What Does It Mean To Be A Hot Comb Survivor?

What happens when the smell of hot grease and the sting of ear-pinching burns become a symbol of cultural rites of passage? Join us, the Hot Comb Survivors, as we share our heartfelt memories of enduring hot comb rituals that shaped our identities and our journey towards embracing our natural beauty. From the societal pressures to conform to certain beauty standards to the emotional impact of these practices, we reflect on how these experiences molded us, revealing the personal battles and ultimate liberation in rejecting imposed norms.

Navigating the world of hair grooming traditions, we recount our first encounters with chemical hair treatments, highlighting humorous junior high school mishaps and significant moments that left a lasting impact. Our stories span generations, from grandmothers and mothers who favored pressing and curling, to the evolving practices that accompany us even in life's final moments. This intimate conversation underscores the deep cultural significance of hair care, illustrating how these rites of passage contribute to our authentic selves amidst cultural expectations. Tune in for a nostalgic and empowering journey through the trials, triumphs, and traditions that define us.

Transcript

Reflections on Being Hot Cone Survivors

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, I'm Denise, I'm Lisa, I'm Takisha and I'm Laverne and we're the Hot Cone Survivors. Come join us. It's an opportunity where women of a certain age will talk truth, trash and transformation. The group is Hot Cone Survivors, right? So how can we decide on that and what does that mean to us? Yeah, so let's take a couple minutes to chat about that. I don't even know that it was a decision. So I remember sitting and chilling over some bottomless mimosa and you know just about the time when we got to the bottom of the bottomless most we were. We were revisiting on the good old days and back when, and we circled back to them high cone days and I think we recognized that that wasn't just a moment, that that was an experience that, like, really shaped us and we start throwing in all our memories. Yeah, remember when, yeah, and we're like we are. We're a group of high cone survivors Yep, surviving those ear pinching burns and keep still and all that other stuff and how our mamas were just really molding us to become young ladies and young women, and some of us going to the I know Lisa used to go to the Ms Curry's hair shop and all the conversations that were going on around us and I don't you know, and I remember just being it was like an all day event to get my hair washed and dried and straightened and all of that and just the events around that, special events that shaped me especially, like being in church and being raised in church. It definitely shaped me on those holidays. And I remember my mom sewing me dresses and all of that kind of stuff which was really kind of cool and all the good feelings that came with that. Yeah, for me it was every Saturday was wash day, press and comb for me and my two older sisters and we used to argue who was going to go first and second and last, as if somehow you went last. It wasn't going to happen. My mother was going to be too tired, she was going to run out of time, which obviously never happened. So for me it's part of the, I guess, the tradition of and getting that one-on-one time with my mom while the other two were off, causing trouble somewhere. So it's-.

Speaker 1 2:17

What I was thinking about is the smell of the hot coffee and that D Greece right, that's Greece. Green, green flavor. Oh my God, the slow pain and the death. It's literally a rite of passage for, I think, women of a certain age and our culture, especially Black Americans, it's definitely a rite of passage that a lot of us went through, and the girls as well. Yeah, the girls, whether it was Easter or the first day of school, school right, birthday, christmas, all of the year, yeah, cresting curls, just that smell throughout the house, that smell I mean, if you were to smell it right now I'll take you right back. Yeah, and the clicking of the curler, yeah, and you're like literally like flinching, and you remember saying be still, be still, hold your ear down. Yeah, hold that ear down. You're all right here for dear life, right For dear life, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:16

So besides that, what do you think that we survived? Like being a hot comb, survivor. I'm doing air quotes Like what do you think you survived? I think I survived somebody else's definition of what was beautiful. So I think you really, when you get to be this age, from that age, you really have to think about how you had to overcome somebody else defining right. So now me getting to the point where I can wear my hair short and nappy means something like completely different, I think, than younger people who define it right. So now me get to the point where I can wear my hair short and nappy means something like completely different, I think, than younger people who do it right, because for a long time this was defined as not only ugly but completely inappropriate. Inappropriate, yeah, right, it was disrespectful to your household and your mama for you to be out on the street in his nap. That's true. Go do something with your hair and that kitchen, right, let's not talk about that kitchen, right. Definitely, it's true, it's true. So I think surviving, just the whitewashing of your whole identity is kind of, and being able to turn that around. Right now we've got like a full 180 and just embracing that and not trying to get the bone straight. Silky press yeah, at a high cost and also devaluing your natural beauty. We just got there. We did just get there.

Speaker 1 4:29

If I think about it, I have a little girl. Well, she grown up on child, but I sat her down at the kitchen, the furnace, with a hot comb at certain points in her life, like to just kind of repeat. It was weird. We tend to repeat patterns, right, so I would sit her down. It's easter and I'm getting a hot comb and girl. So just kind of surviving, being able to outlive all of that stuff that's been embedded in your psyche.

Speaker 1 4:55

I think is surviving. I was thinking like so much that I didn't get to do because of hair. I get to take take swim lessons. You know we don't swim, we don't go in the water, couldn't get too deep in a party because my hair would be in sweatshirt and don't have it rain on you, right? Just like that threat of terror, like you get in a plastic bag, umbrella or something to protect that hair. That's crazy In its new slick form at all costs.

Speaker 1 5:22

And for me, surviving the shame of having kinky, curly hair, going to a predominantly white school. I didn't think anything of it until I remember this white girl came up to me and said I was like why you guys won't play with me Because you're black and your hair looks like that, but look how that's turned around. Yeah, and I just remember it being like where it took me and where I am now that I am confident in my natural hair and feeling good about it like someone said earlier, 180 of what that looks like but definitely had to survive those trauma, so to speak. I think worse than that is that black people degraded you from your hair, right? So if you were out with your friends and everybody was on that creamy crap and your hair was, you had some new growth somehow, or you were crazy enough to be out here with no relaxer at all. It was your skinfold.

Speaker 1 6:24

So when you just think about the level of control that was exerted even your identity it's crazy, right. Like we just had the passing of the crown act. Like they had to make our hair legal. Like you had to let your, like your hair be legal at one time, you know, like your hair needs its own, like citizenship application. It's crazy. Yeah, I need to pass it for the work because this hair apparently was scary to them.

Speaker 1 6:48

So do you remember when, with Beyonce and also Gabrielle Union, when they chose not to manage the kinks to the level that black people thought they should, they suffered quite a bit in terms of bullying and people questioning their parenting skills just because Blue Ivy had hair sticking out? Or just Gary's daughter just not wearing some tight, having kid hair? Exactly Kid hair, yeah, just kid hair. All kid hair is always out of place. Yeah, they're being accused of parental abuse. It's ridiculous. Yeah, I think the world always seems to be fascinated with everything that the Black woman does, right, it's always policed. And I have my hair big natural hair now and it's amazing the fascination people still have with my hair and I'm at work. People are not looking at me, they're looking at my hair, absolutely, and this is people of all colors. So it's just the bigger issue, right, in terms of black women being, you know, just policed in every single thing that we do.

Speaker 1 7:43

Even Michelle Obama, oh my gosh, she's harsh about her decision to not live braids in the White House. Yeah, and so, because to be judged at that level, like you've made us to that plateau, whatever that represents for us, that's a whole other podcast, right, yeah, right, but she's also yet another hot comb survivor. She had to survive all of that up until the very highest office of this country and it's just crazy. When did she leave? Did she stop? Right? What a change. Right, so she's free. What a change. Yeah, I remember going to an inaugural party in my neighborhood.

Speaker 1 8:17

It's mainly white folks, right, and these were those liberal Democrats, yeah, the ones from Get Out, right, and everyone was just so excited and so happy and Carlson and I were the only ones of color there and the people started talking about how Michelle Obama was absolutely beautiful and I'm sure why didn't she wear her natural hair Like that. She should have taken that opportunity to do that, because that would have been quite a statement. So the conversation went completely down a rabbit hole. So, feeling overwhelmed, I got my stuff. I was mad, I let it be known that I was upset and I left. A couple of days later, half of those white people came knocking on my door talking about, yeah, no apple pie, because I wouldn't eat it anyway. My mom has taught me better than that you can't eat from everybody's kitchen. That's another episode We'll talk'll talk about that.

Speaker 1 9:04

Yeah, and how they took a huge, momentous occasion and so much these people have accomplished, and they still brought it down to this woman's hair and they were sorry. The woman was had tears, could have been crocodile tears, tears. I don't know it was correct, but for me I was like, yeah, okay, and that was basically the end of that. So are we free? Right? Like just constantly being policed. And I got into relaxing my two girls here early and made that mistake and it was actually my kids are saying, yeah, we don't want to do this anymore and they've got pretty comfortable taking care of their hair so much that they take care of mine, just never really learned a skill like crazy as that sounds to do that. So they taught me some things and, like you said, denise, I was thinking about how to your point, laverne, about your daughter teaching you.

Speaker 1 9:50

I learned so much from my daughter, yeah, going to a non-white school because she wanted her hair as natural as it could be. So that was a lesson, because I, on the other hand, was trying to make her make it straighter, like blow it out, the rinse and repeat, right To repeat. Yeah, it's what you know, whether it's right to repeat. Yeah, it's what you know, whether it's right or wrong, it's what you know. It's just kind of like I guess we always want to fit in. I mean, especially back then. You just we don't want to stand out, we didn't want to stand like that, out, like that, and I just remember just standing out because my hair was natural. My mother was like I'm not putting that stuff in your hair. And I remember going to school and I really didn't, and it's so crazy because I was bused out of my community, so I was always around people that looked like me until I came to this school and I didn't realize that anything was actually different until she was like, yeah, your hair is like that. And I remember going home feeling bad and doing the crazy thing that I think a lot of people did was get a towel and pretend that it was long and all of that brush and now we share and all that stuff and just kind of working through all of what that looked like. It was a lot, just thinking about it.

Hair Grooming Traditions and Rites

Speaker 1 11:07

I survived the hot comb until prom night when I got my first relaxer Wow. My high school prom Wow, yeah. And actually I survived the hot comb until not prom, but high school graduation pictures. Then that's when I got my first purr and I was like how old were you? I was 17, 18, oh, okay. When I finally got a, a texturizer or what you want to call it, yeah, I went to Wilford Academy, okay, now.

Speaker 1 11:42

Now we had a remlon, dark and lovely. Yeah, we got the box one and I mean I ultimately ended up with that oscars where, in the bronx, at oscar shop, my first perm, yeah, night. I was in junior high school. Yeah, I think I was about 16, 16 years. It's interesting how you connect that to like rite of passage. Yeah, my hair straightened, yeah, as a rite of passage. This was crazy. We survived a lot and I remember getting that perm and it didn't come out. It didn't straighten like it was supposed to. I literally still had an afro. That's the extra right. Right, it really got dark and lovely. I had to go. That's super. Yeah, I had to redo it. It was hilarious, but that was definitely a shaping. Those were shaping moments in our lives, wouldn't you say? Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 12:32

And what's also odd is my grandmother and great-grandmother. They never used any chemicals, but they were big on pressing your hair and making it as straight as they could Straight, bone straight, that's it. My mom got it and she was like no stuff took my hair out. So she stuck to the press and curl, yeah for. And she didn't get another perm until she was I don't know, she was a grown girl, she was like maybe in her 40s or 50s. And even when I went to bury my mother recently, that was one of the questions the funeral director asked do you want a press and curl? It just seems so old? Yeah, because they don't really do press and curls anymore. Right, they do flat irons. Yeah, it's an issue Even unto death. Even unto death, girl, isn't that deep. We survived the high coma. We survived the issue. It's really wild. It's really wild. And I just remember also I know we're talking about hair, but it's really not Even being excluded in the stores about the products. Our products were just so limited. Yeah, at the time of trying to care for your hair was also a process, but now it's just a billion. Now it's a billion dollar, multi-billion dollar industry. Somebody figured it out and somebody else is trying to get the rewards. We don't even have the rewards for that. It's not even us, it's really a lot of other people. When they co-opt the products, like they'll start off with us and then they buy it from us and then build it into whatever. It's crazy. And now they have the cancer link to relaxers and started to get a class action suit with that. So it just never ends Like surviving. Yeah, you're really trying to survive all of this, right, it's crazy. We survived the hot comb, the policing, just everything. Life, just everything in general. It's wild. Anybody else have anything to talk about? I'm just exhausted. I mean, I think surviving, I guess, is exhausting. Yeah, so that's my only question and we can maybe think about ending it here or kick this around a little bit is we define ourselves as survivors, but I wonder how much of our living is a response to trauma. Right, like, how much is it? Because even if I'm thinking about like Denise went to an all-white school and T you talked about your children in an all-white school and I did the same with my son for a while and you wonder why you make those decisions, like if you decide I'm embracing my identity and my blackness and all of that, but then when you get a little bit and put two or three coins together and then you try and you make these decisions, so I'm just wondering what does that all, what does that say about? And maybe our next generation, maybe our kids, will continue the surviving beyond kind of where we all were able to take it. Because I question some decisions like what the hell? But I think it comes from you really trying to give your child what you perceive is the best. That's the point. Like you're really, I think, as a parent, you just really working on doing whatever you can to give your child the next leg. Why do we perceive? But that's the question, that's amazing Part of the surviving, that part, that part, that part. I think they are seeing it the opposite, because most of my children wanted to change their hair immediately after they left those schools. Like my son wanted to lock his hair and my daughter wanted to make sure that she had it as big because she couldn't no questions asked. Yes, and I represent, yes, I don't want any questions. Wanted to make sure that she had it as big because she could no questions asked. Yes, I feel like our kids are just. Although they all have their own things, they're so much more comfortable in their own skin and what that represents, and I think that they carry a more of a pride. Yeah, that's what I see, especially in our village. Is that because of us or in spite of us? I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's in spite of in some sense, right, that's what I'm saying. I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's a little bit because of the way we raise them and also because of their own experiences. I think it's just, and I think we all realize, right, the world does not give its best to black folks, those opportunities. They're never extended to us. We have to step up when we have to take it, and the easiest way for us to cling on things of value is to be closely associated with the world. Considers valuable. In the US, that's white folks. That's why we moved to white neighborhoods. We all know that there's a distinct difference in terms of real estate. Actually, you can even take the same house and if it's decorated with African art, it's going to be automatically downgraded in terms of its value. Take the same house, put pictures of Trump in there, and it's already got 25, 30% of value regardless, and nothing else changes. So we want the best for our kids and we're not education experts. We're not experts in every single thing. So what we do, okay. Well, if they're giving it for themselves, that's where I need to be. It's just like when it came to taking the COVID vaccinations, Like, okay, I am not getting my vaccination in the South Bronx, I'm going right up to Bronxville where they're getting their vaccination. So if there's good stuff to be had, that's where it's going to be. Hmm, I don't like that. I don't like that, but it is. But I think it's a little bit of proximity to whiteness, I agree, but I just think constantly chasing the proximity to whiteness is constantly giving the impression that blackness is subs. Yeah, I get you Right, you got to find the balance right. And I say that owning the fact that I sent my kid to a white school, right, right, yeah, I said that. But then, and kicking myself, like why, as woke as I claim to be, right, I need a CD-O in All that stuff. I got the letters, the DEI I don't want to link on the language People pay me, talk about wokeness and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said to my kid, like what the hell does that mean? And pay good money and pay my money, way too much money. But I like to think, like I took the white man money that they gave me to solve my blackness. There you go, like, really, if you think, nah, I just make it, I just make, you can't make it make sense, I sit up at night and I'm going, what the hell is that? Yeah, the same with our HBCUs. Like, why don't we send our kids there, or not? Right, we can't argue that. It's about excellence. Why doesn't that represent excellence? Right, because the majority of professionals are coming out of your HBCUs. Right, majority of black professionals, phds, you're right. So that for us, md, black excellence. So we can't even really say, okay, we don't have a model of black excellence, so we got to chase this white. Is that we have it? No, no, no, but we've decided, because that's black, excellent, right, which is a total, a term, it's good, I don't like black. You gotta say black excellence, like, somehow it's an anomaly. Yeah, black excellence, excellence, right, but somehow we decided, somehow it's an anomaly, you're black, it's excellence. It's excellence, right, but somehow we decided if it's black center, then it can't be as excellent as, uh, so it's just so messed up. No, it, listen, it's a recondition. Do we end like? Do we make a decision to end the sessions with? So, where's the truth y'all, where's the Okay? So I think we should wrap this up. I mean, we really talked about a lot of great things tonight, so we are ending this with our truth trash and transformation. So what do you think is your truth in this conversation? My truth is that's messed up. That's the truth, right, right. It's like we can't come to a conclusion to what this looks like, because it's just a lot of it is messed up, right, yeah, our hair, how we deal with it, how we deal with it culturally, how we dealt with it in our workplaces and in school and how that you grew up with it. It's just. Yeah, it's like crazy, right, and the world policing everything that black women do. Right, we're chatting about hair, but it's really just everything that we do, and that's definitely the truth. That's messed up. That is messed up. I'm going back to what you said. I think my truth, too, is that, as a high-income survivor, what I inherited was an identity crisis and if I'm going to be real, I like that answer. Yeah, that's a good one. Yes, have an identity crisis and I think, as a high-income survivor, I'm constantly trying to outlive that, live that down, and the truth is it's harder than we say. We talked today about how we passed that on to our kids. I'm sitting at the stove with my daughter straightening her hair, but I think that's part of the transformation, right, because we're transferring it all to our children, and I think some of our truth can be is that our children are learning a little bit about both worlds and understanding what that looks like and coming out, I think, a little bit more comfortable in their skin. I mean, that's what I see. I think they walk in a little bit more comfort. That's the transformation. I think it's the total 180 without kids, and the world's still continued fascination. But at least I'm finding us being fascinated about ourselves, more so as it relates to our hair. So for me, that's the transformation, I think, as it relates to us in general. Right, yeah, yeah, so we're going to talk about the trash part of all this. Right, the trash part is this understanding that we sometimes adapt that excellence belongs to white people, right, so much so that we label black excellence as if somehow an anomaly, like you're saying, like that was somehow a special and unique thing for black to be excellent. Right, because it's never. That's trash. I would agree. That sounds trash, that sounds like trash. Trash. Yeah, because you never hear about asian excellence. There's an ex-american excellence or any of that. It's just excellence. Right, when it comes to us, we have to preface it by saying it's black excellence. Oh, we have t-shirts like black and educated. So what is this? Right? I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily a so, because we had to do so much more to be educated. I mean, I'm not just talking about us, I'm talking about our ancestors. But even then, what do you call an educated? Like? Who gets to determine what's educated and what's not. Our ancestors were educated, maybe not in their schools or in their curriculum or what they decided was education, but they were educated. I think it's the same. That's colonialism, right? So you don't come and tell me education, but they were educated. I think it's the same. That's colonialism, right? So you're coming to help me? Oh, y'all were savages. Here's religion? No, we had a religion. We had a way to worship god. It wasn't your way, but I think that is a way that they colonized your thinking, right, like you're not educated until I put a stamp on it, right, your education is not worthy unless you went to this school. Now, since I'm educated, and even if you think about our ancestors certainly people in my parish generation, who have like a first grade education or a second grade education, because they were brilliant, all that is said, but all that is true. But they also had to survive this quote unquote white man's world and what that looked like. So I don't know if I would have, so what in front of that, because I think it was still another level of their brilliance and able and being able to navigate what that looked like. So I think I'm just saying like I understand exactly what you're saying. You have a great point, but I also think that it is something to be said that we not only had our own brand of brilliance that we still do that, you see, in our culture all the time, and it comes out in so many different ways but with that we were still even more so brilliant to navigate what it was already the obstacles that the white man put in front of us and still was able, with our own brilliance, cultivate that into even something even more brilliant. I think it's a little bit of I mean, I don't know if I poo-poo it I think that we were able to do both brilliantly. I think that's a great thing, and I think that's a great point, right? So maybe I shouldn't poo-poo it, but that's a trigger for me. And it's a trigger for me because I think what whiteness does is try to separate us out, right, and so there will be a distinction. Oh, you're black and educated. That makes you special, unlike what the rest. Right. The exceptionality piece of it is a dangerous thing, right, because then, as long as you could divide and separate, you keep us down. So, essentially, what you're saying is oh, you're different, you're educated, there's something special about you, you're educated, there's something special about you. Nothing's been different about me, but the opportunity perhaps was different. But I think that there's a way that we label and separate that if we're not careful, it's problematic, right. So you're like, oh, you're so articulate, like it's special. There's something about me we call white people articulate, right, it's like, oh, there's something about me that's unlike regular black people. So I think your point is well taken that I shouldn't poo-poo it, because the education was hard for and hard won. So that part I agree with you, which I think because they were brilliant enough to take the smarts that they already had navigated in this world and then, on top of that, gave us opportunities and opened up doors in this world, this colonized world that we lived in. So they took everything that they had from their countries and their world they brought it here, was beat down and all those things they were able to navigate. What that looked like and still like, we're still absolutely amazing. You will never see a shirt that says Asian and educated, because the expectation is if you're Asian, you're educated. I think that's what it. For me, it sets off a distinction of oh, I have to announce to the world that I was specially unique enough to be both black and educated? No, why is that such a unique thing that I need a shirt that says that it's not Asian and educated, it's not white and educated? I understand the history is different, but I'm saying what you project because we are always fighting ignorance and the ignorance is that black people are not educated. That's what we want to transform the thought process that black people are educated in spite of color, and it's the norm. But I also think it's a level of affirmation that we don't get regularly, where all of those other cultures are constantly being affirmed in some way, shape or form, but our culture, we have to go above and beyond to be affirmed. So seeing that sometimes will spearhead somebody saying, because I mean the literature that's put out and the newspapers, everything the propaganda that's put out is always being said, we're not being affirmed. So we always have to do something a little extra to affirm each other and affirm ourselves because we've been beat down so much. So I mean, I do understand what you're saying, point well taken, because we shouldn't have to, we shouldn't because we are. I think we've overproven that Question for you guys. So do you think Black excellence was to lift ourselves up, or to give the context to white folks so they can put our excellence and education in context. I think it's a little bit of both, though I think it's to let us know I think, us, to each other that it can be done. If you persevere, you can do that. And also to let them know, when they say, yes, I have mine, or it's black excellence, it's not excellence, it's black excellence. We know it's not as good as us, they're black. No, I get you and it's been labeled as such and put in this place like qualify it, because to me it's a qualification. Right, I get you. You have to qualify it for me. And this is my trigger, it diminishes it for me. Right, if I have to cry. It's not excellence, right, it's not get a twist. It's not pure excellence, relax, it's black excellence. Oh, because there is an expectation that your achievement is lesser than mine, and so I. For me, I think when, just like, if my shirt says I'm black and educated, for me it's like and that's not the norm, so much so I had to advertise that, and I think that's the message that's given even to our own children. If we are walking around like I'm black and I'm educated. My kids should think of course, why wouldn't you be? Why would I need to even make that a point? Because I make a statement about it. Yeah, I'm smart, whatever, and that's just a given. And I think there are other ethnicities where that's a given, right, that's a given. All other ethnicities, period, right. But that was my point. That's messed up. That's messed up. It is messed up. That's messed up. But that's my point. It is diminishing. It's diminishing, yeah, because I'm thinking like my son is working at Microsoft this summer and he's in a program called Blacks at Microsoft. No, he's not. Well, that's messed up. He is Black and he is interned at Microsoft. So he's, in fact, one of the Blacks at Microsoft. It's called blacks at Microsoft. Yes, they don't have any problems. Called Dominicans at Microsoft, right? They don't make them wear t-shirts, do they? Yes, oh, did the t-shirt say black? They had t-shirts. Is it black or blacks at Microsoft? They got t-shirts with that. I think it's blacks. Good, applaud, shirts with that. I think it's blacks, good, applaud, it's more than one black. Multiple colors. We are allowing them in in a controlled experiment. We will label them as such. We will have them dress a certain way and perform certain duties as to not really impact the major portion of the business. That's trash. That's trash. That is trash, that's trash, that's trash. That's trash right there, that is trashy, that is trash. And I'm sure he had to. You know, you guys are fine now, like a lot of these kids are just absolutely brilliant, and Malcolm is sure, certainly one of them. I'm sure those blacks in Microsoft are overqualified, like exceptionally talented. They don't say hidden secrets. Most of them are not American-born, they're mostly from Africa. Oh, wait till we do the episode on African-Americans versus Africans. Oh, stick a pin in that one. That's going to be good. Did you write that down? You don't want to miss that. I'm going to write that down. I'm going to write that down. That's another one, especially as it relates to education. Oh, especially as it relates to education. Oh, that's another and affirmative action. Yeah, so that was trash. So I guess this is the end of our podcast. We have talked about our truth, the trash and the transformation. We're gonna sign off now. Thank you for being with us. Thanks, guys. See you next time.