Every now and then, I have students who are uncomfortable around me, like they are scared. During a teacher-student conference I have to ask them to pull their chair up to my desk a little closer.

"I don't bite," I tell them. "I'm not a cannibal, though I've been accused of being one."

Wait, wait, and let me explain: I imagine that African American women's infamous dislike of our kinky, tightly coiled hair goes back to the days of the African slave trade. Most black women at some period in our lives have either chemically processed our hair, added extensions to it, or burned our ears while applying massive amounts of heat to straightened it—anything to make our hair easier to manage and to stop looking "nappy." Chris Rock tried to capture some of our hair issues in the documentary Good Hair.

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