Question

1 my mother tells me to fix my hair. and by fix, she means straighten. she means whiten. but how do you fix this ship - wrecked history of hair? the true meaning of stranded, when tresses held tight like african cousins in ship bellies, did they imagine that their great - grand - children would look like us, and would hate them how we do? trying to find ways to erase them out of our skin, iron them out of our hair. this wild tangle of hair that strangles all. 2 you call them wild curls. i call them breathing. ancestors spiraling. cant you see them in this wet hair that waves like hello? 3 they say dominicans can do the best hair. i mean they wash, set, flatten the spring in any loc - but what they mean is were the best at swallowing amnesia, in a cup of morfsohando, die dreaming because wed rather do that than live in this reality, caught between orange juice and milk, between reflections of the sun and whiteness. what they mean is, why would you date a black man? what they mean is, a prieto cocolo what they mean is, why would two oppressed people come together? its two times the trouble. what they really mean is, have you thought of your daughters hair? 4 and i dont tell them that we love like sugar cane, brown skin, pale flesh, meshed in pure sweetness. the children of children of fields. our bodies curve into one another like an echo, and i let my curtain of curls blanket us from the world, how our children will be beautiful. of dust skin, and diamond eyes. hair, a reclamation. how i will break pride down their back so from the moment they leave the womb they will be born in love with themselves. 5 momma that tells me to fix my hair, and so many words remain unspoken. because all i can reply is, you cant fix what was never broken. 2. explain & analyze the word choice used in the poem to identify who the pronouns you and they refer to and their attitude towards the speakers hair.

Explanation:

In the poem, "you" likely refers to those who have a different view of the speaker's hair (maybe those who don't appreciate its natural form as the speaker does). "They" could refer to a general group (perhaps a societal group) that has certain expectations or negative attitudes towards the speaker's hair. Words like "fix" (in the sense of straightening, erasing cultural heritage) used by "they" or those related to "they" show a desire to conform the hair to a certain (likely Euro - centric) standard. The speaker's contrastive use of words like "breathing", "Ancestors spiraling" for the hair shows a positive, heritage - affirming attitude, while "they" seem to have a negative, erasing attitude.

Answer:

"you" likely refers to those with a different (non - heritage - affirming) view of the hair; "they" refers to a general group (societal) with negative, conformist attitudes towards the speaker's hair.