hair policy

It really irritates me when people try to downplay the importance of hair in the African community. It is something that needs to be addressed. I don’t understand how a whole race of women

a) chemically alter your hair to the point where it resembles hair from other cultures,

b) having no idea how to care for their natural texture, and

c) many believe that its natural texture is inappropriate, ugly, unmanageable and taboo, it is not an issue that deserves attention. How is it just “just hair” when the above mentioned things are TRUE? How is it just hair when MOST African women spend billions of dollars trying to keep their natural texture hidden? How come this is not an area that needs attention?

Hair is just hair. No, it’s not when we as a race are teaching our kids not to like their own texture and burning two-year-olds’ scalps for a straighter, more manageable look. It is not just hair when most of our women don’t even know how to handle its natural texture.

It’s not just hair that our men have been so brainwashed with that they also prefer a texture that is nothing like theirs. It’s crazy when a black man has a negative word to say about a black woman who decides to wear her natural hair. That’s absurd. He has the same hair that grows on his scalp, but he prefers that his wife have hair that he needs to buy or chemically alter. His natural hair seems unappealing to him. That’s crazy.

This hair thing is a big problem. If we could all learn to accept our natural texture and believe that it is beautiful, imagine how good that could come of it. Perhaps fewer of us would be overweight. Perhaps fewer of us would be clinically depressed and need medication.

Have you ever stopped to think about the serious mental impact that knowing that their natural characteristics are inferior to those of other cultures has on a child? If what they are born with is inferior, what else is inferior in them? If they have to change themselves to be considered attractive, what else needs to change? Leave room to wonder what is good about me? Why am I not beautiful as I am? Why are all other cultures beautiful when they are born but I have to pay weekly for a professional to transform me into something beautiful?

Why? And why are we content to sweep this issue under the rug and continue as if what the vast majority of our women are doing is normal?

I don’t care what anyone has to say about it. If a whole race of women prefer another hair texture to their own and think that this other texture is “easier to handle” than theirs and they are willing to pay thousands of dollars each year to keep the natural texture out of sight. (to the tune of billions of dollars altogether) and these same women who spend so much time, money and energy hiding and changing their hair, are in the race where business ownership is the lowest of all others in the world. county and homeownership is the lowest, but diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are the highest and you think this problem is still trivial, I think you have to re-evaluate it.

I think this little hair problem can really be a turning point for our people. I think if we all accept our hair and all agree that it is beautiful, we would start to see a change in the collective confidence and self-esteem of our people. If you are a natural who has learned to embrace your natural texture and don’t hide it under weaves, braids, and flat irons most of the time, but are really rocking out and learning to love your natural texture, then you can attest to that. personal. changes that have taken place in your life and you know how much more confident you are. You know what it was like to see yourself with your own hair and see beauty for the first time. You know how liberating it was. Imagine that multiplied by a million!

Imagine what would happen if all the women you know felt the same as you about natural hair. Imagine what their conversations would be about. Imagine what thoughts would begin to circulate through our communities. Imagine what would happen if mothers taught their daughters that they are beautiful just the way they are and girls saw all the women in their families with hair like them and that was the norm. Imagine what would start to happen to our people.

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