"You should not smile," he said. It was the first time I was told not to smile. It was a small room with an amateur booth, some costumes and a hasty photographer. He was in a hurry, because other girls were waiting their turn to smile.
I was 11 years old. It was my first portfolio, one of those semiprofessional ones that every girl dreamt of having in the '90s. They all had one. I insisted that I have one too, often pressing my parents, despite the extra cost in the monthly budget and the shallowness of the whole experience. For me it was the best birthday present. After all, I also wanted a smiling photo to show off at school. I wanted to see myself look pretty. What I didn't know was that I was NOT allowed to smile. The photographer didn't say the reason, but it was implicit when he gave a lame excuse: "She wears braces!"
It is hostile to be black in Brazil. It is improper, aggressive, provoking. We are too black in this all-white, clean society.
Yes, I wore braces connected to an apparatus in order to fix my teeth. My father, who was born in the northeast of Brazil and grew up working in small farms, had a distinct memory of said apparatus and told us [me and my older brother] that it was used to hold calves in order to prevent them from breastfeeding when the intention was to fatten the cow. It was cruel. And for years, every night, I had to sleep with that kind of apparatus pulling my teeth from outside my mouth. I could not smile.
Weeks later the "pretty" portfolio arrived with its 30 photos. "Pretty" according to my mother who started distributing photos to the entire family. To this day, my uncle carries one of these photos in his wallet. During Sunday lunches the same uncle used to repeat this joke: "Why do n**gers have only two teeth? One is for opening beer bottles for white people and the other hurts the whole day." Everybody laughed, a bit embarrassed. And my only thought was that I shouldn't smile. I liked one or two photos, I laughed at one or two jokes, but nothing there pleased me. I didn't show my book at school, of course.
Years went by and that "You shouldn't smile" still haunted me, including in my love life every time I failed to establish a steady relationship with someone or I tried to smile clumsily with my mouth shut when I felt diminished. And then I found out, all by myself, that I needed another tactic to stand out from other people, to smile in a different way.
I became the best student in my class; dictionaries were my best friends. I underlined the words I liked best and copied their meanings into my notebooks. I made up some of them and learned how to give new meaning to others. Like my own name, Neomisia, which always generated laughter when pronounced incorrectly.
I only gave my best smile when I was 23 and it is hanging framed on the wall of my drawing room. It is a picture taken when I graduated: I was the first one in my family to get a college degree. In that picture I am showing all my 32 white and flawless teeth. My hair is straightened. I am almost a white girl. After all, I had deceived myself perfectly up until that point: I had a college degree, I had a beautiful smile, I had straight hair, and I had self-esteem. Or did I?
In my first job interview I had to choose whether to wear my natural hair or straightened hair with cream (lots of cream!). I would sleep with a cap on so that the hair takes longer to get back to its normal state. I would sleep early in order to be able to press my clothes in the morning and then be elegant at the interview.
It is a daily struggle to ignore everything and everyone who tries to diminish us as human beings.
All I could do was present myself as minimally cute. I had to get close to the desired job position, to get there first, and be the best one. I could imagine the conversation: "You will go like this?" What do you mean "like this"? Like this. I want to work with my hair like this. "That won't be possible here."
"I'm going like this" is an expression that takes long to become a reality for a black woman. "I'm going like this" requires confidence, self-esteem, attitude; it requires everything they taught us not to have.
- "Put a scarf over your head or tie your hair in the back."
- "Nobody will notice if you have it tied in the back."
- "You should use makeup to make your nose thinner."
- "No way you are wearing red lipstick"
- "I don't know how you have the guts to wear hair like that."
Like what? That is the way I am, I was born with this hair. Yet we are forced to face a silent battle every day: We must ignore the looks of disapproval, the swearing on the streets, and the endless attempts to deny our own identity.
We learn to hate ourselves.
"I'm going like this" is an expression that takes long to become a reality, but when it sinks in, there is no way back. And it should be a daily exercise. We should not accept the Eurocentric standards, the room at the back, and the last place in line. We shouldn't be chosen just because there are no other options. It is a daily struggle to ignore everything and everyone who tries to diminish us as human beings. Racism is a tough and concrete reality. We must create spaces in which we can breathe, show ourselves, exist and somehow flourish, like plants that grow in improper and hostile places.
But they grow!
It is hostile to be black in Brazil. It is improper, aggressive, provoking. We are too black in this all-white, clean society. We should be careful when handling the white color, since white people don't get dirty. Racism equals us to dirt all the time. And we don't want that role; we refuse to occupy that place where we don't belong. We are not the stain. We are the color of this gray place where they insist on imprisoning us.
There are some shelters. Places where we go to recharge, blessed and protective places. And, over time, each one finds its place and a unique way to bond with it. I find shelter in those similar to me, in that which represents me. And every time I begin to falter or consider giving up or hiding from the world, I seek refuge in the black values, in the black universe around me. Because for me, black is the combination of all colors and not the absence of them.
We should flourish where flowers don't grow, where black lives don't matter, where every feature of black people is dissipated, rejected, ridiculed, erased, killed.
And when I created the Curly Hair Pride March, a movement that values black aesthetics as a symbol of resistance and recovery of our identity and self-esteem, I wanted to propose a place where we could be seen, where we could look at each other beyond the virtual world, and where we could overcome the lack of representation in the media, in advertising and in positions of power. It is a place where it is possible to inspire one another. It is necessary to be born again every day: we should flourish where flowers don't grow, where black lives don't matter, where every feature of black people is dissipated, rejected, ridiculed, erased, killed.
I am overjoyed when these narrow spaces are created. Because these new places allow us to assign new meanings to the standards that we are supposed to follow, standards that were never questioned and that nobody dared to change. These narrow spaces allow the light to pass and light is knowledge.
A wise friend once told me: "Trees grow upwards, Neo. They grow against the force of gravity." They grow towards the light. Their branches grow in different directions as a survival strategy.
There is nothing for us to do but create strategies to survive on a daily basis. We are learning how to grow in different directions and to explore different possibilities. We are learning how to occupy spaces that were denied to us, to smile and to bite when necessary. And the aesthetic valorization is also present in this place, since it has to do not only with the colorful and stylish Afro look, but with the black young people that live in the outskirts and are considered suspicious by society and as a dangerous target by the police.
Our hair actually grows upwards and little by little we nurture and respect our roots -- literally. And I feel gratified and empowered every time a black woman, father, adolescent or child walks by and thanks me -- even if only through their looks -- for having rediscovered their curly hair pride and the wish to reconcile with themselves.
This post first appeared on HuffPost Brazil. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.