Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

birthright of the Anglo-Saxon…
    White people wanted to be white just as much as we did. They worked just as hard at it. They failed just as often. They failed more often. But they could pass, so no one objected.

Denise and Margo wear matching woolen coats with Persian lamb collars. They tuck their hands into Persian lamb muffs. They are in a state of self-enchantment. They rarely wear matching clothes, but these ones make a statement. Denise and Margo are a matching set and a set piece. Their clothes are the rewards of immaculate girlhood: dresses of taffeta and velvet with lace collars, petticoats, ankle straps, pocketbooks and initialed handkerchiefs, seasonal gloves of cotton and kid, matching coats and muffs. Straw hats and headbands with flowers. Not a single flower, corsage style, but an oval row, like a bower.
    The bower of girlhood. We don’t talk or laugh loudly in public. We don’t slouch. Our speech is crisp and unaccented. When our aunt Ruby, a primary-school teacher, visits from California, she has me put a penny in a bank each time I say “gee.” I enjoy it. I enjoy being irreproachable.
    Beauty standards for girls are stringent in 1950s Negroland. Negro girls must be vigilant about their perceived deficiencies. Be ruthless. Catalogue and compensate.
    •  Flat feet instead of high arches.
    •  Obtrusive behinds that refuse to slip quietly into sheath dresses, subside, and stay put.
    •  “Ashy skin.” White sediment on the surface of brown skin that has gone unoiled for too long. Knees and elbows must be attended to. “Elbow grease” is not a metaphor.
    SKIN COLOR
    Ivory, cream, beige, wheat, tan, moccasin, fawn, café au lait, and the paler shades of honey, amber, and bronze are best. Sienna, chocolate, saddle brown, umber (burnt or raw), and mahogany work best with decent-to-good hair and even-to-keen features. In these cases, the woman’s wardrobe must feature subdued tones. Bright colors suggest that she is flaunting herself. Generally, for women, the dark skin shades like walnut, chocolate brown, black, and black with blue undertones are off-limits. Dark skin often suggests aggressive, indiscriminate sexual readiness. At the very least it calls instant attention to your race and can incite demeaning associations.
    GRADES OF HAIR
    1. Dead straight hair can be grown into thick, lustrous braids that stretch to the middle of the back, even to the waist.
    2. Glossy hair with waves and curls: this evokes allusions to Moorish Spain and Mexico.
    3. Tighter waves with a less shiny texture: this hair can be brushed almost straight but must be maintained with light hair cream. Humidity can make it rough in the back (the kitchen) and frizzy around the face. Apply quick light strokes with a hot comb.
    4. Nappy hair, stage 1. Requires heavy hair cream daily and regular hot comb use. Usually does not grow past the shoulders.
    5. Nappy hair, stage 2. Requires heavier and heavier applications of hair cream and constant hot comb use. Usually does not grow beyond the middle of the neck.
    NOSES
    The ones nobody wants are broad and flat with wide nostrils. Wide nostrils are never good, but a narrow tapering nose that ends in flared nostrils is acceptable, even alluring. An aquiline or hooked nose suggests American Indian ancestry. It can also be called Roman. Small, pert, upturned noses are invariably welcome.
    THE JEFFERSON GIRLS
    Do not have flat behinds, but theirs are cleanly shaped and not unduly full.
    Neither Jefferson girl has one of the top three grades of hair.
    Their mother works the hot comb and the curling iron through it. She oils it daily; besieged by rain or intense humidity, Negro hair reverts to bushy, nappy, or kinky textures. “Bushy” is the word used most; “nappy” and “kinky” are harsher, coarser words. Denise’s hair is worse than Margo’s by a few grades. On the other hand, when Margo was very young, she was silly enough to believe her hair would turn blonde when her mother