An Open Letter to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice

I didn't vote for your candidate. I was too bothered by his rise to prominence in a country where so many privileged people claim everything is now fine, racially speaking; where people like you two, and I, are so favored that we get opportunities we don't deserve; yet a country that looks underneath every nook and cranny of our souls, no matter what our family backgrounds, for evidence that we are inherently inferior to everybody else and thus, before granting us genuine respect, expects us to jump through enough hoops to drive the average person berserk. To do this to us, then elevate to the highest office of the land a Caucasian man who demonstrates he's not too swift upstairs...that he got into Yale via the affirmative action program reserved for the children of alumni (and then registered mediocre grades)... failed at business yet was bailed out via the set-aside program reserved for the well-connected... Such hypocrisy was so glaring that I couldn't swallow as hard as you two obviously did and "get with the program."

That's always been my problem: calling a spade a spade (excuse the pun). The only upside I see so far to the rise of George W. Bush is that?despite his representing the political party that, by his own admission, has essentially given "our people" the back of its hand?in elevating you two to perhaps the most coveted spots in a presidential administration, he has broken ground for Afro-Americans in ways that the party that considers itself our friends never did. (Though I understand, Mr. Powell, that President Clinton did offer you the same position in his administration.)

But I write to share a hope. For quite some time, being corralled off into a corner by the rest of America has caused within "our people" some peculiar behavior. To survive we often laugh when we feel like crying. To assimilate to the degree we are at least allowed, we often severely alter our appearances. The elevation of the two of you will probably do nothing to change either of these behaviors. But for some strange reason, as I felt pride seeing you standing with our next president when he named you to your new posts (though chills later when I read Ms. Rice's quasi-imperialistic views on American foreign policy), what also came to mind was this:

Among the obsessive insecurities we harbor, none is more profound than that dealing with our hair. You, Ms. Rice, straighten yours, a look I believe can sometimes come off well, but most of the time does not. I hate the appearance of Afro-American women who wear the stiff, greasy-looking variations of that style so predominate among them. I much prefer those who just brush their hair back, braid it, or wear it in what I'm increasingly seeing: dreadlocks.

Straight hair can look nice too, but primarily on the heads of those whose hair is naturally straight. For Afro-Americans whose hair is naturally kinky, nowadays the predominant trend is, if not to straighten it, to shear it all off (or nearly all of it). For about the past decade, Afro-American men have sported the Yul Brynner look in droves. Or if not that, a level of near baldness that hints they've just enlisted in the Marines. In my opinion this signals a retrenchment in self-esteem.

I know. Most Afro-Americans disagree with me. I have no problem with that. One day in a barbershop in Brooklyn, I watched as a little Afro-American boy about four or five years old was about to get his hair sheared off, as though he were a sheep. (If while reading this you wonder how I can recall the details so vividly, it's because I recorded the incident in a notebook right after it happened.) The kinky strands weren't long at all?they just covered his scalp. But his mother wanted them all off his head. She sat in a chair next to her son as he waited to get scalped, and talked to her girlfriend, who had a son of about the same age, who had already had his turn. The hairs left behind were barely noticeable?just enough to let a person know that the poor lad wasn't naturally bald.

The two mothers were pretty, yet would have looked even better if they didn't have their straightened hair piled up in two of those greasy, stiff concoctions that mimic a Tastee Freeze; the kind one sees among so many lower-class Afro-American women. As they waited, they talked about their sons as if they weren't there.

"Mine's don't mind getting his hair cut," said the one, while I wondered, as I often do, why so many fellow Afro-Americans still speak English as though slavery ended 10 years ago.

"Well mine's, I don't know what it is," replied the other. "He be havin' a temper tantrum every time he comes. Don't you, Jason."

Jason didn't respond. He just sat there with an expression of budding doom growing on his face.

"See there, look at him," said his mother. "He about to cry now. Jason, you listenin' to me? Now don't you cry when you get up there. If you cry I'm gonna fire up yo' little black ass! You hear me? You hear me talkin' to you? Answer me!"

Jason nodded, then began to whimper. Shortly afterward he climbed into the barber's seat. The barber spoke soothing words. "You're a big boy now, aren't you? You're gonna show Mama that you know how to do this, aren't you?"

As the shears did their job, Jason's whimpers now were barely audible. But his face continued to express doom. Strips of kinky hair fell at their feet. After the barber finished he turned Jason around so he could see himself in the mirror. As he stared at his reflection, Jason's whimpers grew into a slow cry. Tears welled in his eyes.

So what did his mother do? Believe it or not, she and her friend started laughing. As they did so the barber began edging the minuscule hairs left on Jason's head. Jason continued to cry, only the cries were louder now because the sharp blades of the edger stung. He started moving his head away. His mother chuckled as she said, "Now, Jason, what did I tell you?"

The barber called the hairstyle a "Caesar." Almost finished, he asked Jason's mother if she would like a part edged into the top right side of Jason's scalp, mimicking the kind of part a person with a more substantial head of hair would comb into theirs. She said yes. As the electric clippers were reapplied to his head, Jason let out a frightening scream. His mother laughed once more.

Finished, the barber turned him around again to look at his reflection. Complete horror enveloped Jason's face, while his cries slowly decelerated into hiccupy whimpers.

I'm sure, Mr. Powell and Ms. Rice, that the two of you wonder what, if anything, you have to do with this story. Well, we all have something to do with it, because of what we let slide by without noticing. No doubt plenty of times Jason's mother demonstrates her love for him. And plenty of little boys of all colors hate getting their hair cut. Yet at the same time, in that barbershop, Jason's mother signaled something I'm sure that non-Afro-American mothers don't signal to their sons: that there's something wrong with his natural looks, and that laughing at his pain is okay. That sounds a lot like our collective predicament.

Mr. Powell, you appear to have no problem wearing your hair unaltered. As for you, Ms. Rice, why you wear yours as you do is none of my business. I will have no say in how either of you perform your jobs. But when you take your oaths of office, when you meet with our new president and world leaders, keep in mind all the little Jasons of the world. Remember that as they grow up they may be watching you, hungry for signs that there's something right, noble and honorable about people who look like us. An obsession with altering or cutting off our natural hair might seem minor. But it's not. Especially in the minds of children who have yet to be consumed by the more pressing concerns of adulthood. As their heads are shaved and hair chemically altered, their self-image is being altered, too.

Hugh Pearson is the author of Under the Knife: How a Wealthy Negro Surgeon Wielded Power in the Jim Crow South.