Reading Locs: Mental Health Hairratives (Hair Narratives)

By Brittney Miles

8 min read

Black hair is magic; it holds ancestry and memory and tells the story of where we’ve been and who our people are. We are the woolly-headed folks (Johnson and Bankhead, 2014) whose crowns denote territories and tribes, where hair can mark rites of passages (Kaumunika and Ilonga, 2007). We have hair that has been sanctioned and policed (see Tignon laws) which we resist (Kaler-Jones, 2021), and hair that is in need of protection such as through the CROWN Act (Pitts, 2021). We also have hair that has been a political tool in our liberation such as natural hair in the Black Power era (Ford, 2015). These hair narratives (or hairratives) are critical instruments in how we tell the stories of Black people across the globe, as well as the stories of ourselves as individuals.

I have locs, Sisterlocks to be exact. “Sisterlocks is a [trademarked] natural hair management system that creates tiny style-able locks” (Sisterlocks, 2015). Additionally, they have been defined as “tiny uniform locks that are the result of a precision parting grid, and the use of a specialized tool used to place the hair into its locking formation” (Cultured Locs, N.D.). These threaded vines of kinks and coils remind me of where I’ve been.

I got my Sisterlocks installed during the halfway point of my sophomore year of college in January 2011; it was almost 1 year to the day that I had sat at my father’s funeral and I was still processing being sexually assaulted in my freshman year (and specifically being told it happened because I was Black). I had spent the prior two years refusing to “relax” my hair - an ongoing battle with my mom. When I came across Sisterlocks, I felt I found something that resonated with my more radical interests and aesthetic preferences. They also appeased my mom’s concerns about perceptions of professionalism (or rather, traditional locs being read as unprofessional). Sisterlocks were a new and exciting journey to embark on.

6 Months with my Sisterlocks

1 year with my Sisterlocks

Senior year of college

Now, ten and a half years later, I look at my locs and see memories of time’s past. The parts of my loc that break off recall my tough battle with depression during college. These are at the very bottom of my locs, the first 3 inches. I see the weak points that mark the stressful journey through my master’s degree and PhD program. These locs are more than just a timeline. Each loc is a journal entry in the story of my life. The fuzz that bursts out the seams of my locs mirrors the times I’ve busted at the seams from holding in my pain. They document me grieving my dad, the tension between stress and ambition, and are the visible reminder of where I’ve been. And more recently, I’ve been where everyone else has, in a global pandemic. The stress of this historical moment is reflected in my hair.

A photo from my Sept 2021 retightening showing a major weak point in my Sisterlocks

Beyond the memories of trauma, crises, and cries, my locs recollect wellness. They are witness.

At each retightening of my locs, where they are refreshed, new hair growth signifies the new growth I’ve experienced. It recalls that I’ve been drinking water and eating a balanced diet with plentiful fruit. My hair relishes in each time I had a good night’s rest, and the moments I took up space in nature to breathe fresh air. The hairratives tell and re-tell it all.

In September 2021, I went in for a retightening with a new Sisterlock Consultant for the first time since the pandemic. I had called two different Sisterlock trainees and left voicemails explaining that I was on the other side of a depressive episode and wanted my very damaged hair to reflect that. One of the consultants called me back and it was business as usual, but the other understood what I meant. She called me back and said, “It sounds like you’ve been through a lot but I’m really proud of you for asking for help”. I was definitely crying by that point. Turns out, it is her goal to be a Clinical Mental Health Counselor and she had been thinking about the importance of hair in Black women’s mental health. Plus, just that month, her mother Sheila, a 20 year hairstylist and Sisterlock Consultant, had just finished the PsychoHairapy Certification. I finished the certification in May, so I was with family. The work of healing being communal and facilitated through hair was PsychoHairapy’s mission happening before my eyes. This moment was a critical point in the hairrative of my life.

Hariatives claim the power of Black hair as narrative and archive. There is a reason that Audre Lorde’s locs sit in the Audre Lorde Collection at Spelman College according to their archivist. Lorde’s hair is memory because our hair becomes critical lines in our being as poetry:

“DeLois lived up the block on 142nd Street and never had her hair done, and all the neighbourhood women sucked their teeth as she walked by. Her crispy hair twinkled in the summer sun as her big proud stomach moved her on down the block while I watched, not caring whether or not she was a poem” (Lorde, 2011, p.4).

I end the critical reflection on the power of hairratives with lyrics to the song “I Know Where I’ve Been” from Hairspray, as sang by Queen Latifah:

There’s a light in the darkness

Though the night is black as my skin

There’s a light burning bright, showing me the way

But I know where I’ve been

AND SO DOES MY HAIR.

References

Cultured Locs. (N.D.). Cultured Locs Frequently Asked Questions. Cultured Locs. http://culturedlocs.com/Sisterlock_FAQs.html

Ford, T. C. (2015). Liberated Threads: Black women, style, and the global politics of soul. UNC Press Books.

Johnson, T. A., & Bankhead, T. (2014). Hair it is: Examining the experiences of Black women with natural hair. Open Journal of Social Sciences 2(1), 86-100.

Kaler-Jones, C. (2020). Curls, Coils, and Codes. In D. Apugo, L. Mawhinney, and A. Mbikishaka (Eds.), Strong Black Girls: Reclaiming Schools in Their Own Image (pp. 61-78). Teachers College Press.

Kaumunika, T., and F. Ilonga. (2007). The First Hair Cut. In F. Dawids, F. Ilonga, T. Kaumunika, J. Pauli, M. Schnegg, J. Seibeb, and C.O. Uirab (Eds.), Living Together. Culture and shared traditions in Fransfontein, Namibia. Cologne: University of Cologne.

Lorde, A. (2011). Zami: A new spelling of my name: A biomythography. Crossing Press.

Pitts, B. (2021). “‘Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown’: A Critical Race Analysis of the CROWN Act”. Journal of Black Studies 52(7), 716-735.

Sisterlocks. (2015). General FAQ for Beginners. Sisterlocks. https://www.sisterlocks.com/faq-for-beginners.html

Brittney Miles is a Black girlhood scholar and Sociology PhD student at University of Cincinnati. She mostly writes from Cincinnati, Ohio, but Chicago, Illinois is where she goes for inspiration. Her writing explores how Black hair knowledges are learned and shared intergenerationally across various spaces like the Internet, salons, and kitchen tables. Her secret to writing is twerking a lil bit because she believes the kinetic energy of your body in motion can be harnessed onto the page.