For the past few months I have been tucked away in a quiet little town in the Shenandoah Valley. How did I get here? Well, I have been awarded a nine-month fellowship at a flagship university. Yes, little ole me was asked to partake in a fellowship that would have awarded me much coveted teaching experience AND dissertation writing time. See, I was already a history professor, but it was like I was being called off the bench to bring it on home, in an academic sense. I had arrived!!! Did I mention the university is a PWI?? Why is this significant? Well because I am a product of HBCUs, and when I started teaching at the collegiate level, I was lecturing to black faces. Add that to the fact that I had spent my whole life in urban spaces, where again, black folks were everywhere. While I was aware of the change, it was not something that was on my radar. I just excited about teaching at a four year school.
But I had a problem. The climate of the valley is weird. It is constantly cloudy and dense. It rains ALL the time and the air always feels moist. For all my sistas of color, you know my issue without me even saying. But for those who still don’t get it…allow me to just say it. My hair is NOT here for these conditions!!!!! On my first day of work, I decided to walk to campus from my cozy (and paid for…YASS!!!) 
apartment. I was so excited about my first day. I walked into the building and caught my reflection in the hallway widow. Something seemed off. I ran into the bathroom and started in horror at the mop on my head. My big curls had become a damp frizzy mess. A hot ass mess that I could not save. I walked into class on my first day completely off my game. Because of my hair.
As a scholar I can contextualize seemingly mundane things …after all, that is what I do for a living. As I looked around I became extremely self-conscious. I also became hyper aware. As a black woman, my hair is more than my hair. It is my crown. It is my identity. I find myself in the elasticity of my natural curl pattern. It is one thing to deal with your hair inside of your own cultural space, but it is a completely different feeling to rationalize it outside of your cultural space. As I told my best friend last night, a black woman’s hair is her politics!! Had this been been my old job, I would have been met with sympathetic looks. That “yes I know your struggle,” look. It is almost the same thing as the “nod” that black men give to each other in passing. {SN: if you have not seen the “nod” episode of “Blackish”…you should be ashamed.} But I found no sympathy. Through my hair I realized I was completely out of my element. I was a black woman in a room of white faces and no one understood how I felt. Man listen…for the first time ever, I am hypersensitive to my race, the attached culture, and its place in the academy.
After class, I walked to my apartment and immediately restored my hair. Naturals know that in such a state you got to “co-wash, coconut oil, bantu knot and satin scarf” your hair back to life. The next morning, I released and fluffed my curls, beat my face to the gawds and headed out, ready to have a better hair day than the day before. WRONG!!!!!! I left work feeling defeated. While walking home, I took notice of all the white girls who could walk around unaffected and unfazed by the effects the climate has on their hair. I looked at them as this species that evolved to handle the evil climate monster that was holding me captive!! The valley was super unkind to my tresses. I had to do something. The next 
morning, I made the executive decision to walk to work WITH my satin bonnet on my head WITH my twists still in place. Yes I did. The first time I did it, I received some looks. But I did not care. I found a way to beat the evil climate monster and all it required was a $1.99 satin bonnet I got from Beauty4U on Branch Avenue. Something that was once so insignificant to the point where I would either forgo using them some nights or misplace them frequently was now central to my life. I walked into class now with my crown full and fluffy for the world to see. From blowouts and pin curls; to twist outs and rod sets; you name it I walked in with it. My hair popped severely.
That night I told my friend what I did and she said “I know you ain’t stroll across campus with a hair bonnet.” Yes I did. Before you roll your eyes and say I was setting black folks back three hundred years, I am aware of the criticism. Yes it’s a faux pas. Yes it makes me look unfinished and unpolished. Yes it can come across as ghetto. Yes, I know the public is NOT supposed to see my bonnet. But I truly give zero cares. I don’t see a satin bonnet as anything but a protector of my identity. The instrument God gave me to protect what He blessed me with. It keeps my frizz at a minimum while I stand in front of
100+ students lecturing about the black diasporic experience. Cut me some slack. Those who know me know that I am a rachet intellectual. I do not hide who I am and what it takes for me to be who I am. {I am listening to Fetty Wap right now} I find such value in satin bonnets, that I will defend their use to anyone who shames them or black women for using them. Black men hate them and white women really don’t need them. AND?? The satin bonnet is a legitimate part of the black women’s experience. It is everything from the “you aint getting none” signifier to the supreme protector of our edges. It is what keeps us fly. And as long as I am in the “valley” as the locals call it, I will continue to wear my bonnet to work.
P.S. This blog is dedicated to my best friend Ashley, whose love for me and all things Brie can only be described as “Lebron in the 4th….sometimes!
The Misadventures of a Black Woman Scholar 