Locked Up – Locked Out

By: Diana O’Gilvie

It may be hard to believe, but my aunt kicked me out of her Bronx apartment for locking my hair. It was March of last year and I had nowhere else to go but home to Jamaica. It’s the place where Bob Marley made locks famous, but you may be surprised to know the “style” is not as widely accepted in Jamaica. The term dreadlocks is a derogatory one. It originated from the saying “those dreadful locks.”

Even still, my fascination with locks began in my pre-teen years when I noticed both my uncles’ locks reached their knees and backs. I liked the way their locks moved as they kicked football on Sundays. I loved the language they used to lift me up. They called me “empress” and “queen.” I was intrigued with the mystique of the Rastafarian culture and religion, lifestyle anchored in vegetarianism and physical fitness. The ritual sounds of the drumbeats in the music pounded in my heart.

Ras & Fruits

Rastafari harkens Africa as the motherland and abhors the oppression of capitalism. In my rebellious “screw the man” phase, these ideals appealed to me even more. Black people were encouraged to be self- sufficient and control their own destiny. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, this doctrine was gospel to the youth in the Kingston slums. Locking one’s hair served the dual purpose of embracing the Afro-Jamaican culture and flipping the bird on England’s colonial hold.  At the same time, Rastafarian youths were seen as a disgrace to Jamaica’s national image. How could they not straighten or comb their hair? The book Chanting Down Babylon reports that many people with dreadlocks were badly beaten and even lost their lives to angry mobs. Marley’s “Chase Those Crazy Baldheads” aimed to reverse the discrimination, a message to the matted hair youths to drive the “baldheads” or people with normal hair away from their homes. Since 1950’s many Rastafarians created their own communes in the mountains where they could live freely away from the city.

My aunt is from the era that views locks as unhygienic. She is a church going woman whose hair has been straightened since she was a little girl.  The moment her hair started to “grow out” she’d quickly make an appointment with the hairdresser. If she couldn’t get an appointment or didn’t have money to get it done, her hair would hide under a hat in public. So as you can imagine, there was no way her niece would live under her roof with that mess on top her head.

The days leading up to the big “kick out” were normal, except for a comment she made when she saw my hair in its natural state. “What is that on top your head?” she asked.  Her voice tinged with bitter restraint. I replied, “I am growing my locks Auntie.” She didn’t respond. I heard her on the phone the next day complaining that I was smoking weed. Even though I wasn’t smoking, my locks were linked to drug abuse. A week later I come home  from an evening class and saw four large garbage bags in the hallway. I shrugged it off and thought it was garbage from spring cleaning. But as I tried to put my key in the door, it didn’t fit. I rang the bell and knocked frantically. I could hear the television’s volume grow louder.

Home: Jamaica

As the plane touched down in Kingston I breathed a sigh of relief. School was out for the summer and I was going to see my family. I relished sucking on ripe mangoes under the trees, eating fried fish at the beach and going clubbing in New Kingston. I was a little nervous however, about what my family would say about my new hair. The last time they saw me I was wearing my hair chemically straightened, confined in the parameters of what they thought I should look like. I decided to hold my ground no matter what.   After all I was the homeless victim here. I had finished out the rest of the semester in New York, sleeping on friends’ couches and floors. As I stepped foot onto the red verandah floor my grandfather brushed pass me on his way to the rum bar. He muttered he would be back to talk to me. I saw the disappointment in my grandparents’ eyes. The look said they had raised me better that. My grandmother Ruby gave up her pension so I could move to America. She was uncharacteristically quiet.

A few hours later, Papa returned from the bar. I was sitting on the living looking out the window. “Look here girl,” he began, as he climbed up the scarlet steps. “You are the underdog in your aunt’s house. Cut those things off and when you get your own place you can do what you want with your hair. We didn’t send you to ‘Merica to live on the street.” He said the last sentence with so much emotion his voice shook, I could see the tears pooling at the sides of his eyes.  ”Great,” I thought. “I’ve made my grandfather cry.”  The patriarch of my family was in tears because of me. How could I do this to them? I began to question my locks. Were they worth discord in family? I readily answered no.

I can remember being ashamed of my natural hair when I was a teenager. I attended an all girls high school, and the pressure to look like the uptown upper class girls was felt as soon as I entered the school gates. I was one of three girls in my class who had natural hair. By the second week of school, I asked to get my hair straightened. I am light skinned and I don’t have “good hair” or soft, manageable mixed race hair. I could easily pass off weaves and braids as if they were my own hair. But instead, tightly coiled curls sit on top of my head. I strived to look like the European standard of beauty. Why was I putting myself through that every month? It hurt too much to be beautiful.

And now?

I knew I made the right decision for my family, but I couldn’t help feeling like a sellout every time I went to the hairdresser to get my hair straightened or sew in weave. I haven’t grown my locks back as yet. I fully intend to. It feels as if I have unfinished business with my hair. I dread the actual baby-locking phase and I am considering lock extensions, but the cost to get those is as much as my rent. Intrinsically, I feel like a Rasta-woman and I carry myself with that lioness pride. I know I will have a head full of locks one day. I have done my duty to my grandparents when they were alive and now it’s my turn to continue living my own life with the lessons they have bestowed on me.

At the inception of writing this essay, I had a full head of blonde weave sewn onto my hair. As I write this I can happily say that it’s all gone. What remains is my badly-damaged from years of weave and braids, natural, kinky hair. I found a natural hair salon in Brooklyn and had my hair deep conditioned and twisted. As I left the salon I felt a strange sensation on my scalp. It was the wind. I marveled at the realization that I hadn’t felt breeze on my scalp in years. The sensation spurred my back to straighten up, my stride got longer and I couldn’t stop admiring myself in storefront windows. As I waited on the subway platform I lost count of how many Black women had in hair extensions. Until a few hours ago I was one of them. The weaves looked like helmets. I feel sorry for them and hope that one day they will embrace their naturalness.

As the train sped across the Brooklyn Bridge, and I settled in my seat I knew I made the right decision, this time for me. I ran my fingers through my hair and knew I was free.

Diana O’Gilvie is a writer now living in New York. Check out her travel writing @  http://love2travelwrite.wordpress.com/