"What happened?"
Serike took a long sip of her chocolate milk. Stroking Pocahontas's hair, she began to talk slowly. "Black people are a lot like Hershey's chocolate milk. You can never make the same color twice. Some people have more syrup, some have less syrup. But, no matter how much syrup you put in the cup, once the syrup is in there, you can't call it milk anymore. You have to call it chocolate milk. It just doesn't taste the same." She took another sip of milk.
Brianna looked at Serike in confusion. "Nice philosophy. But, the question of the hour is what does that have to do with your hair?"
Serike got up and went to the refrigerator. "There's not enough syrup in this milk. It tastes awful."
"Serike, will you please answer me?"
Serike began to pour syrup into the milk. Brianna watched as the milk changed from light brown to a deep, molasses colored liquid. "How much syrup does it take before it's pure syrup and not milk anymore?"
Serike walked back to the bed and sat down. "I went to class today."
"That's a first." A glare from Serike, a smirk from Brianna. "You haven't been in two days."
"As I was saying, I went to class today. There was a little discussion. About being black. I had told the class that I didn't consider myself African. I wasn't born in Africa, I didn't grow up in Africa, and I had no desire to go to Africa. I knew nothing about African culture. I was an American. I was proud to be an American," said Serike slowly. She began to stare into her milk glass.
"So what does that have to do with your hair?" asked Brianna, fingering the desecrated braids.
"I'm getting to that."
"Well, hurry up, will you? Montel comes on in 15 minutes."
Serike glared at her. "See, it's people like you that make me wonder why I even came to this university." Very deliberately, she began to unravel a thick braid, dropping the useless Kankelon hair on the Pocahontas bedspread.
"Serike, I'm sorry. I was just joking. Please, stop getting hair all over the bed."
"You see this, Brianna?" Serike held up a piece of synthetic hair, wavy from the braid it had been in. "This is for you." She dropped it on the bed. "And this?" She almost ripped another piece from her hair. "This is for the teacher of that class that didn't stop the discussion." A pile of hair began to cover Pocahontas's face.
"Serike, stop it!"
"This is for that idiot, Carlos, who started the whole thing!"
Serike pulled her hands away and stared at the pile of hair on the bed. "He was trying to imply that I wasn't black. He didn't say anything, but I could hear the ridicule in his voice. He made a fool of me in front of the whole class." Serike got up and began to pace the floor. "I told them that I was an American, they laughed at me. I told them that not all white people were evil, they thought I was some sort of idiot. I told them that we needed to stop expecting a handout from White America, and they got angry at me."
"Well, Serike, you are at a historically black university. That's to be expected."
"I don't care where I am. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I have to hate anyone, whites included." She continued to pull Kankelon out of her hair.
"No one said you had to hate anybody."
"Oh, yes I do. I have to hate everybody, my thoughts must be in line with the entire Black race. I can't have my own opinion. Something I do or say might make me a traitor to the race. I have to hate white people. They're the establishment, the enemy. The oppressors." Serike suddenly ran to the window. "You're oppressing me more than the white man ever could!" she screamed out onto the busy street below. "You and your stupid racial rules!"
"Serike, get away from there!" Brianna hauled Serike away from the window.
Serike stopped yelling. Leaving a confused Brianna standing in the middle of the floor, she slowly walked back to Brianna's bed and sat down. "You're just like the rest of them. You don't understand either."
"I can't understand unless you tell me what happened." Brianna tiredly. "Stop acting like a moron and tell me something."
Serike stared at the picture of Pocahontas on the bedspread. Long, straight black hair, black eyes, brown skin. Was Pocahontas black? Or was she something else? She couldn't remember. In confusion, Serike looked up into Brianna's hazel eyes. "I asked them, what makes you black? Is it the length of your braids, how low your pants hang off your butt, speaking broken English? Can I be down with the black folk if everyone is a "sista" or a "brutha"? Will I be black if I wear dreadlocks and dashikis? Do I have to bow to Allah instead of Jesus?" Her voice rose in frustration and anger. "Do I have to listen to reggae and R&B? Eat collard greens, cornbread, and fried chicken? Have a permanent Kool-Aid pitcher in my refrigerator? Is that what makes you black? They told me yes. They had the nerve to tell me that was what it was all about."
"Serike, you don't have to let them define you," said Brianna. She walked over to the bed and sat down beside an irate Serike.
"Well, what have I been doing? What have you been doing?" Brianna regarded Serike with embarrassed silence. "We're English majors. We have a vocabulary. But we don't use those words around our friends. They say we're talking white. I can't stand reggae music, but I never say anything because my friends make fun of me. I put these $115 braids in my hair," she said, beginning to tug viciously at the woven Kankelon strips, ". . . to make myself look like one of those chicks in the magazines. Even worse, I thought it would make me more black. I thought it was standing up against the white image of society that make me get a perm."
Serike stopped and stared at the pile of hair again. "On the way home, my braids seemed to get heavier and heavier. I got tired of holding up all this extra hair. I wanted back my old ponytail with my nice, permed hair." She got up and began to pace the floor, continuing her tirade. "I wanted to put on jeans that actually fit instead of being too tight or too baggy. I wanted to put in some Amy Grant, or some Phil Collins, and tell my friends to cut off the reggae. I wanted to drink some Perrier and eat anything besides fried chicken. I wanted to pick up something that wasn't written by Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan, or Toni Morrison, and read it, and see what someone else had to say. I've had the so called "black experience" shoved down my throat for so long, I don't know what it is to be black anymore!" She looked up at Brianna, who was looking on in dismay. "I just knew it wasn't these stupid braids!" Serike exclaimed, and began to pull yet more Kankelon out of her hair. Jet black strands of synthetic hair now covered the floor. "So I'm taking them out! I don't care how much it cost me. $115 isn't worth me hiding my soul."
"Are you saying your soul is white?" Brianna walked over to the bed and brushed the pile of hair onto the floor, freeing poor Pocahontas from her Kankelon covering.
"I'm saying my soul is me. And I'm black. I may not fit their stereotypes of black people, but I know what I am. And I don't need no fake Kankelon to define me." More hair drifted onto the floor.
Brianna padded through the pile of hair on the floor to the little CD player and put in a CD. The sounds of Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise" filled the little room.
"Would you like me to help you?" asked Brianna cautiously.
Serike looked up. Tears glistened in her deep brown eyes. "Sure. Just do one thing."
"What's that?"
"Get me a glass of chocolate milk. Mine has hair in it."
Brianna laughed. "Mine does, too." She fixed two glasses and brought one to a very thirsty Serike. Sitting down on the floor next to her, Brianna began to pull more Kankelon from Serike's hair. And as her long, dark brown hair began to emerge from the web of synthetic bondage, Serike finally felt free. And even more importantly, she felt black.
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