Black Hair and Autism: A Refusal to Disentangle
Reflecting on the evolving relationship with her hair, Antonia Aluko explores the interplay between being black, autistic and queer, and how this relationship has grown and blossomed alongside her journey of unmasking and becoming her true authentic self.
As a Black autistic queer woman, I find myself often feeling like I am outside of a conversation looking in, trying to understand the nuances of situations and observe the intricacies of someone’s humour, their facial expressions, how much space I am allowed to occupy. It’s like looking into a room from a window, noticing the light has been left on, entering and not being able to find the light switch. I reflect frequently on the aspects of my experience that cause contention in my relationships with others and make me question my feelings and thoughts, why I feel what I feel and the validity of those emotions. It’s no wonder my experiences in spaces where I believe as though I should belong most, still feel somewhat hard to navigate. This is never truer than when I think about my hair.
Hair in the Black community is a greater conversation than simply how it looks, it is a point of resistance, a demonstration of heritage, pride, originality, an expression of self-care and love, it is a powerful symbol of Blackness in its rawest form. Yet for many Black folk, their hair is a remembrance of racist, harmful stereotypes pushed onto them as they made their way through society. It holds that weight and sorrow and hurt of years where their hair was not celebrated but denigrated, demonised, and painted as unclean or unkempt.
I have 4C hair, the coiliest form of curls and for a long time I didn’t appreciate my hair at all. Before I knew I was autistic, my natural hair would be tucked away in protective styles (these are hairstyles where your hair is not exposed to protect them from the outside environment), relaxed, straightened, weaved, anything not to ‘deal with it’ or learn how to manage it because I wanted to meet some sort of white, heterosexual beauty standard I could never measure up to. In a way, my protective styles and masking went hand in hand, a way for me to hide all aspects of myself and mould myself into a form more palatable to society, both within and outside of the Black community.
But being reflective now, I can remember the moments where I struggled to brush through my hair because of the sensory discomfort of my tender scalp. I can recall the isolation in hair salons because I struggled to make meaningful connections with the auntie’s styling my hair and was rendered ‘too quiet’ if I didn’t spark idle conversation or ‘childish’ if I brought up how loud the salon was or how much pain I was in. I can reimagine the bullying I endured in school for my ‘undone hair’ because I dreaded the day I would have to get it restyled and so would avoid revisiting the hair salon for months until it was absolutely necessary. I can remember the self-hatred and despair whilst researching ways to permanently straighten my hair or destroy my curl pattern after a boy I liked said he wouldn’t date a Black girl because he would lose any attraction for her if he saw her natural hair. These experiences took its toll on my confidence and self-esteem but as I am learning to unmask, I am also relearning how I could have navigated those situations differently, how I could have seen myself differently, but it took years for me to get to this point.
As an adult, I have started to fall in love with my hair again, researching for hours styles and products I could use which didn’t spark major sensory discomfort, opting to learn how to do my own hair instead of visiting hair salons where I felt it difficult not to mask, being more vocal and honest when I didn’t understand references or didn’t like how tight my hair was being braided. I have found myself wearing my natural hair more often and then also appreciating the protective styles I did enjoy, finding the common ground between honouring my hair and culture and not silently being in distress. I still struggle with navigating my experience as Black, autistic, and queer but I find I do so now not to hide or protect but, to understand myself, to allow myself the space to fail and but also to learn.
My words here have been a therapeutic reflection. A way I connect my autistic and Black experiences because they cannot be disentangled or tamed. In my search for authenticity and the freedom to be myself, I urge you to do the same. I think it's such a vital conversation to be had between societal conformity, autism, and race and how these experiences are weaved together.
To the person reading this, I ask you to spend a moment to think about these intersections and how systems of oppression can group together in such a way that is damaging to Black autistic youth. To the Black autistic person reading this, I hope that my words have sparked thoughts within you to be your most authentic self despite the difficulties and nuances of our shared experiences. And to the young, Black autistic girl I was, I give you the space to be yourself and thrive in the fullest extent – reclaim the years.
