My Hat Obsession

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Image “Fool Map” is designated CC0 1.0 Public Domain.

Rule #1 - Don’t go out of your way to appear Afrocentric, i.e., wearing dreadlocks and African clothes, attending “pro-black” cultural events, etc.

My hat obsession began in 1995 after I’d been thoroughly indoctrinated with NOI teachings. I got rid of my greasy Jheri-curl look and shaved my head. It was incredibly liberating, especially in the summer when the temperature reached 90 degrees in August. However, once fall and winter arrived, I needed something to keep my bald scalp warm. But what to choose? I was never a hat person, not since grade school, so I usually wore behind-the-head earmuffs to avoid messing up my hair.

The first cover that caught my eye was a tweed Po-Boy or newsboy cap, popular during the 1920s and 30s and never really went out of style. I bought one from a hat seller on the street, but it didn’t quite compliment my facial features, and the brim always left a creased indentation across my forehead. My second choice was a fedora. All male laborers in the NOI wore them to compliment their suits and bow ties. It was a classy, dignified look. So I went to an older gentleman’s clothing store near my apartment in Queens and purchased a center-dent charcoal gray Trilby with a small red feather on the side. I wore it several times, but it looked ridiculous, fashion-wise when combined with a regular jacket and blue jeans. It ended up on a hook in the back of my closet.

What I wanted was something original. I found an African tailor working at Mart 125 in Harlem who created custom-made leather goods. I gave him my hat size and a few style suggestions. The result, several weeks later, was something that resembled a black leather piss cutter or garrison cap with a thin white stripe running along the side. And although he seemed to know his craft, the work wasn’t as professional as I’d hoped. The brother’s stitching technique was uneven in several places, with loose threads hanging out the back. I only wore the hat once after a friend said it reminded her of a “gay biker in bondage.” Ouch!

Strike three, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I ventured into one of those cluttered African stores in Harlem filled with racks of kente cloth, jewelry, wooden masks, brass elephants, and other trinkets. I tried on a black and brown Kufi mud cloth Bogolan hat and stood in front of the mirror for several minutes, trying different poses - left profile, right profile, pulled back, pulled down—anything to make my biracial features appear more ethnically African.

The final episode of my hat experience occurred at a black power rally for some disgraced and disbarred ex-attorney at a church in Harlem in the Spring of 1996. I crept in, wearing my Kufi hat and brown khaki pants, surrounded by a crowd of black power characters decked out head to toe in kinte and mud cloth. I was invisible for a moment before making my way to the balcony. Ten minutes into the program, a dark musclebound negro stuffed inside an ill-fitting military-style uniform said, “What you doing here?”

“Excuse me,” I replied.

“This rally is for Africans only.”

“I am from Africa,” I said. “North Africa.” (I had no idea then that part of my DNA was North African. I only said it to diffuse the situation because, in the past, Arab food vendors had asked me if I was from Egypt or Morocco.) He stood there perplexed, unsure how to comprehend or respond to what he’d heard, and finally walked away.

I walked away as well, forever, from situations and places where I didn’t belong or was not accepted.

If you’re a straight biracial man, I recommend you do the same.