Love/Hate relationship: Black ppl and their hair

[Poetrygirl]

Women black or white want their straight hair curly or their curly hair straight. Their black hair blonde or their blonde hair red. The list goes on.
quote]

Agreed. I remember a white co-worker telling me she wished she could have my hair because it can maintain almost any style. I have bi-racial friends who wished they could have the thickness my hair has just so they could rock micros for longer than 3 weeks without them slipping. I can't say that I hate my hair. I may hate my hair style at times, like right now, it is in a funky in between state but I do not remember ever really hating my hair, it's a part of me. I have wished that I could have it styled like Tracie Ellis Ross or as long as Beyonce's weave in the Irreplaceable video, but to me there is a difference in hating ones hair vs. wishing I could have it styled like someone else’s. I have had the curly hair like Tracie Ellis Ross when my hair was al la natural and decided it was not for me, too hard/time consuming to manage with my schedule and then I have had the long, thick hair like Beyonce’s weave, again too hard/time consuming to manage with my schedule. I think you have to do you and what works best with your lifestyle.

I am fine with the texture of my hair, whether relaxed/natural as I have had both. My natural texture is thick, tightly coiled and was well managed better when it was short, really short, as it grew out it became harder to manage so I relaxed it. When my hair was long, really long I kept it in a ponytail because I grew tired of having to flat iron it, curl it and just style it on a day to day basis.

I realized a long time ago that like India Arie's song “I am not my hair” and I will not let it define who I am. What is most important to me right now is growing a healthy head of hair, no matter the texture, thickness or length. I think black women tend to have this "good hair/bad hair" debate because society deems what is beautiful and what we see is black women with hair weaved down to their tail bones, even the dolls our daughters play with do not really reflect us, so we tend to emulate what is “considered” beautiful, rarely do you see a black actress/singer with their natural hair texture and when you do it is rare. We have to start to believe that no matter our hair, length, texture be it relaxed or natural, thin/thick that black hair is beautiful. To have long hair even if it is relaxed is a blessing, who cares what the texture of your hair is.

"To me good hair is just having hair on your head."

 

[toyztoy]

OK!!

Women black or white want their straight hair curly or their curly hair straight. Their black hair blonde or their blonde hair red. The list goes on.
quote]

Agreed. I remember a white co-worker telling me she wished she could have my hair because it can maintain almost any style. I have bi-racial friends who wished they could have the thickness my hair has just so they could rock micros for longer than 3 weeks without them slipping. I can't say that I hate my hair. I may hate my hair style at times, like right now, it is in a funky in between state but I do not remember ever really hating my hair, it's a part of me. I have wished that I could have it styled like Tracie Ellis Ross or as long as Beyonce's weave in the Irreplaceable video, but to me there is a difference in hating ones hair vs. wishing I could have it styled like someone else’s. I have had the curly hair like Tracie Ellis Ross when my hair was al la natural and decided it was not for me, too hard/time consuming to manage with my schedule and then I have had the long, thick hair like Beyonce’s weave, again too hard/time consuming to manage with my schedule. I think you have to do you and what works best with your lifestyle.

I am fine with the texture of my hair, whether relaxed/natural as I have had both. My natural texture is thick, tightly coiled and was well managed better when it was short, really short, as it grew out it became harder to manage so I relaxed it. When my hair was long, really long I kept it in a ponytail because I grew tired of having to flat iron it, curl it and just style it on a day to day basis.

I realized a long time ago that like India Arie's song “I am not my hair” and I will not let it define who I am. What is most important to me right now is growing a healthy head of hair, no matter the texture, thickness or length. I think black women tend to have this "good hair/bad hair" debate because society deems what is beautiful and what we see is black women with hair weaved down to their tail bones, even the dolls our daughters play with do not really reflect us, so we tend to emulate what is “considered” beautiful, rarely do you see a black actress/singer with their natural hair texture and when you do it is rare. We have to start to believe that no matter our hair, length, texture be it relaxed or natural, thin/thick that black hair is beautiful. To have long hair even if it is relaxed is a blessing, who cares what the texture of your hair is.

"To me good hair is just having hair on your head."

 

[natstar]

When i was younger I use to HATE my hair cause I wanted long hair, but I did not know how to care for it and no one helped. I have 4a/4b. When it was relaxed (when I was younger) it was brittle, thin and just damaged. I got so fed up, I transitioned w/out knowing, and as a natural it was damaged-then I got locs cause I didn't want to bother with daily manipulation.
I loved locs but I decided to let them go after a while and start with a loose natural.
As I have gotten older and discovered the forums, I have grown to LOVE my hair at times/but mostly I just tolerate it. Beyond texture, relaxed/natural more than anything since I was little I always wanted long hair-and never had it. I think that was gets me frustrated a lot (even now)
Also there are times when I think of relaxing again because I have not had one in years, and I am curious to see how I can care for it (grow it) given what I now know. But from what prev posters have said, it seems like I would be making a mistake if I decided to go that route, from some responses on prev threads.

 

[Crackers Phinn]

It's funny you said this. The other day I was reading the boards and was feeling a bit uncomfortable. I was reading about someone who was considering relaxing there hair for whatever reason and the pleas of no no don't do it! (I read this a lot) I kind of felt bad for having relaxed hair. Seeing the pleas as if relaxing your hair is sooo terrible. I think a lot of the women on this board are indeed natural. And I think sometimes I feel as a relaxed person a bit like I am being judged or something.
But then I get over it and realize that people have there opinions and it is not personal.

I typically tell people to do what they want to do, but just remember the reason why they stopped relaxing in the first place. I've seen enough 'repeat transitioners/BC'ers' to realize that naturals forget how much upkeep is involved with perming. My stance is don't waste hair chasing greener pastures.

 

[caligirl]

When I would walk down the street black men everywhere would shout for me to get a perm.

This was my experience in high school. A group of black girls would follow me home from school and shout "Get a perm! Buy her some dark and lovely." It hurt my feelings so bad. I think I have PTSD =(.

 

[Poetrygirl]

This is not meant to offend anyone, it is just my opinion.

I guess I do not understand what the big deal is with relaxed hair vs. natural hair. I have had both, more than 2xs in my life and I am only 28 yrs old. The transition for me was easy, I kept braids while transitioning and cut the relaxer out once my natural hair was the length I wanted. I have had problems with both, to me hair is hair. Relaxed hair and natural hair both have to be care for, just in different ways, what makes it hard to care for any hair type/texture is finding what works for yours. What works for me, may not work for you and that to me is the difficulty in having any kind of hair. How can one texture be better or worse than the other? To me that depends on the person. I have felt society deemed my natural hair as ugly or that I was too Afro-centric for certain jobs. mostly those dealing with corporate America. However having a relaxer and doing poetry, I feel that I am looked at as less than, since many female poets have naturals or locs, I have even been asked did I really write that poem, because I do not look like a poet due to my hair being relaxed, but I ask how can having relaxed hair be so wrong? It does not mean I am trying to be white or someone other than myself. I just like less maintenace hairstyles and relaxing my hair achieves that for me, it may be different for someone else.

I wrote a poem called Self Conscious, which talks about the good hair/bad hair debate briefly. At the time I wrote it I was interviewing for internships and I thought it was my natural hair that was stopping me from getting the internship I wanted, my husband told me that they thought I was too “militant” and not enough corporate American, too black is what I called it. This is a snippet and I believe it is relevant to the topic. Take from it what you will. "I strive for perfection, covering up all my imperfections with Mac and Cover Girl Makeup. Trying to make up for what I was not given. I become driven to no longer look like me, watching MTV wanting to be made into someone other than me. Believing that beauty is carried inside long, straight hair so every 4-6 weeks I try to take the natural curl out of my hair, splitting and damaging my ends and the "Good hair, Bad hair" debate is still talked about amongst all my friends. And these misty mirror images of me, deflect what I neglect to see. And during my pro-black phase I once believed that having a natural made me more afro-centric but in the eyes of corporate America I was looked at quite different, so I grew my hair longer believing that in the white world I appeared to be much stronger."

Let's ask ourselves is the hair the real issue?