For people, especially women, hair is a HUGE deal. We see Pantene and Garnier commercials all the time talking about having smooth, shiny, less frizzy hair. A lot of the time, they use our favorite actresses like Sofia Vergara or Selena Gomez to basically say, "Hey. If you use our products, you can have beautiful, luscious hair just like them."
Hair is important. It's moved from a symbol of class to a symbol of high fashion. It's as if your hair can say a lot about you as a person. The way it's cut or colored can have a huge impact on your friend group, working endeavors, and overall social status. For some people, hair isn't a big deal. It's just something that grows out of your head and you can do whatever you want with it. But for a lot of black girls, their natural hair is deemed ugly and unworthy by our society.
My natural hair story is very similar to that of many other black girls across the United States. I've been natural my entire life and from infancy to about 10 years old. My mom used to deck my hair out in intricate braiding patterns, beads, and barrettes. Then middle school started. I moved on from the "babyish" hairstyles to box braids, twists, crochet weaves, and straightened styles. I never ventured into the realm of showing my natural hair, however. Whenever I brought up the idea to my mother she would say, "What would you even do with that?"
So that itself kind of discouraged me from wanting to show my natural hair. Fast forward to my sophomore year of high school when 12 Years A Slave came out and Lupita Nyong'o was one of the main actresses.
I thought she was absolutely beautiful. For the first time, I saw a girl with a hair type VERY similar to mine winning an academy award, modeling, and going on interviews with a bunch of famous people. Lupita inspired me. Not to mention, I had beautiful and amazing black friends who started to wear their hair naturally, too. So I thought it was finally time to break loose of my synthetic chains and show off my real, kinky hair for once.
It was a success and I went between having my natural hair out to protective styles every so often throughout my high school career. But then I made the worst decision of my life. I had to be around 17-ish years old and I thought my hair was finally long and healthy enough, and I wanted to straighten it. Now mind you, back in 8th grade, I also straightened my hair a lot for a while and it left my hair dry, brittle, and thin. Basically, my hair was starting to break off, which probably explains why my freshman and some of my sophomore years in high school were dedicated to hiding the truth. So, I don't know WHAT compelled me to ever want to do that again, but the same results happened. My hair was dry, brittle, breaking off, and HORRIBLY heat damaged.
Once again, I was hiding my hair under twists and braids and I was way too scared to cut it off because of the length. But one day, I finally decided to and now I'm currently in the process of growing my hair back to how it used to be (and this time, you won't catch me straightening it, lmao).
Long story short, a lot of girls go through this "natural hair" struggle, and it's actually kind of frightening. I mean look:
How can anyone say that's not beautiful? It honestly baffles me.
What baffles me, even more, is when people say that it's unprofessional or "unkept." They think it's gross when we only shampoo our hair every one to two weeks, but that's not us being nasty and neglectful of our hair. A lot of the times, our hair can't handle the excessive washing and shampooing. Too often, it can strip our hair of the nutrients it needs. Which is why a lot of "naturalistas" have implemented cowashing techniques. Basically, in between shampoo days, we wash our hair with conditioner to strengthen it and repair breakage. It's pretty ingenious if you ask me.
I actually went to a meeting just before the semester ended that talked about interviewing techniques for graduate schools, jobs, internship positions, etc. And it was a black lady who was speaking and someone asked her a question about how hair should be on an interview. I assume the girl was talking about colored hair or messy/tangled hair, but I didn't anticipate the speaker to talk about black hair along with that. She mentioned that we shouldn't have our hair, "in a big mess like an afro" or have "a bunch of fancy jewels in it."
Last time I checked... naturally curly/kinky hair IS big, but it's definitely NOT a mess. Black girls have always been told that for formal events (proms, galas, jobs, interviews, etc), they can't have their natural hair out and it needs to be straightened. Hell, even some people have issues with protective styles like braids or twists.
In the beginning of 2017, two girls were actually prohibited from attending prom and kicked off their sports teams because they had protective styles. And there are so many more instances like this. One little girl a few years back actually got suspended for having her hair in braids. A LITTLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GIRL. What does that do to her psyche? My mom used to tell us all the time that she was turned away from certain positions because her hair was in locks.
As for the jewels, our ancestors have been doing that in Africa since the beginning of time. Ancient Africans had their hair braided up in beautiful, intricate patterns, and decked out with various beads, shells, and jewelry. It has nothing to do with style. It's literally our culture. Just like how we shouldn't dismiss people applying for jobs if they have tattoos, multi-colored hair, or piercings, black women (and men) shouldn't be dismissed because of how they look.
To conclude, and the major take away from this article is:
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR HAIR.
Whether it's in locks, twists, braids, sewn up with 28-inch Brazilian body waves, flat twisted under a wig, or out in its full glory, it's still beautiful, professional, and appropriate.
People need to stop telling black girls that their hair must be long and straight in order to be deemed "beautiful" by society.
