SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

Natural

I made a decision to go natural about 5 months ago.

What is “going natural”?

It’s an absurd notion if you really think about it. A NUMBER of black women of today can not live without their every-six- week perm or their weave sewed in, glued in, or stapled in. I feel I can talk strongly about these women because I was one of them. Now it’s coming to light that those perms cause severe issues. Consequently, we have a growing number of black women finally deciding to STOP with the harsh chemicals (and harsh isn’t even a strong enough word for the degree of destruction those relaxer chemicals cause) and let their hair grow *GASP* exactly how it does without any alterations.

I remember when I was about 17 or so. I was experiencing some severe flaking of the scalp for no apparent reason. I was born with a healthy scalp, never had an issue. In fact, it was my sister that had a scalp problem that was miraculously cured by this outstanding doctor before she reached middle school. I figured a doctor could do the same for me. Boy was I sorely disappointed. This man was talking some crazy bonkers bullish. He told me I had to stop getting perms if I wanted to see a regression in my scalp condition. WHAT? Was this man RACIST? Did he know NOTHING of black women? WE get perms! If I don’t get a perm, I am a laughing stalk to all racists.I can’t DO my unpermed hair… for all I know, my hair will eat me ALIVE if I don’t perm it.

I remember I when I was in the Air force… I was one of the two black women, and people in the entire building, in my language learning class. The other black woman was this gorgeous 30 some Lieutenant that always had her shit together. I was a lowly E-2 airman so I never really sought to compare myself with this bombshell. One of her friends had came into to talk to her, this burly white male marine. We happened to be talking hair and I don’t know how his bold ass got into our conversation but he looked me right in the face and said I needed a perm, that my hair looked nappy in the back…. O my. I wish I was there for that Amber today. I’d have some choice words for ole boy. He ended up apologizing to me the next day because that’s how far my face fell at his flattering comments.

I remember when I was in 4th grade. I sat next to this Asian girl in class. She was an average looking Asian girl… meaning she was cute as hell without hardly any effort on her part. I remember becoming obsessed with her hair. “How do you get your hair like that? So silky?” She said, “I just wash it everyday and brush it” Tell me why my lame butt goes home and sits in the bathroom for near 2 hours washing my hair and hoping the kinkiness and roughness just runs down the tub drain leaving me with silky free Asian hair? Next day I tell her ” I did exactly what you said, and my hair never got that silky” She curls her lip at me… “I don’t think you can get your hair like mine. Its completely different” What she meant to say is… didn’t any one ever tell you, you were black, you idiot? You can imagine how the rest of that year was for me. Not one of my most shining star years.

I tell these stories just to illustrate how diluted we are when raising our black girls of today. We do NOT have hair like Asian girls, white girls, or Hispanics. Our hair is kinky and curly… we need to accept it and love it and move on already. People like Beyonce are doing a really fucked up job helping the delusion of our black women. Do you know we spend 100s and 1000s of dollars a year in upkeep for our hair? And no, this is not the figures for women that are high maintenance and are trying to keep a playboy bunny look in the Florida Keys. This is regular hard working, single mothers, scraping up EVERY last dollar they can to buy that next weave or touch up that last perm. Its ridiculous. Its a lie. Its  a LIE!! We need to really stop with the drama and come to terms with loving the hair that grows directly out of our scalps. Its not the WHITE people that hate our Afros, its US. We need to let the drama go and MAKE people deal with the REAL us.

Not only is it a fake identity that we are trying to keep up with, we are also damaging our scalp, hair, and bodies for life. There are “permanent” risks and damage involved with perming hair. Yes, some women get along great with their long, flowing straight hair dangling past their shoulders, but why haven’t we REALIZED that is in the far and few category?? Every black girl I see has the same bob brushing to their shoulders. Thinning, short hair. And we call SHOULDER length hair LONG hair. Ya know, screw that noise. That’s another lie. We can have long healthy, strong hair, if we just quit destroying our hair the minute it peeks out from the scalp. I mean, its just a disgusting, painful, and horrible process… we need to end that madness now. Do you know that black people don’t even own or have any part in all this craze that we eat up at asian stories and the “ethnic” section at Walmart? Why won’t anyone sell products that actually benefit BLACK natural hair? Because that would put a hell of a lot of people straight out of business.

I know this argument is as good as a vegan tryna convert Cowboy Dan from Long Cow’s steakhouse… but this is one thing I really think would benefit our culture as a whole. I think it could be one of the last factors to really learning to love the fact that we are black… and not that is not a disadvantage to be black nor is it second class to other races. We are not all the same -no. We all have AWESOME differences that we should embrace. I think our hair is one thing that would really help our mentality.

Ugly?? You tell me..