What empire taught me to hate

“Who taught you how to hate the texture of your hair?”  

I first encountered this line in 2018 while researching for a paper in seminary. It comes from a speech by Malcolm X in which he interrogates the internalized hatred of Black beauty that grows out of white supremacy. His words expose the deep psychological violence that systemic racism inflicts on Black Americans.

As a person with nappy-textured curly hair who was deeply immersed in Black studies at the time, I felt his words in my bones. I do not share the lived experience of Blackness, nor the violence and risk Black bodies endure, but his question still named something true about how empire forms all of us. 

I hated my hair.

I hated how it was read as messy. How it was never quite beautiful when compared to the silky hair of the girls I grew up around. How it needed to be fixed, tamed, smoothed, muted.

In 2016, after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, I had what felt like a conversion experience as my eyes were opened to the violence of white supremacy. I repented. I began attending Black Student Union meetings and learning from my fellow students. I was awakened to how much I did not know and how much work I had to do. 

That year marked the beginning of a long unraveling and a journey toward decolonizing. Slowly I started to see the ways that white supremacy seeped into the fabric of every part of my life. Politics and history were obvious places to see its influence, but I began to realize that it goes much deeper than that. It’s my body. My gut reactions. What I discern is acceptable and normal. 

And yes, it’s my hair. 

So when I came across Malcolm X’s words, I knew the answer to his question.

White supremacy taught me how to hate the texture of my hair. It taught me how to distrust anything unruly, anything that did not conform to the center of power. Anything that resisted the script of empire.

Now what’s pretty amazing (if you ask me) is that after years of decolonizing I love my wildy curls! And as I’ve experienced deeper liberation, I see beauty in more places and people. 

This is our invitation from Malcolm’s question: To disrupt white supremacy, to see, to heal, to experience deeper liberation and belonging. 

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At Harbor during this Lenten season we are going to be talking a lot about empire. We will look at it at both a large-scale level (e.g. the Roman Empire, the US government) and also we will look at the subtle smaller-scale functions of empire (e.g. beauty standards, cultural norms). 

For those of us who live under empire, it seeks to shape our entire way of being. Our way of belonging. Our self-worth. Our theology. 

Lent invites us to interrupt that formation.

Lent does not have to be about what we give up—sometimes it can be about what we are willing to see. This Lenten season we are opening our eyes to see how empire has shaped our theology, our bodies, and our sense of belonging. 

This Lent, may we have the courage to notice what empire taught us to hate. And may that noticing become the beginning of healing and liberation.