Real Talk: Please give me examples and numbers

[lexiwiththecurls]

This is an interesting thread. I think it all depends on where you live too...of course if you only see 10 AA's a day then the percentage of people MBL or more is lower. I live in Atlanta, and on an average day of me being out and not in the house, I may see 4 or more a day with MBL and longer...in fact, I saw 2 natural WL just today which is not the norm...but I see plenty..Personally, I know (as in friends and family) about 14 ladies who are MBL but see strangers daily with MBL and longer hair. People with Locs show that AA's can have long hair if anyone ever had a doubt- but I think the key is low manipulation.

 

[aa9746]

In real life recently I've only seen 1 longer than mbl this year.

 

[Imani]

There is one girl at my job who has BSL hair. I am not certain of her ethnicity or what she identifies as, she appears to be biracial. On a regular I do not see or know a lot of black women with hair that long.

As a side note on the growth rate discussions, my hair grows slightly above .5 inches a month. So although my hair grows at a slightly above average rate, I have never had hair past SL in my entire life. Why? Bc I have dry fragile 4b hair (not oprah/rudy hair, my hair is medium/fine) that has been either pressed or relaxed on a regular basis since as far back as I can remember and it just breaks off super easily.

 

[Freespirit02]

Honestly I probably only know..two..and they both were mixed..

 

[davisbr88]

Growing up, "long hair" was past your shoulders and before I went off to college, I knew of about 6 full black girls with hair past their shoulders, 1 of which was a little past APL. (And I come from a predominately black area btw - it's probably about 95% black.)
Being away at college, I met lots and lots of women with legitimate long hair (APL+) but they were all Ethiopian, as my school had a HUGE Ethiopian population. None of my black friends had APL hair - most had nape-length, shoulder, or a little past (I went to a predominately white school so my "friends" pretty much made up most of the population of black girls... lol... which may have had something to do with why I never saw any black girls with long hair since the population was so small <- I'm exaggerating but not by much. All the black people knew each other and I never saw anyone longer than a little past SL). Since college, I have moved to a predominately white section of DC, so I still only know of those 5-6 girls from my school days, plus one grad school friend who has about BSL hair and my cousin who is damn near hip-length at this point (both of them are natural).
ETA: My old stylist had really long and thick relaxed hair. I'm not sure how long because I honestly don't remember having a standard of measurement past SL back then since anything longer than that was just considered "long." I'm pretty sure she was at least BSL though.

 

[Imani]

Wait, I just thought of someone. Way back in undergrad I did an internship with a girl who I think was BSL. Her hair was a super thick natural 3b.

Also wanted to add that I went to a rather large HBCU and I also am in Atlanta quite a bit and I still can't say I have seen a lot of BSL black women. IRL, BSL on most people is ALOT of hair. Usually when a woman catches my eye with long pretty hair its APL or a little past APL but not BSL.

 

[Carisa]

I only know one black girl currently with hair longer than sl, shes almost bsl and her ends are very thin and see thru. Most of the black women i work with have sl hair and everyone thinks thats long and the white women are usually apl at least.

 

[Hersheygurl]

I know this thread is older, but it did make me kind of discouraged at the lack of long-haired AA women I see IRL. I'm MBL (bottom layer is touching WSL now), one of my cousins is WSL with locs, another cousin is full healthy natural MBL, my sister reached BSL with no trouble but started using color and too much heat and is now back to APL. My sis-n-law is full BSL and has been MBL with no trouble.

Outside of my family,

The average length I see in my church is NL-SL, however, there is one teen girl who has beautiful thick BSL hair. Most of the AA women I know are not wearing their own hair, so it's difficult to know the length.

 

[Bigmommah]

I guess I'm the odd one out. Growing up I lived in an area where most of us had APL or longer hair. I attended a church where long hair was considered the norm so most of us had long hair until we were old enough to want a "style". Currently my sister is WL after cutting it back from HL. I have a niece at WL another almost back a BSL, my daughter who transitioned to natural is apl and so am I.

Now I will say that where I live now I don't see hair at these lengths but I think it has more to do with prefering wigs/weaves/short cuts and poor hair care practices than ethnicity issues.

 

[fitnessmommy]

I know of my Mother, Aunt, 2 cousins and 4 friends growing up. Thinking about it... every last one of them is natural. All of the other women I know of (or am related to) that had shorter hair used chemicals.

 

[Mdmommy99]

I had mbl locs at some point, and I know quite a few women with locs that are MBL and longer. However if we exclude people with locs I can't think of nearly as many. My daughter's hair is mbl, I met my first AA waist length woman without locks about 2 weeks ago, my sister -in-law, and I saw two girls at the library recently with MBL hair, so that's 5. I've probably come across more at some point before LHCF and not paid as much attention though, but still not that many.

 

[SmilingElephant]

Let's see...besides me, 3 of my cousins and an aunt(in-law)...that's five....

Plus i knew 3 girls in high school with MBL length hair

I've seen maybe 2 in regular life like being in stores and stuff. So that's a total of 10 women with BSL or longer hair and they are all Black and not mixed according to my knowledge.


I also think that bc we as a ppl are a minority...we don't really see too many of us on the street with long hair....but i think its bc all the black women on this board are from all over the world..ya know?? And it seems like there's not many black women with long hair but when we gather here you get to see more of us with long hair.....i hope that was understandable...