimped to straight within a matter of minutes. How could I be satisfied with ringlets that defy this generations aesthetic allure?

You see, I have African hair and that is a form of untampered natural beauty which cannot be bought, styled or replicated. For it is my identity. It means a lot more than what just meets the Western contorted eye.

It is the crown of Sudanese queens and the distinctiveness of those nurturers who have learned to love more than anyone else. One who has not suffered the life of poverty will not understand that without a material world, all you have left is love.

It is the connection between myself and the revolutionaries from my home land that have been my inspiration. It is a paradox of my complexities as well as my simplistic demeanor.

It rages much louder and much freer than my passport that radiates that dark blue of freedom, opportunity and equality that can only be found in the new world.It is not confined to any borders and illuminates charm far greater than any piece of paper could have. It is untamed and unregulated and has a discourse unlike any others. 

So no, I am not African-American just because my tongue articulates in english

The language of the whites, the dominants and the oppressors
No! You cannot call me black just because my skin resembles the surface of the earth; For just like the earth, I am mother nature and just like fallen leaves, you have no conscience.

And no, you can not call me Arab just because I may converse with others in the language of my mother; For the language of my land is no longer comprehensible. It has been expelled and eradicated with the presence of the leather skinned religion sowers but still rings proudly within the spirits of our predecessors.

And as a matter of fact, I will not settle for Sudanese; For the land has been stripped and parted leaving me half less and sullen over the loss of my Southern brothers and sisters.

I am the product of the cosmos
I am the daughter of martyrs
and I have a million places I could go
but when I am here, I am home