Avery at Stereo Describes my Scenario recently went to see the film Good Hair, and as usual when the subject of hair comes up, it got me thinking.

For those of you who have not met me, I have very thick, very curly hair. I’ve always had people tell me they wish they had my hair, and although I’ve come to terms with it in recent years, I don’t think I’ll every say that I love my hair.

When I was a toddler I had straight blond hair. As I grew up, I got lots of bristle brushes, and whatever other utensils my mom would use for her hair. And whatever shampoo was on sale.

If you have curly hair, you can probably see where this is going: My hair was a mess.

All the time.

It’d tangle if you looked at it funny. It would never lie flat and neat, but would instead fly away and generally look like a mare’s nest.

Add to the mix the fact that I was a tomboy. Pull my hair into a ponytail to keep it out of the way and keep the tangles to a minimum and I was good.

My mom, however, hated my hair, and in 7th grade she ordered me to get my hair cut off. And I do mean ordered. I walked up to the barber shop, put my name on the list, and when Larry asked what I needed, I burst into tears and said I had to get my hair cut off.

Larry told me to have a seat and he’d get back to me. Then he went off and called my Dad. “Your daughter is in here crying saying I have to cut her hair off.” That’s how things were, my Dad said. So I sat there and Larry waited until everyone else had left the store and then he cut my hair. Before he started, he pulled out a baggie and told me I could keep the hair if I wanted.

I did.

But a funny thing happened as he cut. The hair my mom had always treated as just a little bit wavy stared popping up curls all over the place when he cut it. He was shocked at how curly it was, and I remember him commenting that no wonder I had problems with it.

That should have been the end of things.

But it wasn’t.

No one ever told me you had to care for curly hair differently than straight hair.

Needless to say, things didn’t get much better.

In high school I ended up cutting my hair extremely short (hey, it was the late 80s. That was the thing to do anyway) and I discovered that if I used mousse I could reduce the volume a bit. Of course this left me with crunchy hair, but in my opinion, crunchy was far better than the alternative.

To be honest, I was in my 20s before I learned that you have to treat curly hair very differently from straight hair.

Once I truly started to understand this, my world changed completely. I suddenly had the ability to get my hair to behave the way I wanted–or at the very least keep from turning into a mass of knots when I wasn’t paying attention.

As I said, I still don’t love my hair, but I’ve come to terms with it. I spend a lot of money on expensive shampoos and conditioners and treatments and anti-frizz serums and creams and gels that moisturize my hair and help tame it. And half the time I still get giant hair. But I’ve also learned that the perfect length is where I can pull it back into a ponytail if it gets too bad.

All of this is to say I don’t quite get why hair is a racial issue. My hair has been a hassle most of my life. If I could have hair that was easy to take care of, why wouldn’t I want that? I never wanted straight hair because that’s what all the models and movie stars had. I just wanted straight hair so it wouldn’t hurt when I ran a brush through it. I’ve always figured that’s all anyone else would want as well.