I’m at a crossroad. This concerns Black women and beauty particularly as it relates to weaves, wigs, make-up, and other cosmetic products or services. My discomfort is not so much that these are fake as it seems to be the issue for some. After all far from being fake that Brazilian is real hair and if I take issue with the foundation, why wouldn’t I with my Hydra IQ body lotion? It’s also a solution I apply in the hopes of enhancing my appearance or at least so I don’t look too bad. Where would one draw the line, reasonably?
My discomfort lies with the standard; that thing that serves as the model, the aspiration. Frankly speaking, many Black people have been hoodwinked into idolising everything white as the standard of beauty. So they reject their own image only to embrace that of someone else; the white.
Of course, I am by no means saying all Black women harbour the same motivations. After all, in addition to Black people being the most phenotypically diverse people on the planet, there’s also much diversity in style and its motivation. Some wear their makeup only for beautification purposes. Perhaps this is not even such a big issue. The only reason it bothers me is just the irony of it all; an unfortunate one I might add which came to my awareness a few years back when I was researching the origin and the development of writing.
You are probably wondering what the history of writing has to do with beauty and bling. Well the search for the inception of writing led me to a certain time and place. Naturally, since it is Africans who gave the world writing, the place is in Africa at the Diepkloof Rock Shelter here in South Africa and the time is around 60,000 years ago. Here we find a collection of 270 ostrich eggshell fragments engraved using 2 different design pattern standards as a form of symbolic communication.
Other older examples of symbolic representation and expression were found such as those from a period spanning 75,000 and 100,000 years ago at the Blombos Cave (300km from Cape Town). Over and above these finds, for me one of the most fascinating was what I can only describe as the earliest example of bling. I learnt that as early as over 70,000 years ago, Black women already adorned themselves with jewellery; necklaces they made from marine shell beads. Mind you at this point in history there is not a single white person in existence.
This helped me appreciate that to the African woman, bling is no novelty; that it’s so old it is now probably embedded in her very DNA. It is no wonder then that in 12th century Ghana, an empire as big as the entire landmass of Europe, and one that lasted more than 1,250 years without interruption, even the dogs and horses in the Emperor’s courts were decorated with more gold than the wealthiest European kings in Europe. That distinction is necessary because at that time, much of Europe (particularly Spain and Portugal) was still under the rulership of Africans and those parts under African rule were hundreds of years more advanced than those under their European counterparts.
Back to the origins; a 70,000 year old neck piece! This could have been sufficient to close the argument for me but I now had the urge to trace the development of the expression of beauty. So my question now was, “As the African woman is the originator of beautification, how far did she take it?” The answer is no less fascinating; by the time she reached Kemet (ancient Egypt) not only had she elevated the art, she had made a science of it.
Over 6,000 years ago the art and science of beauty had been so established in Africa that African women in Kemet were already applying nail polish, putting on eye shadow, wearing makeup, colouring their hair, and while white women did not even knowing what it was to take a bath, Black women were using perfume and other oils and creams to express their beauty. How can I possibly have an issue with makeup then?
Interestingly, by 5,000 years ago, before whites even entered the pages of written history African women were already cutting their hair, extending it, wearing wigs made of human hair, braiding and elaborately styling their hair. How can I possibly have an issue with weaves and wigs then? How can I, in a sound state of mind, have an issue with an African woman using cosmetics when it was her who invented it in the first place?
The real issue for me is when Black women apply these things in an attempt to attain the white standard of beauty; with that anorexia, pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes which, ironically, are genetically recessive traits to begin with. The real issue is when the aspiration necessarily results in the rejection of self wherein the self-images is equated with ugliness and unattractiveness. Such that in her acquiescence to this dubious standard, some Black women starve themselves, lighten their eyes with contact lenses, dye their hair blonde and in extreme cases go as far as bleaching such a beautiful and radiant skin.
Therein lies my own dilemma. How does the originator of the art and science of cosmetology reject her own image only to embrace an alien image? How is it that the one who is the original standard of beauty abandons her own beauty even going as far as damaging her skin with toxic chemicals? All this only to aspire to reach a dubious standard that is impossible for her to attain anyway.
I believe Malcolm X once said, “One who stands for nothing, will fall for anything”. I guess the same applies here, that one who does not know one’s history will fall for any identity. So in a sense this identity crisis is festered by our ignorance of our history and heritage.
But no matter! Black women are still the most beautiful.
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This is the Journal of a Broken Spirit #JOABS, bling bling bling!
