​I started going to African Braid Shops back in 2001. I’d just graduated from high school and cut off all my hair for prom. Summer came around, and everybody was rocking cornrows like the singer Lil Mo. I wanted cornrows too, but my mother was my hair-braider, and she could not grip the inch of hair on my head to successfully braid me down. So I ventured to the Mecca of African braiders—East 125th Street in Harlem. There I met Barry. If this blog somehow gets around to her, girl, you were the best. Barry was able to grip my short strands, and she remained my go-to person for about two years. Since then, I’d become a regular at a few African braid shops. As someone who suffers from anxiety and claustrophobia, traveling from The Bronx to 125th Street became tedious and exhausting, and that is how I started discovering and meeting other braiders in The Bronx.
Between 2003 and 2005, I was going to a braider on Castle Hill in The Bronx. She had a small shop, in which she was the only braider, and she sold other products like shea butter and black soap. She also maintained dreadlocks. I was with my daughter’s father at the time, who’d just locked his hair. He and my daughter have an opposite hair texture from mine. Their hair is thick and coarse, with really tight kinks to it. I often refer to mine as “cotton and lace,” because it’s super fine and super soft. This Castle Hill braider once said to me flat out, “Your hair no good for braid. Your husband and your baby, very good for braid. But not you.” I still tell the story because she still took my money and still braided my hair.

In 2017, I started going to another shop on Castle Hill for Marley and kinky twists. I loved how I looked with the thick rope twists, but eventually learned that the hair used for the style was not good for my cotton & lace strands at all. I lived in a little bit of denial before coming to that conclusion, and before I completely gave up on using that kind of hair, I was getting smaller, shorter twists. I noticed that the twists around the perimeter, edges of my hair, didn’t last more than a day or two. The synthetic hair would slide off my hair, taking some of my strands with it. One day, while getting my hair twisted, I asked the braider to use less hair for the section she parted or make the parts bigger. I said, “I think that’s too much hair for the section. When I go home, the hair is gonna slide right off.”
She said, “No, it’s not.”
I said, “It happens all the time. I think you should use less hair, or make the parts bigger. Or you could even leave it out completely, and I’ll just brush it down.”
She took this attitude like, you’re telling me what to do as the braider? She said, “I know what to do. It’s not coming out.” Then she proceeded to do exactly what I asked her not to do. The next morning, the twists slid out, and of course, some of my hair was stuck in them.

Now, African braiders have long had a reputation for creating immaculate braid styles, and the trade-off was how intensely they braided. Black-American women took “beauty is pain” to another level; sitting in these hot, sweaty shops, with women yelling over our heads in another language, jerking our skulls left and right, and pinching our scalps to the point of long-lasting pain and damaged roots and hair shafts.
 
I don’t know exactly when Black-American women became especially steeped in our hair care over how our hair looked, but when that happened, we started showing up to braid shops with standards. Some braiders and shop owners complied to keep their clientele, and others don’t seem to care.  
In 2020, when entrepreneurship soared, many women took the time to elevate their braiding skills to that of the famous African braid shops. Now, there are just as many Black-American braiders as African braiders, and there is real competition. I’ve noticed some changes in the shops, but from a distance, because I started to rely on Black-American braiders such as my niece and my sister.

I no longer live in The Bronx, where my sister and niece both live, and where I know how to find everything I need. I am now in Essex County, New Jersey, trying to find my way around my beauty maintenance. I do still mostly drive back across the bridge to my sister, but she didn’t have availability this past weekend, so I took a chance on an African shop in Orange.
Well…
 
So I Googled African hair braiders and came across this place in Orange that appeared a little more upscale than what African braid shops were like in the past. They also had the highest ratings in the area on Google. I figured, based on those two details, the customer service would be better than past experiences as well. Assumptions do what now? Yeah… so, on the website it says “We take walk-ins all day,” but then they also suggest that you call before arriving, I guess, to get an idea of potential wait time. I did that. I called, and whoever answered the phone acted like I was bothering her. It sounded like she was on the verge of saying, “We take walk-ins; why are you calling?” So I reminded her that the website said to call in advance. She was pretty much like, “Yeah, okay. You coming or not?” So I said I would be there shortly.
 
I get there and the shop looked as I expected: spacious, clean, and comfortable. That was cool. The woman at the front sent me to another lady’s chair. That lady asks me about hair color. I asked if they had 2.
She said, “No. 1b.”
Then I took my hat off, and she goes, “We have 4.”
I said, “That’s fine. Can we mix it with something lighter as well?”
She showed me a few different shades of blonde; I chose one, and then she directed me back to her chair. I got comfortable, and then she said, “I’m gonna take lunch now. I’m going to eat. I’ll come right back.”
In my head, I’m like, “WHAT?!” When I got there, she was chillin in her chair! It’s not like I walked in and she was on her way to the back, in the back, or eating. Ya girl was feet up in the chair, chillaxin’!
All I could say was, “Okay,” because I was desperate. I had a wedding to attend, and I was not up to manipulating my own hair, plus an extension, into some kind of elegant bun or ponytail. I was also not interested in disappointing myself if the style didn’t come out right. 
 
After about twenty minutes, she returns and gets started. I was happy to see she had a wide-toothed comb and did not proceed to rake my head with a tiny-toothed rat-tail comb or something. But then she started that first braid, and I thought I was going to die. I was immediately taken back to 2001, the first time I had my hair braided in a shop, and I only had an inch of hair on my head. At that time, a tight grip was necessary. My hair is now at its normal average length, somewhere between my collarbone and shoulders. (I’m also in desperate need of a trim.) She parted carefully, applied braid gel, and then proceeded to grip my hair as if it were tiny ants trying to escape her. Just as she began the second braid, I said, “The first braid feels a little tight, and it hurts.”
She said, “Oh, you don’t want it tight?”
I said, “No.”
I kid you not, she braided tighter on the second braid. I’m thinking, “What the entire fuck? Is she slow? I know she heard what I said.”
After a while, other braiders came to help her, and for some reason, that’s when she loosened her grip. I thought the other braiders were my saving grace until they all started talking to each other at full volume, over my head. I don’t know what language they spoke. Unfortunately, for all the braid shops I’ve been to and all the African students I taught, I have not learned to decipher the languages and dialects. That’s not to say that if they were speaking English, it would’ve been better for me. Three women shouting at each other and pulling your head in three different directions is overstimulating in any language. By the time they began working on the back of my head, I wanted to FaceTime my little sister crying like, “Gurl, save me!”

​When I left, my head was heavy and throbbing; an experience I haven’t had in almost a decade, and the style was mediocre. The braids were in the shape and direction I wanted, but they were not knotless or stitched like the picture I showed the braider. The best thing about the whole experience was not having to do my hair the day of the wedding. I took Tylenol when I got home and sprayed an abundance of Kaleidoscope braid spray on my hairline. I also massaged the front of my head with one of Back & Lather’s oils, because the combination of synthetic hair with extreme pulling is a recipe for disaster on already thin hair.
 
I told this whole story to come to these questions: Whassup with African braiders? What’s really good? Why can’t we come to a shop and receive both efficient customer service as well as consideration and hair care? Why do we have to sacrifice those things? Why do your customers have to feel as if they’ve been assaulted when they leave your shop, either physically or verbally?
 
I am legitimately curious. My hair has been braided beautifully by my mother and aunt and later my niece and sister, without them pulling my cotton and lace strands like the strings of a corset. So I know the style doesn’t need all that to be successful. You’re no longer cornering the market in terms of braiding, sooo… why not consider incorporating better treatment of your clients? Don’t argue with them about their hair type or color. Acquiesce when they ask you to consider what’s needed to maintain their hair care. Be a little more considerate when chatting with your shop mates.
 
Although I put all of this out there, I won’t be going back. I’ll be making an effort to secure appointments in advance with my sister. My cotton-lace coif was not made to withstand such abuse in the name of beauty.

​So, I see all the chatter about Da’Vinchi’s comments on Black Americans. I don’t usually chime in on this kind of thing because, although I consider myself an academic and heavy on Black history (across the diaspora), I don’t have enough confidence to open the apps and start chatting about it. Lately, though, I’m like, lemme run with these thoughts, whether they land in my journal or a blog post. Da’Vinchi ain’t going in my journal. When my daughter finds it and reads it after I’m gone, she’ll be reading it to get to know the woman-Mommy, not the Mommy who doom-scrolled on the toilet every morning. I know my child; she don’t care about that. Blog readers… y’all gon get it though.
 
As I opened my laptop to jot these notes down, I said, lemme see how old lil baby Da’Vinchi is, because I was prepared to give him grace. He’s thirty. I gotta save that grace for twenty-nine and below. *Chuckling* I don’t know what it is with me. I always wanna give grace, but if you’re over thirty, it bothers me to do so. Of course it depends on the circumstances. For example, if he wasn’t born here, but that baby was born in Brooklyn a little over a week before my sister. Is anybody going to tell him, Haitian-American born here is just Black-American??

​I don’t do diaspora wars because I am an example of when the diaspora mixes. My mother is Black American, and my father is Antiguan. Yes, I was raised in the American household, but I was not excluded from Caribbean culture. And you know what? I feel like that’s a unique experience that doesn’t get talked about enough because people are so busy fighting to be the best version of Black culture. There is no best in the group. To be Black in any culture is to be the best. That’s it. (The leaps that could be made if we all knew that.)
 
I’m in a relationship with a Haitian man—my first. Growing up, I mostly avoided dating Black Americans with no Caribbean or African heritage because I felt misunderstood by them. They said that curry stunk and turned their noses up at pepper pot. They ridiculed Calypso and Soca music. When they heard my father’s side of the family speak, they assumed they were Jamaican, because apparently at that time, Jamaica and Trinidad were the only Caribbean countries. *eye roll*
 
Anyway, I chose boys who I felt were like me. The ones whose one or both parents were born on an island but came here in the 70s or 80s. However, in high school, Haitians were a “hell no.” I never heard this in my own household because obviously we weren’t prejudiced within the diaspora. The women in my family happily brought home Caribbean men. I don’t know if anyone brought home a Haitian, though. I went to school with what seemed like the entire Caribbean, but if anyone was Haitian, they didn’t let it be known. I’m also from The Bronx, where we don’t have a major Haitian population anyway. Still, if Haiti came into the conversation, the noses turned up, and the insults and stereotypes came tumbling out of my peers’ mouths: they stink, fish is the only thing they eat, boys don’t eat the spaghetti at your Haitian girl friend’s house—if she likes you, she’ll put her menstrual blood in it and you’ll never be able to leave her (that was a southern thing too, by the way), and of course, all their old folks were Voodoo Priests & Priestesses. So simply by peer pressure, I steered clear of Haitians.
 
Here's the dumb shit, though: in 2002 I got pregnant by a Dominican.
 
Because what the fuck is the difference between a Haitian and a Dominican?
Language and whitewashing, but that’s a conversation for another day.
 
Quick aside: My daughter’s father is one of my closest friends now, and when I told him about my “new boyfriend,” He laughed and said, “Can’t keep your ass off the island, huh?”
 
In my experience of loving and living with a Dominican and a Haitian at different times in my life, there isn’t a huge difference. In fact, there isn’t a huge difference between them and Antiguan households, and there isn’t a huge difference between them and Black American households. That’s why when it comes to the diaspora, there is no best. To be Black is to be the best. Period. (No t’s and no Poos, I am a grown woman.)

Now here I am, waist-deep in this relationship with this Haitian-American man who, at first, was nervous to tell people that my mother is American. I was a bit shocked because I am super proud of my cultural makeup. But then I had to think to myself, as a teenager, I would’ve been embarrassed to say I’d fallen for a Haitian boy. While my friends were dragging Haitians, he was growing up hearing what Da’Vinchi heard in his home—that Black Americans were lazy and mostly criminals. Then he moved to the Midwest for a while, and the first person to welcome him was a Black American in a predominantly white town, just looking for another Black face to relate to. That young man didn’t see a Haitian boy whose family practices Voodoo. He saw Brown skin, thick lips, and a wide nose that resembled people in his own family. He saw a brother. He saw kin. Today, in me, my Love sees kin, and he had to bring his family to that understanding. (Sounds like I gave him grace in his old age, and I guess I did. Perhaps because he wasn’t in public saying wild shit, he was just a little hesitant.)

Da’Vinchi opened his mouth, and ignorance came tumbling out. I wanted to give him grace, but he’s past my age limit. Instead, I’d be willing to put together reading material and documentaries for him, and I’d order him to be silent until he’s done as much learning as possible to know that he’s been used, and he’s gotta turn that around.

Yesterday was Albertha’s homegoing service. I mentioned in the previous blog that Albertha was not easy to get along with. I didn’t say much about it, but I wasn’t the only one in the family who struggled to get along with her. It’s funny because the pastor chosen to give the Eulogy is one who practically grew up with my mother and aunt in our home church. He became my youth pastor and went on to build his own church as a senior pastor. The first pastor we came to know at our home church died in the late 1990s, and the youth pastor, Pastor Mitchel, became the interim pastor for a while. At that time, he was asked to counsel my family because of the drama in my household that often erupted between my grandmother, mother, and aunt.
 
The day my grandmother passed, my mother made sure to contact Pastor Mitchel to give the eulogy. All of us except my grandmother left the home church when Pastor Mitchel left to build his own. She’s known two or three pastors since then. Still, I didn’t believe any of them knew her the way Pastor Mitchel did. I knew he would know what to say at her service, and he nailed it. He described her as “the real deal.” D for devoted. E for encouraging. A for anointed, and L for loving. He was right, and in his message he alluded to how, although she was the real deal, her delivery was sometimes harsh or even damaging. That was the thing about Albertha. She wanted control, not for bad reasons, but it was an unrealistic way of dealing with family.
 
People were allowed to speak, and now I’m thinking I should have, but I didn’t want to at the time because I hate the spotlight. I love attention, but hate the spotlight, if that makes sense. I only want all eyes on me when I feel like the moment is truly about me. Sometimes I feel like people use funerals as a moment to shine, and it annoys me. To avoid being what I can’t stand, I haven’t spoken at a funeral since I was eleven years old.
 
Anyway, if I spoke yesterday, I would’ve told this story:
 
Once, when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I was complaining about not getting what I wanted because “we ain’t never got no money.”
My grandmother called me into her room on a night when she happened to be home and pointed to her dresser. Her paycheck was sitting there, and next to it were several envelopes. She said, “You always complainin’ about money and how it should be spent. There’s my check. Pay the bills with it.”
I snorted, then looked at the amount on the check. I don’t remember how much it was, but at the time, it seemed like a lot of money to me. I scoffed and said, “Okay.” I shrugged my shoulders, thinking this should be easy. She got mad money. I’ll show her.
I started with the highest bill, which I believe was the mortgage, and worked my way down. I think there were two bills left and not enough money. I froze. “Grandma, this ain’t enough,” I said, feeling like a damn dummy.
She just looked at me—a knowing look in her eyes.
Then I said, “Your Avon money!”
At home she was Grandma; to others she was Bert, or Bertha; at church she was Sister Alberta, and at work she was Ms. Harley, aka The Avon Lady, and I was her inventory manager. The sunroom in our house was her inventory space. She had shelves and drawers packed with Avon products. (I used to steal the makeup in seventh and eighth grade.) She would receive orders at work and give them to me. I would bag the stuff and staple the receipt to the bag, like we had a real store. I would fold pages or circle products in the catalogues that she was low on; Grandma would order the stuff, and I would restock the shelves. Nobody ever made purchases through me, but I tried to get my hustle on too.  So the idea came on like a lightbulb in my head: Avon money!
Grandma looked at me and said, “Now you’re thinking.” Then she proceeded to show me bank deposits from Avon and how to pay attention to due dates, double up on certain payments, etc.

My other grandmother, Miriam, was a hustler too. Every once in a while, Gramma would say things in Spanish or randomly teach me a word in Spanish. I’m from the Bronx, where it’s weird if you don’t speak any Spanish at all. So I was under the impression that she learned Spanish when she came here. Nope. According to my dad, my grandmother’s hustle was traveling to Puerto Rico and bringing home items to sell in Antigua.
 
Now here I am in my early forties, trying to make the best of my many talents. Multiple streams of income are all the rage now, but Black people have been doing that for years. It’s weird to me that Black women have been deemed lazy in this country, when we’re the jugglers of everything. We don’t panic at the idea of working and managing children and a home. We just do it. My grandmothers were so smooth with their hustles. They didn’t boast or complain. They worked hard as caregivers, hustled on the side, and spent their money on things they liked and felt they deserved, as well as luxuries for the families. I remember calling my Gramma (Miriam) one day and complaining about the transportation office I worked in at the time, and she simply said, “Well, ya do what yuh have to do until you can do what yuh want to do.” It was very simple advice, but it gave me hope that one day I would be able to do what I want to do. In 2017 I’d earned my BA in English Lit, and self-published two novellas. Since then, I’ve started a freelance business, writing, editing, and coaching.
 
I’m currently working part-time in adult education and, for the last six months, since having surgery, I’ve been bent on finding a full-time job. Now I’m thinking back on the lessons and advice from my hustling bookends and wondering: is this the time? I thought I started doing what I wanted to do in 2017 when I self-published. I thought I was doing what I wanted to do when I got a job in education in 2019. I thought I was doing what I wanted to do in 2021 when I started my business. Now I’m like, maybe this is the time Gramma was talking about. I find a billion things to do with my time when I’m not working, one of them being job hunting. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing. Maybe instead of searching for ways to give my time and talent to another organization, I should be nurturing my own.
 
Perhaps this was another ramble… I don’t know.
 
Thanks again to my difficult bookends. I’m going to take the hustle spirit and use all I have to do what I want. Now that y’all are probably back to gossiping about me, I feel like I cannot let y’all down.