In middle school I was not always the most fashionable kid. It might have had something to do with me being a little dorky or my then recent change of environments: what was hot in Trinidad was not in the States. Of course it also had to do with the politics of blackness and that was something I had not have fully gauged at that age. My hair was natural for most of my middle and high school careers.
Once in 7th grade my sister twisted and cork-screwed my hair (cork screw=bantu knot), then we unraveled them so I’d have curls. I loved the way it came out and I dressed up a little to fit the hairstyle. When I got to science, one of the girls in the class told me, “Somebody said you look like Medusa.” All I did was say ok, but my confidence was lost; not shattered but definitely cracked.
