Securing Box Braids and Boundaries

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Written By: Katiana Partis

I used to think that they were monsters. I always imagined their foreheads being furrowed with sweat beads blistering through cracks of skin; their eyes piercing through the air and reflecting hate like prisms reflecting colors. Their mouths wide open with their saliva draping, reminiscent of cage bars between the top and bottom rows of their teeth, and their clothes slightly tattered, similar to their insides that agitate in rage like the spin cycle.

But liberal racists look nothing like that these days. They smile at you with big, bright, and seemingly accepting eyes. They wear the same hoop earrings, Frenchbraids, and Obama bumper sticker as you do. They call you presumptively endearing names like bro or sis when feeling a little spicy... They say please and thank you in docile tones...afraid of rustling feathers. They come into your communities as “well doers'', “missionaries “and “fixers”. They look at you uneasy and adjust themselves when you enter a space that they thought was safe and was away from you. ​            

A few summers ago, I was getting my hair braided by Gambian women at a shop in Harlem on Malcolm X Boulevard and W129th Street. It was a very small shop with three middle aged women working. They laughed and carried on conversations while braiding quickly and carefully. There were three of us femme presenting people... all seeming to be in our twenties sitting patiently as our shoulders tightened up when a new braid was starting and relaxed as each braid pattern moved farther away from the scalp. Three White women walked in and the youngest (who looked like she was in her late teens-early twenties) greeted the women in their native tongue. She was accompanied by two middle aged white women. They stood behind the young woman as their right elbows secured their handbags, which hung between their arm and ribcage. Their teeth were clenched, but their smiles spread as wide as they could get them. It was as if they thought that the bigger their smile was, the more comfortable they would appear and the safer they would feel. 

​The young woman explained to the shop owner that the three of them wanted a couple of braids in their hair. The owner took the young woman outside to discuss pricing with her. I was sitting by the window, so I was still able to hear their conversation. I felt so annoyed by these women... coming all up into the space where Black women feel the closest to their matriarchal African ancestors. However, I was equally amused by the fact that the shop owner charged them $30 each for two measly braids. The Gambian women spoke in a mixed dialect of French and their native tongue. The slickness in their voices, the slight aggravation with every breath between words and the rolling of their eyes made me feel as though they saw right through these three white women. 

Two out of the three women tried their hardest to seem open and friendly. The third, she seemed more reserved, as if it wasn’t her idea to enter the shop. Before she left, she tried to break-out of her nervousness. She sat down next to me and glared at me with a smile. She touched my braid without my permission. Huge violation! That was the longest second of my entire life. I closed my eyes and exhaled as images of slave auctions, and spectators at a zoo looking into the manufactured lion’s den all flashed before my eyes. I was startled from these dehumanizing thoughts when she gently touched my left forearm, leaned in, and said, “you are beautiful”. 

I felt how Gabourey Sidibe must have felt way back when she was at the Academy Awards and everyone in front of a microphone kept telling her that she was “so beautiful” .... they said it so much that I began to feel uneasy watching it. It was condescending and demeaning. Us Black girls don’t need White women telling us that we are “beautiful”.  We don’t feel validated by their “compliment”. It doesn’t make us feel better about ourselves, it doesn’t make us feel any more beautiful and it doesn’t make us feel accepted. (Not that we are looking for acceptance from them)

I couldn’t force myself to smile that time. But through clenched teeth and from the burrow of my voice box, I managed to utter a soft “thank-you”. I couldn’t run the risk of being perceived as the “angry Black woman”.  I couldn’t seem rude or hasty. That would play into the ignorant assumption that they make of us.  Because we know that; we continuously invert our plump lips into our mouths and bite down so that true and justified feelings stay bottled up in our insides and festers.

​I wanted to say something to the women right away. I figured that these missionaries had no clue how offensive they were being. But I was afraid to speak. How do you educate self-righteous people who already have their minds made up about who you are? How do you defend yourself without being deemed defensive? I didn’t know the answer to these questions, and I didn’t want my face and my voice to be ingrained in their memory as that “mean Black woman” in New York. I didn’t want to be talked about when telling their church members in Texas about their experience in New York. I just wanted them to see that we are human. You cannot and should not feel impressed when you see us share experiences or when you see us do things that you thought that your people could only do. We are not apes in an exhibit peeling a banana. We are not bears tending to their cubs. The Black experience is not a phenomenon. It should not be fetishized or romanticized. It should be respected as a nuanced experience that White people will never understand. The Black experience cannot be lent out. It’s ours. So, stay out of our sacred spaces, my auntie is tired of y’all and I won’t let y’all disturb her peace.

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Katiana Partis

Haitian-American Black woman who writes for all people who self-identifies as a Black woman and girls to spark reflective and inter generational conversations.

Follow at @daughters_of_yemaya