Musing on Body: Natural Vs. Relaxed Hair-Ashamed of your 'roots'

I wrote this post up last year and hisitated posting it. Today i have changed my mind about sharing.

This concept has bothered me for some time, this trend of women thinking that because they have natural hair that some how makes them more black and more proud of their heritage than other women of negro decent. Of course i know that this is not the concensous, i'm just voicing a view thoughts from consistant examples i've come across.

Wby?

So many people seem to be of the opinon that if you straighten or put product in your hair it is because you are ashamed of its texture and therefore ashamed of your 'roots' pun intended.

You must be trying to look like a white woman, you must believe that black beauty is the look of a slave, something you want to separate yourself from. You want to pretend that you are not black, that you are 'one of them' You know, them, with the straight hair and the light skin. You want to acquaint yourself with their majority, you are lending to 'the white man's authority over the black man'

I can't help but stare at people who have this opinion, shocked and awed at humanities ability to judge ANYTHING about their fellow man under the guise of justice and equality. I know that many of my readers are not of 'African American' decent. It's not my intention to offend. It just amazes me how people can yell and holler for equality and freedom of expression as long as it looks like they do.

Should we then revert to wearing bits of cloth about our privates? This is NOT to say that wearing your hair natural is prehistoric, calm down. What i am saying is that this is how i see it:

No of course not, to wear cloth instead of clothes would be ridiculously impractical. Impractical like wanting to keep hair in a way that is often prone to tangles and pain and copious amounts of time spent fixing it in the morning and at night? Which, might i take the time to point out, no race wants to do. That is the primary reason i do not have my hair the way most natural gals do, i just can't handle it! Hey and believe me, i REALLY admire those who can, i love many natural hair styles, they looks beautiful! I've recently been experimenting withsem myself. But...how come they're not considered ashamed of the texture of their hair when they curl or use sytetic braids or the like? Why is it considered just style then but not when i do it?

And hey, some might ask those of us who delve into the wearing of weaves and wings and the sort, why the extensions? I mean that's not real hair, everybody knows!

Yeah and your nails aren't really aqua coloured, and your toes aren't really orange coloured and we KNOW you're not really that tall so why you wearing them heels though? Your eye lashes aren't that long, your boobs aren't that big or perky, your waist isn't that small, your eyelids sure as hell are not naturally smoky and your lips aren't naturally gradient red.

You aint fooling nobody either so why do you do it?

Is it fun? Is it nice to experiment and change things you feel like you have some control over in a world where the plot seems more experience based than character based? Is it interesting to see what happens when you dye your natural tips of your natural locks blonde? when you dye your afro red? You like playing with colours and forming your opinion of things? Does it make you feel like an individual deciding what you should look like everyday? Independent of having to ask and sometimes beg someone to twist up and plat up and braid up your hair as a favor?

Or are you doing it because in reality all you want is to look like someone else, to be someone else, to slip into an ethnicity unnoticed and act like you've been there all along because you hate yourself amd what you are. Cause you want to decide what you want to be from here onward, which is someone else, not you but someone you have pin pointed as a goal of attaining a likeness to. If this is your case then i suggest you see a psychiatrist. If however your reason is one more akin to the paragraph that preseded this one. I'm thinking you will be okay.

I know i have wore my hair in so many ways! I've braided it, put in extensions, had an awesome afro (that is not practical when you're a teacher and a visually impaired person who often has to sit in front seats in classes and theaters sigh) tried the cutest short wig (i could never cut my poor awesome hair plus my doctor near killed me for exposing my neck and face to the sun like thatwhoo albinism :( ) and recently tried flat ironing it, my hair! I've never put in straightening product simply because i don't like the idea of my hair being permanently one way ever. (same reason i will never get a tatoo) i love experimenting with it!

It's mine and i have a right to choose to do with it as i please just like i have a right to choose to paint my nails or wear make up because this is MY blank canvas! I get to do what i want with it and you know what? so do you! I may not like your colour or size or height or length choices but gratefuly? i don't have to where em! So-i-don't-have-to-like-them! And vise versa!

So, if you are an individual so firm in her worth that you know that no hairstyle, permed or relaxed is going to change the magnitude of the importance of who you are. If you know that beauty is not defined by choice of hairstyle but by choices of character and you choose to be comfortable in weave, braids, Mohawk, curls or afro because no change can change a negative history already written or a possitive influence yet to be orcestrated and you are, quiet frankly, rather fine of that?

Then go on girl, 'whip it good!' I am, i'm going to use my body to express myself in a way that doesn't make hurt others and makes me happy, i will change my hair to a different look everyday if i want to, i will wear peers with combat boots if i feel like because for me? Natural is my heart not my hairstyle!

Let no one tell you that you are of less value because of the appearance choices you've made, no matter what side of the colour gradient you or they are on.

Peace. Love. Choice