Colorism | Corpus Christi | Chit Chat

Hey!

So this is Jante and I guess this is more of talky/opinion post on whatever I want today. Right now, I want to discuss colorism/natural hair/personal beliefs etc, while in between I feature pictures from my time in Corpus Christi.

And look, I already know that I’m going to get a lot of hate if I were to talk about feminism or racism because it is such a polarizing topic so colorism seems like the next best place to start. 

Colorism(n.): Prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

(Courtesy of Oxford Dictionary)

To be frank, from a very young age I always thought that light was beautiful and straight hair was beautiful and light colored eyes were beautiful. European features were ideal and I began to despise my African features including my curly hair, dark eyes, and wide nose. My brother Jameel got the long Arab nose, the sunken deep eye sockets, everything that made him look less "black" while I got all the uglier features.

Me and my sister at Pier 99

I failed to see my beauty and put that alongside me being an overweight child, with limited social skills (that I am still working on till this day), it made for an unhappy childhood and rough growth during my formative years of middle school and early high school.

I’ve realized that “natural” hair in the black community is coming back and I am very happy that many women are embracing and loving the hair that comes out of their head like yes, this is definitely progress. But I really hate that we hold ourselves back because we still want to put the European standards of beauty on the hair that grows out of our scalp.

Left to Right: Babbie (step-dad), brother, and brother

We are mainly going to be talking about colorism in the natural hair community for now. Colorism in everyday life and in the black community is just such a broad topic and I can do a series on it, I don’t know, we will see.

First, let’s say you go to YouTube to find a "natural" curly hair routine. Most of the time you would find curly hair routines on girls with curl types that range from 2c to maybe 4a. You want to learn more about curl patterns? Go here.

But no one wants to watch a video with some lady with “kinky” hair where there isn’t a definite curl pattern. Why? It’s not considered pretty. Basically, the rule of thumb to be a popular natural hair guru on YouTube is that people are going to watch your videos if you can lay your baby hairs down. If you can’t, you’re not going to make it as a huge YouTuber or natural hair care blogger in general.

Brother

My hair has a long story but I didn’t have a relaxer in my hair until I was 14 and it was mainly because I had no idea how to take care of my hair. I hated combing it out and just putting it in a ponytail and I yearned to have the ability to wear my hair down like the rest of my friends….even if I had a hijab on. (Whatever that’s a different story)

I did it and I really liked it for the next couple of weeks until I got tired of it and saw how lifeless it was. No movement, no body. It was dead and thin and it wasn't me but instead, I was faking it and in the end, I grew resentful of it and hated it. So for two years I grew it out and slowly trimmed it every month or so until all the relax hair was gone.

I was dibbledabblying with straighteners and experimenting with short hair cuts until when I was 19, I straightened my hair in Dubai and whatever happened it completely denatured my head of hair leaving only two inches of my hair from the root curly and the rest of my head pin straight. It left my hair damaged, just like it was when I relaxed my hair five years ago. In August of 2015, I cut my hair into basically a long afro that barely reached chin length when stretched out.

Anyways it’s been a little over a year and it now reaches past my collarbones. I’m happy with it now, it’s curly, it’s healthy and I am extremely satisfied with it.

Now my hair is what I would consider to be 3c to 4a curl pattern so I’m cutting it close but because I can lay my baby hairs down, I have “pretty hair.” And now add the fact that I am mixed with other things other than black and now I have this unwanted label added onto me like I’m some rare commodity.

It’s weird and honestly, when we talk about natural hair we need to stop labeling hair as “good hair” and “kinky hair”. No. ALL hair is good hair no matter how coarse, short, long or WHATEVER it is. It doesn’t need to have defined ringlets or curls for it to be beautiful. It can have no curls, no waves, just be as coiled and zigzag as it can be and just be as beautiful.

Anyways I think that’s all I have to say for now. Thanks for reading.

Mom

Sincerely,

Jante  

instagram | _abatty_

Am I Swahili Enough?

Hey!

Okay, I've been absent for awhile and mostly because I haven't been making this a priority. Long story short, I am going to make an effort to put more effort into this, like when I first started. No excuses, I'm going to do it.

Another thing, worth discussing is my association with Swahili culture and as you can tell from the title what actually makes me Swahili.

To start from the beginning, I was born in Dallas, Texas to my mom and father. My mom is termed as the OG regular Swahili gal straight from the coast of Mombasa with some of the family originally from Oman and apparently even from Iraq according to the last name "Shirazy". My father on the other hand is Tanzanian and his mother is part Indian. What exactly does that make me? Well, that's even a more complicated answer.

According to family and a little bit of the Internet, there is the Swahili language which is a mixture of Bantu and Arabic and then, there are the Swahili people who live on the Eastern coastal part of Africa and cover many areas like Tanzania, Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Madagascar. With hundreds of years of trading between the Arabs and the Africans of the area, many goods were exchanged alongside religion and language and intermarriages occurred. Many Arabs lived to settle on the Eastern coast of Africa and marry the locals which eventually created an entire group of people called Swahili people. 

Now, I condensed this information a lot and it is actually way more intricate and complicated but for now, this shall do. 

Back to me. 

I was more displaced than anything and I definitely think that I wouldn't have been who I am today if I wasn't born in America and raised here as an American. Growing up I didn't learn Swahili therefore, I didn't speak Swahili. My parents spoke Swahili to each other but I never learned the language. I am trying now but obviously, it is harder to try to learn a language when you are already an adult. Nonetheless, I am trying.

Being born in the States and going to public school and ALSO being in the Army I didn't visit a lot of Swahili people growing up and I could count on one hand that amount of times I went to a wedding of some sort. I was two when I went back to Kenya but than seventeen years had passed before I went back again.

This means I spent a lot of my formative years here in the states and I think of myself as an American. If I were to be technical I would actually be first generation African-American. I guess the next question before I reached my answer is: Can I be American and Swahili? I identify myself as American. I was raised as an American. But can I add this new identity to myself? 

I think so. I mean I want to. I have always believed in the ability to be dualistic and have multiple layers to a person sooooooo I think I can. Albeit, when I do know Swahili fluently I will never sound like a local and I will not know the nuances that only a Swahili person can know from growing up in the area. My behaviors and actions will always be typical American to them. But this culture is a part of me. My parents never forgot to tell me where I came from and how they were raised. I was aware of this part of my origin and I have always been proud of where I come from.

So my final answer is: Yes. I am Swahili. But I'm also so many other identities that coexist and I identify with just as strongly. And in the end, that's what makes me, me. Not only the Swahili part of me but all of my other identities. 

Sincerely,

Jante

instagram | _abatty_