Cuss Me Out and Cut My Hair

A student journalist touring a devastated New Orleans observes what's wrong and right in "official" responses, and finds her own answer to the question, "What can I do?"

By Nikki G. Bannister, Special to Black College Wire and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine

Posted Oct. 10, 2005

I told them to cuss me out.

Not that I condone cursing or profanity, but since Hurricane Katrina reared her ugliness in Louisiana Aug. 29, that's how I helped the evacuees. I invited them to do what very few people have had the opportunity to do, right in my face.

About a week after Katrina, I visited shelters in three Louisiana parishes, or counties, with a delegation of about 50 people representing the office of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. The delegation, led by Johnny Anderson, her assistant chief of staff, included officials from the state department of health and the Board of Regents, and city and parish officials from the New Orleans area. Also joining the tour were a few pastors, and representatives of some of our state's elected officials.

When we walked into our first stop, Southern University's F.G. Clark Activity Center, which had been converted into a regional shelter for storm victims, many of us reached out and immediately started talking with the evacuees.

We began hugging them and shaking hands and even playing basketball with them. But then, some in the delegation walked in the aisles of the hundreds of army cots and only waved to the evacuees -- as if they were going to catch a disease. It's not as though we were in the scene in "Gone With the Wind" when Scarlett O'Hara went through the church where soldiers were dying, but that's how some of the delegation acted.

Some behaved as if they didn't want to touch the evacuees. Mind you, some of these very folks were from New Orleans. They just waved to the displaced residents at the Minidome as if to say, "I'm here and that's enough."

I was embarrassed and ashamed even to walk with some of these people.

I also got upset because some in the delegation were wearing jeans or other casual clothes, and tennis shoes or even flip-flops, while some -- including pastors -- were wearing Rolex watches and gator boots. Talk about a socioeconomic slap in the face.

That's when I decided to go against the norm and try the unconventional.

During our next stop at the Baton Rouge River Center, which housed the most evacuees, a young man named Will was complaining to Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., about the living conditions and his treatment.

After he vented, I asked him if he would mind "cussing me out."

He looked at me as if I were crazy. But I explained that I saw his frustration, and though TV cameras were on him, I saw he had a lot more he wanted to say.

Now, anybody who knows me can tell you that at any other time, my personality would not even allow this type of thing to happen so liberally. But this was different.

He asked if I were serious and I told him I was. I also warned him that I might retaliate verbally, because I, too, had a lot to get off my chest.

And that's when he unleashed a verbal fury like none other. Some of the adjectives he used to describe his situation I'd never heard in my life. His positions on FEMA, the Red Cross, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and President Bush could not have aired on C-SPAN. HBO would have censored him. The way he cursed should have been on pay-per-view. But after I received the tongue-lashing, which lasted a good three minutes, he smiled and then laughed so hard he cried.

Then I knew I had achieved my purpose.

During the lashing, a small crowd formed to see why this man was cursing a young woman so badly.

After I explained, more came up and relieved themselves of their frustration, pain and hopelessness.

The great thing was I didn't even have to curse anybody back.

Since the storm hit, I had been thinking of ways to help, apart from offering the conventional assistance. I had already gathered my closest friends, and we pooled our resources to donate diapers, feminine hygiene products and other items. We even opened our homes to some of the evacuees. I had just moved into my house a month earlier, and the evacuees were using my Jacuzzi before I could. But I didn't mind.

It was the day after Katrina hit that really got to me. I was volunteering in a shelter and saw a lady patting her head (you ladies know what the pat means -- an itchy scalp). She had on makeup, but her hair was a mess.

At the time, my hair was on my shoulders. So I asked her, and a few other ladies, if they had hair products. They said no. I told the woman that I would bring her some things the following day.

I don't know what got into me. Perhaps I was "PMS-ing" or listening to "We Are the World," but after I finished walking and talking with some of the other evacuees, I went to my hair salon and told my beautician to cut off my hair.

Remember in Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale when Bernadine asked Gloria to cut off her hair, because she wanted to declare her independence from her husband, who liked it long? Well, I didn't have to curse my stylist to do it, but I did have to do some heavy coercion.

The next day, at the shelter, I gave away all my curling irons (including the Marcels), my oil treatments, rollers, setting lotions, pomades, Wrap-N-Taps, everything. If it made your hair look good, I had it. And I gave it away.

One lady who took one of my big-barreled curling irons said she was going to whip my you-know-what, because she could guess that I had a nice length of hair before my cut. "But God is going to bless you," she said.

Not that I don't need blessings right now, because Lord knows I do. But I didn't cut my hair or give away my beauty supplies thinking about the return on the blessings.

I did it because you never know when the tides will turn.

I never could have predicted that the worst natural disaster would be in my backyard.

I could have been an evacuee if that storm had turned just a few degrees northwest.

Please believe me when I say evacuees don't need photo ops. They don't need community leaders rushing to help one or two families or making pit stops to shelters just to say hello.

They need you, the neighbors and friends.

Don't ask the evacuees how they are doing. That's rhetoric. You can see how they are doing. And it ain't grand.

Ask them if they want a hug. Ask them if you can still borrow some sugar. Ask them if they want to cry or even if they want a curling iron. Better yet, you can simply ask them to curse you out.

Nikki G. Bannister is a senior at Southern University-Baton Rouge and editor-in-chief of The Southern Digest.  This is part of a special series appearing in THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine's October 2005 super issue through a collaboration by Black College Wire (BlackCollegeWire.org) and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN (Blackcollegian.com), now celebrating its 35th publishing year. It may be reprinted intact with this credit included.