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 altering your hair to the point where it resembles the hair of other cultures,
b) having no idea how to take care of its natural texture, and
c) many believe that their natural texture, inappropriate, ugly, unmanageable and taboo, is not an issue that deserves attention. How is it just “just hair” when the aforementioned things are TRUE? What is it like just hair when MOST African women are spending billions of dollars trying to keep their natural texture hidden? How is that not an area that needs attention?

Hair is just hair. No it isn’t when we as a race are teaching our children to dislike their own texture and burning the scalps of two year olds for a more manageable look. It’s not just hair when most of our women don’t even know how to manage their natural texture.

It’s not just hair when our men have been so brainwashed that they also prefer a texture that in no way resembles their own. 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 his woman to have hair that she needs to buy or chemically alter. His natural hair is seen as unattractive to him. That’s crazy.

This hair thing is a big problem. If we could all learn to accept our natural texture and believe it to be beautiful, imagine how good that could come of that. Perhaps fewer of us would be overweight. Perhaps fewer of us would be clinically depressed and in need of 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 about them? If they have to change themselves to be considered attractive, what else needs to change? Why am I not beautiful the way I am? Why is it that all other cultures are beautiful when they are born but I have to pay weekly to have a professional transform me into something beautiful?

Why? And why are we content to sweep this issue under the rug and carry on 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 an entire race of women prefer another texture of hair to their own and think this other texture is “easier to manage” than theirs and are willing to pay thousands of dollars each year to keep the natural texture out of sight ( to the tune of billions of dollars collectively) and these same women who spend so much time, money and energy hiding out and changing their hair are in the race where business ownership is the lowest of all others in the county and the homeownership is the lowest, but diabetes, heart disease and obesity are the highest and you think this issue is still trivial, I think you have to re-evaluate something.

I think this little hair issue can really be a turning point for our people. I think if we all accepted our hair and agreed that it was beautiful, we would start to see a change in the collective confidence and self-esteem of our people. If you are a natural and have learned to accept your natural texture and not hide it under weaves, braids and flat irons most of the time, but are really rocking and learning to love your natural texture, then you can vouch for the personal. changes that have taken place in your life and you know how much safer you are. You know what it was like to look at yourself with your own hair and see beauty for the first time. You know how liberating that was. Imagine that multiplied by a million!

Imagine what would happen if every woman you know felt the same way you do about natural hair. Imagine what your conversations would start from. Imagine what thoughts would start circulating through our communities. Imagine what would happen if mothers were teaching their daughters that they are beautiful just the way they are and little girls saw all the women in their families with hair just like them and it was the norm. Imagine what would begin to happen to our people.