Beauty? Part 1

Over the past few months I have been seriously reconsidering a lot of things but most of all I have been reconsidering what we as women of African decent consider as beauty in ourselves. What do we identify as beauty? Is it largely euro centric...have we been carefully manipulated into some sort of self loathing of our natural features?

Our kinky/ curly hair, our curves, our broad hips, our noses, our lips. I don't think I am wrong when I say that the picture of beauty that is projected and what so many of us have been chasing for a long time is not how we naturally look. How many of us have fallen victim to the creamy crack (hair straighteners....not actual crack) so that we can have that straight long "flowy" hair? I know I had my share of chemically altered hair texture.

When I was about 14 my hairdresser convinced my mother that I should have my hair texturized, to make it more manageable..you know...because "obviously" my natural texture could not be managed. I remember sitting in that chair with two hair dressers over my "mop" (as they called it) and complaining that their hands got all cramped up from trying to detangle my hair. When the texturizing process was finished and I walked out of the salon the first comment I got from a lady was :

"Oh I like your hair like that...it makes your face look so much softer"

I have to admit I did agree with her at the time, I found my hair a lot more manageable. I was able to just comb it into a pony tail with these nice loose curls flowing from it. Finally I was able to show of the length of hair.

A few years later my secondary school graduation rolled around and I called up my hairdresser and told her I wanted to go completly straight. I made my appointment and got my hair completely straightened. O.M.G it was soooo soft and stick straight. When my father saw it he was so disappointed. He is Rastafarian and loathed any type of hair manipulation, he still cringes when I get a trim. Until now I did not understand why he cared so much that I altered the natural texture of my hair. It was just hair right!!!

That summer I went to Europe to visit with family and friends (Btw I am biracial (mom -European dad- afro caribbean) and I was so proud of my new hair. I always wore it out, I would just wet it in the morning and scrunch it to get a light curl.

Fast forward to my first real relationship. I met this cute guy and he adored my hair. He loved how long and straight it was and he also loved when I wore it curly.

Fast forward a couple of months down the line....I had this rare condition that caused partial baldness. I had two small bald spots to the back of my head. I FREAKED!!! All my life I had this long thick hair and now I was going bald (or so I thought). In a frenzy to make myself feel better I rushed to the hairdresser and asked her to touch up my roots... I don't know what I was thinking....how was that supposed to fix anything. Thankfully she refused. My mom spoke to a friend of hers about my condition who started dishing out horror stories about how hair relaxer can cause your hair to fall out (If that is true is still to be confirmed). At that point I vowed to stop chemically manipulating my hair and decided to grow back my natural hair.

My bf at the time (yea same one) was not too pleased about my decision and as my roots grew out he even teased me a bit (I don't think he really meant harm) . He even complained that my new growth scratched him. (we broke up not too long after...not because of my hair though)

I continued to grow out my hair and cut of the ends bit by bit while wearing my hair in braids. Creativity struck and all of the sudden I made it my business to come up with new ideas of how to braid my hair. I remember sitting in Caribbean Studies class and my teacher talking about hair styles and telling us how the different intricate braiding styles stemmed from Africa. This was not news to me but somehow a bit of pride welled up in me. I felt good because unlike the majority of people I was in some way (even though by accident) staying true to my African roots (literally).

(About a year later)
So finally I cut of all the straightened ends and and was left with a fro. At first when I looked at myself I did not feel beautiful (my mom loved it somehow). My hair was no longer long and I felt like a piece of me was missing. I immediatly braided my hair into single braids and comforted myself. I looked at my reflection and guess what...this was not so bad.

At that point I had a new bf (you know teenagers) and he liked my natural hair. He always complimented me and said I was the most beautiful girl he knew. That did boost my confidence a whole lot and by then the texture of my hair sort of became irrelivant to me.
People stared to compare me to Empress Jeanille from Tempo (a caribbean music mtv channel). I thought she was geogous and didn't mind the comparisson.







Fast forward to University

I always wore my hair in twists and alot of the time people mistaked my twists for dread locks. I really did not mind and in some way I felt proud, after all my father was rastafrian. I rocked those twists and I still do.

Last semester I started to get really fed up of thoes twists and started to flat iron my hair and even considered going back to the creamy crack. At that point one of my hall mates introcuced me to this great web page about natural afro centric hair curlynikki.com and I fell in love with my texture all over again. It was from then on forward that I began to really understand my hair.

I started visiting a ton of blogs and suscribing to youtubers who demonstrated how they took care of their natural textured hair. A common thread ran through all of their posts. At one point or another most of them felt that how their hair naturally looked was not good enough. They all felt like they needed straight hair. Some had their permanently relaxed while others worked hard to flat iron it into limp and thin straightness. WHY ON EARTH HAVE MOST US DONE THAT? What is it that makes us believe that how we naturally look is not good enough.

It is a fact that especially in north America that many people consider that kinky or curly hair in its natural state does not appear professional. Why? I have to ask....what makes it so damn unprofessional? What are we so afraid of?

In the words of the great Bob Marley (also bi-racial) "Emanicpate yourself from mental slavery" Somewhere along the way we have been brain washed into thinking that things of African decent are not good enough and it has caused us to manipulate our very physical being. Some may say...hey its only hair lady... I beg to differ....Think about it

xoxoSheba