Food for thought (WARNING THIS IS A LONG ONE): I have often heard that if you plan to adopt a child from another culture than your own you should do all you can to understand their culture to help the child understand where he or she comes from, which I can agree with. For example, in the African American community (regardless if we want to admit it or not) our hair (hair styling, hair care) is important. Now, I am not an idiot, I can’t speak for the entire black race, but in my experience this has been a significant part of our culture. Think about it, when a new person moves to a new place, one of the first things (male and female) they want to know is, for women – where can I get my hair done and for men – where can I get my hair cut. I am not someone who would ever try to impress upon other African American women to become naturals – yes, I am a natural myself, but being confident enough and brave enough to wear your hair the way it “grows up out of your head” is a continual process (even after the “big chops” and other strategies to fully transition to natural hair). Truly returning to natural is not a fad, fashion statement or temporary thing like other fads were (i.e. jerry curl, mushroom cut, Alisha Keys braids, etc.). Truly returning to natural means embracing your hair, changing your mindset about this non-existent “good hair and bad hair” mess and becoming increasingly confident that there is NOTHING wrong with the hair that God gave you. So I said all that to say… it saddens me to see white women embrace African American natural curly coils more than my own African American community. Months ago, when researching hairstyles to try on my daughters head, I came across this chocolatehairvanillacare This white woman adopted a black child (sorry for the white and black… but for lack of a better term) and wanted to learn how to manage and care for her baby’s hair. Part of me was like – ‘Thank you white woman. Instead of forcing this child to adopt a hair care routine outside of her own culture, you’ve embraced that her hair is different than your own and embraced your responsibility as a parent and LEARNED how to care for her hair.’ There was also this side of me that was a little jealous, because seriously, this lady has skills. She can do some hair… lol. and then there was the part of me that felt ashamed that someone else outside of the African American community has taken it upon themselves to understand OUR hair! DANG! It saddens me that when we finally decide that there is nothing wrong with our hair, we have to LEARN how to take care of our own hair because for so long we have learned how to avoid our natural hair for whatever reason (it is too hard, too much work, it is nappy, I don’t look right natural… etc) by pressing our hair and relaxing our hair. .. to the extent that black hair resources are targeted mostly to black women who are NOT natural. And if you live in a rural state like Iowa, well… you might as well get ready to have even more limited hair care products on the shelves of beauty supply stores, and even more limited natural hairstylists (I can only think of one – Shout out to Monesha Dickens) if you are natural. My point is this… wear your hair however you want, just take a moment and ask yourself, why am I doing this? If you are natural, ask yourself, am I doing this because I am ready to truly embrace myself and endure the road ahead or am I doing this because it is kinda in right now. If you are not natural, ask yourself am I doing this because this is truly what I want to do or am I doing this because for some odd reason I think nappy is bad! When I reflected on these questions almost every day for like a year – one day I realized why I was doing what I was doing – so I stopped perming, pressing, and hiding my natural hair. It was one of the most freeing things I have ever done! If white women can teach their black children to love their hair, shouldn’t we? #lLoveMyNaturalHair
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:01:17 +0000
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