Be Proud of African Hair

Don't get me wrong, I love my hair...but the day I can comb it without relaxing (which I don't relax) is the day I can surely say I'm proud.

Edited by Hair Goddess - June 28 2008 at 2:09pm

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Well I made the choice to start my natural hair journey. It isnt exactly the poof length that I want it to be, so im keeping upw with my weaves and braids until then.

Taggi, 

lyrical27 wrote: you know i think we are just losing touch with reality because so many of our idols have the most beautiful hair. yet what we forget is that they have their own personally stylist with them almost 24-7, and we dont. lol.   so, as a result we dream of having beautiful hair like them and envy them while learning to either love what we got or make it suit us so that we feel in some way "like" them; however rarely see them with a bad hair day.

Good&Thick & ccmuffingirl   I feel where the both of you ladies are coming from!

You know its so unfortunate but this is just another "self-hate" issue that our community deals with.   I too do not use words like "nappy" or good or bad when speaking of our hair.  I was taught this early.  I was also taught not to refer to locs as dreads because there is nothing "dreadful" about them.   You know it's just amazing how we continue to perpetuate these negative stigmas in our society and communities.  Even the well educated and most pro-black people I've come across tend to deal with these self hate issues with black hair often.   It's like this, on the case of weave:

Your ancestors EXTENDED their hair PRIOR to the transatlantic slave trade  (ie Egyptians extended their hair with yarn).  The basic notion of Hair extensions are NOT new NOR are they really this idea of necessarily wanting to have a euro look or hating your own hair.   It's amazing to me how a woman can wear braids and still love her self but tracks can mean (TO SOME) that she doesn't love her own hair.   People can extend their locs and no one will assume that they don't love their own natural hair.   Also, we know that their was a time when white men were wool wigs.  So were they all white self hating black wanna bee's b/c their wigs were textured??  Also, weaves/wigs are just not tailored to the AA community.   Women are wearing weaves and extensions all across the board (racial lines) period.

On the case of relaxers and heat...  people of African decent had long used heavy pomade type products to attempt with "taming" their hair before this ideal of self-hate.   However, now to some the mere idea of taming your hair has such a negative stigma with us.  When taming your hair isn't necessarily negative it's just the connotation thats placed with it.  If you think about it just putting your hair into a ponytail.  Two strand twisting it, braiding it, or whatever is some method of "taming or controlling it."  Furthermore, do you think that if the transatlantic slave trade didn't exist that a prominent intelligent business savvy Black woman like Madme CJ walker wouldn't have existed still?  Hot irons, straightening combs, etc would have still existed however it wouldn't have been seen as negative (to some) to use them.

Hair color...  well I don't have to tell you all that our ancestors colored their hair with natural products right?  So what's the big deal.  I do agree that if not taken care of properly the chemicals can ruin your hair if you aren't going to take care of it then you shouldn't put it in.

On the other hand there are those that truly see something wrong with natural African hair and this is why it is important for us to discontinue the usage of "nappy" and "good" or "bad" hair.   It's sad that Spike lee made that School Daze movie like in the 80's.  Remember the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfEmTHeYNw) ... talking about good or bad hair......     practically two decades later we are still dealing with whether we have "good" or "bad" hair.  It's really ridiculous.   Especially when you see other cultures embracing what we are able to naturally do with our hair. Such as loc it so easily.  There are so many ppl on this very board who like locs and are not of African decent but theirs doesn't loc like ours so they use synthetic locs.   While we are still around hating the BEAUTY that we have and that is CHOICES.  We can do it all.   It's really sad, sometimes when I'm reflecting on issues such as this it literally sickens me.

Anyway, it isn't weaves, relaxers, extensions, etc..  that are necessarily negative it goes back to the same thing.  It's the mentality.   We need more self love. << Every problem we tend to have traces back to this.

I have been relaxed, colored, short, long, locked, braided, kinky twist, weaved up, and now im natural (and weaved up off and on) and I WOULD do all of the above over again depending on what the heck im in the mood for.    So I too am so sick of hearing the oohhh  you have "good" hair.    You have the hair that GOD gave you and everything HE does is GOOD!

Also, personally I don't remember when nappy was used in a positive way??  Furthermore, when you understand the origin of the word why would you want to use it?  I just don't get that... 

It's a hard thing to explain if you want refer to your hair as curly or coily. These are just mere classification of our hair type and yes nappy was once popular. If you have a problem with the classification than come up with something different and make it popular, the sad truth is that nappy is already popular and it's use is both a negative and positive.

well yes you do have a point but we should start now and make a decision what is beauty.....how do we classify beauty.....Beauty don't have to be our idols with all the tracks...and weave and stylist..... that fits in the normal society being like everyone else.....straight hair instuff...... but instead African hair.... differenet but beautiful because of the fact being different.....it's time to wake-up and realize that our hair has always been beautiful and no matter what we put in our hair...like perms/relaxers/etc. our hair will always be different from everyone else.... and always be beautiful.....

Just because I relax my hair, it doesn't mean that I'm not proud of who I am.