Lady Gaga’s new song Hair from her album Born This Way:
“I just wanna be myself and I want you to love
Me for who I am
I just wanna be myself and I want you to know
I am my hair
I've had enough
This is my prayer...I'm as free as my hair”
“I am not my hair...I am a soul that lives within
If it’s not what's on your head...It’s what's underneath....”
Look at the vast contrast between India and Gaga: Caucasian Gaga says to be “free as our hair” and African decent India encourages freedom “from our hair.”
When I first heard Gaga’s song I agreed with, “Yes, I want to be as free as my hair!” When I thought further about “hair,” however, I wondered how “free” Am I from MY hair?
When you compare the “freedom” of hair styles, choices and textures of African American women to women of other ethnic backgrounds, African American women experience less “freedom” with their hair. Some women experience less “freedom” from their hair, when hair is not in its natural state (i.e. flat ironed, weaves etc).
I love that Gaga “owns” her hair, as something that is part of who she “is.” Freedom is achieved through an individual’s ownership of her “value or self worth.” Also, I love that Gaga openly wears wigs as a fashion statement; the wigs are obviously an “accessory,” not an “adoption” into her personal “image.” India speaks of “free” FROM “hair,” because hair often “owns” a person within the African American community. The trend to “go natural” is slowly catching on but not winning against the deeply rooted trend to “relax, flat iron, weave and wig” hair. The process of “doing” hair seems to “own” African American women more than other ethnic groups. African Americans or people of African decent spend more money than other ethnicities, because of the media’s influence to have straight, long hair or to achieve curls that are “acceptable.” So while Gaga wears her wigs as an accessory many in the African American community have more of a “social obligation” to either conform through relaxing, straightening and weaves... The movement continues to step away and be “free” from our hair but this process is trying.
So, thank you Gaga for informing us to be “as free as” our hair and thank you India for setting those of us confined by our hair free.
And THANK YOU Oprah....as always, you have the answer!
