Michelle Obama's Hair and Pot Shots at Single Barren Black Women

How about I come out of my post-braid blogcation with a story about hair; Michelle Obama's hair. Rikyrah, a devoted Michelle Obama Watcher posted this link called The Politics of Michelle Obama's Hair. It ends up being Patricia J. William's convoluted superficial critique of Condoleezza Rice, political spouses and UNMARRIED BARREN BLACK WOMEN (oh the horror). So what the heck does hair have to do with it? I mean was it necessary to create an analogy between Black hair and the monsters of Greek mythology? Seriously, comparing our hair to Scylla and Charybdis?

Scylla was a creature who dwelt in a rock, and regularly ate sailors who passed by too closely. Her appearance has varied in classical literature; she was described by Homer in The Odyssey as having six heads perched on long necks along with twelve feet, while in Ovid's Metamorphoses, she was depicted as having the upper body of a nymph, with her midriff composed of dogs' heads. Charybdis had a single gaping mouth that sucked in huge quantities of water and belched them out three times a day, creating whirlpools.Source

I think this is one of those cases where this writer wanted to be DEEP and whatnot and went off into left field.

She seems unbothered by hair hang-ups, make-up issues, clothing crises. She always seems minimally but perfectly made up; she isn’t afraid to wear flats; she lends a certain class to the most inexpensive of outfits. And even her hair—usually such a politically fraught subject for women of color! Between the Scylla of Condoleezza Rice's good-little-girl page-boy, and the Charybdis of Angela Davis's 1960's Afro, Michelle Obama’s looser style provides a breezy, refreshing kind of Golden Mean..... Iconic black female faces in public life are few and far between, and they’re usually not married. They’re widowed, like Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz; or they’re single and childless, like Condoleezza Rice. It’s hard to be seen as a trophy wife, or a beauty queen, when you’re simultaneously figured as strong as an ox, epically tragic, and pious enough to curdle the promiscuous streak that supposedly runs hot in the blood of “your kind.” Patricia J. WIlliams, The Politics of Michelle Obama's Hair

First of all, I am single and childless.A whole LOT of Black women are. So what is this woman trying to say? Just what Black women need.--- To have our uteri, ring fingers and ringlets pitted against each other. It's like six flat-irons of separation. Condoleezza's and Michelle's hair have more to do with the hair stylist than the hair styl-ee. Let's get one thing straight. No matter how many husbands and children women have, women will be taking care of women. Uteri and ring fingers, notwithstanding. Look around your churches and your neighborhoods. The Black men that stay around tend to die early. In the end when we are all old and scooting around in our walkers, women will be taking care of each other. Kids, no kids. Widowed, divorced, spinsterhood, we all end relying on a family of women in the end. Aunts, nieces, cousins, daughters, mothers. Women will be taking care of women. Second, honest to goodness, for a whole lot of Black women our hair is serious business, but IT AIN'T THAT DEEP! I tend not to ascribe any political meaning at all to Black women's hair. I used to, but you can't tell a great deal about politics based on natural vs. relaxed. It's hardly a "political" contrast to pit one Black woman with a relaxer against another Black woman with a relaxer. Where is the contrast? Michelle gets and Affirm and Condoleezza get a box perm? Michelle forgoes spritz? Condoleezza likes a roller set? It's relaxed hair. How it looks is greatly dependent on the one wielding the flat iron. It ain't that deep. I want to go natural because chlorine and relaxer are just a bad combination and if given the choice between my heart and my hair, I'm going to lean on the side of reducing stroke risk by sticking with water aerobics. It's not political. Its convenient. Third, Condoleezza has plenty to be taken to task for based on her job performance. And yes, on more than one occasion during the "terrible flip" years I wanted to send her a short email to let her know that the students at Dudley's Beauty College on Rhode Island Avenue do wonderful work, but somehow ascribing Michelle Obama status for being married with kids by comparing her to the and barren Condoleezza Rice seems to undercut your lament that Black women icons in the political realm are few and far between. Are the only Black icons we can have married Black women with relaxed flat-ironed hair? Of course the author selected Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice because she didn't expect anyone to take exception to her broadside against single barren Black women by hiding behind the skirt tails of Condoleeza Rice. The author would hope that an aversion to Rice's politics and policy and horrific job performance as National Security Adviser would make us tap dance with glee at her hair being described as some horrific beast. Black women love Michelle Obama for many reasons. She ought to be given a lifetime achievement award for putting herself out there and acting as a foil last week on Larry King Live and the Daily Show to undo the damage of the premiere of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" . Please don't try to separate the sisterhood based on marital status and flat irons. There are so many other substantive differences between Michelle and Secretary Rice that this superficial analysis sounds like something Vanessa Grigoriadis would write.

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