It is as much a part of his identity as the brownness of his eyes or his 6’6” frame. I’m happy to report he still wears his hair locked. It was his choice because it was HIS hair. If he still wanted to cut them off when we returned, he could. I offered him a proposal: we go to Jamaica for Spring Break where he could experience a whole country of people who “normally” wore their hair locked if they chose to.
You can only work to build up their confidence even as the outside world tries to tear it down, sometimes strand by strand. You are perpetually helpless because you can never protect them from it. For him to see himself reflected in someone else’s eyes as “less than” was insufferable for me. Any mother who has ever witnessed her child face discrimination for the very first time knows how powerless it makes you feel - because you know it won’t be their last experience. I know I may be biased, but my son is, and has always been, BEAUTIFUL.
When he was in 7th grade, we sat on the stairs of our suburban home, and I held him as he sobbed uncontrollably because his middle school white cohorts had been ruthlessly bullying him about his locks, or, as they referred to them, his “burnt Cheetos.” He wailed that he wanted to cut his hair off so he could “just be normal.” An innocent request from a fourth grader, right? It was anything but. He proudly announced he wanted to lock his hair in recognition of this heritage. When my son, KC, was nine, he had to do a report on his heritage, and he discovered his dad’s Jamaican and Panamanian roots. Sometimes hair is more than a “style” or vanity.
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