Hello, all my dear readers! I hope you all are doing well. So, recently I have made a bit of a drastic change. I took out my braids and am letting my natural hair hang out! I know to most this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but allow me to explain and you’ll see. Alright, today most females wear weaves/tracks/extensions(fake hair). This isn’t just the black community but in the white community as well. I have seen several times white females wearinghair extensions for the purpose of obviously making their hair appear longer. Though females of all races use these techniques, they are mostly used in the black community. Also, besides fake hair, a lot of black women get perms(full of chemicals) that straighten their hair. I could go a rant about why perms are so popular in the black community, but I’ll just say this. Our ancestors were slaves, they were brainwashed. Lighter skin slaves with straighter hair were treated better than their darker siblings with kinky hair. Through this and years of forced assimilation/conformation, in the modern times people of lighter skin and straighter hair are held at a higher value than people of the opposite traits. Trust me when I say this. I went to majority black middle school and high school, I know how the darker skin kids were treated. Perms are a device that are suppsoe to make black women appear more like white women. Now let me say that in no way am I knocking down perms, I’m just stating the facts here and my beliefs. If women want to wear fake hair or get perms thats fine. That’s their personal choice.
A little bit more than a year ago, I was in the hair salon getting my monthly perm. It was burning. Burning really bad and I remember thinking to myself, “Why do I do this every month? Why do I go through this pain and torture every month?” My hair was short;it had always been short and it never grew despite the perms. It was at that point I decided to go natural with my hair. Now let me note that natural hair means you don’t get any perms or any other type of chemical treatment to straighten your hair. Real hair is simply anything on your head that isn’t fake hair basically. That’s the difference between natural hair and real hair. I was never a big person on fake hair but I had been getting perms since I was young. However, at that pint I said no more. Of course my family wasn’t very supportive of me going natural. To put it simple, like most people in the black community, they thought I was just going to be “walking around nappy headed.” Honestly, it does sadden me that black people don’t have a love for their own hair and what grows out of their scalps.
Despite, my family’s lack of support, I refused to get a perm. In the beginning it was hard, I’m not going to lie. I had to first cut nearly all my hair off so that all the permed hair was gone and the new growth could come in. I have a long face so I don’t like having short hair that makes it more pronounced. And styling your hair when it’s that short and you know little to squat about hair is a tiring act. The fact that I got the permed hair chopped out in bits made it even worse since for months my hair wasn’t completely natural nor completely permed. It was somewhere in between there. Eventually my hair grew a bit, but my family constantly pestered me about getting a perm. It was always a fight. I wnated so badly to ask them, why can’t you all just accept my hair? Why is it that in this society (maybe even this world) what grows out my scalp, my curly kinks are considered ugly? Am I not beautiful? This was a particularly a hard time for me since my hair had always been a soft spot for me. Being one of the few brown skinned grandkids (my other cousins were mixed so their skin was lighter and hair straighter), I somewhat envied my light skin cousins because of how people constantly mooned over them and how beautiful they were. They were treated better too. I was always a bit of an after thought.
When I was going through this transition of permed hair to natural I , still being partially brainwashed by society and scared to take that final leap, would use a hot comb/straightner to straighten my hair. I was still in a way trying to conform. As high school came to an end and college was fating approaching I decided to being a conformist. I mean I had never really been a follower anyway so why act so just so my hair could look like everyone else’s? It was dumb and at that moment I said screw it let the natural hair loose. So, I stopped straightening it. However, I did get braids(extensions) placed in my hair to help my natural hair grow for my fall semester at college. Now, thought the fall semester is over and I have taken the braids out. Whats on my head now is all me, all natural. lol I will admit I was scared to see how people were going to react since I go to a majority white school. My fears were put to rest. Everywhere I went people were telling me how cool they thought I was, how pretty I looked, etc. Of course there were a few ( and I mean like hardly anyone. A very few) who didn’t like it, starred at my new hair style, some even laughed but I didn’t let that break me down because all that mattered was that I lliked it and thought it was beautiful. Plus, for every person that hated it there were four that loved it! Though my hair may be hard to manage, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I do plan on straightening it sometimes just so I can have an even more vast variety of hairstyles (I like to switch it up a bit, here and there), but I don’t see any perms in my future and thats just the way I like it! So thats the story. If anyone wants to know more feel free to message me and comment! I always welcome feedback and criticism. Thanks for reading! I’m going to post some pics of my natural ahair up soon. :)
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