Many of the replies to this thread make me sick at heart. I can't believe what I'm reading.
Let me just make one thing absolutely clear: THERE IS NOTHING INNATELY GOOD ABOUT LONG HAIR. Hair, like every other part of the body, evolved for a function and evolved into its current form because of the function it served - in the environment it served it in. That is all.
To hear some of you speak, one would think you had never seen a beautiful woman with short hair. Halle Berry anyone? Marilyn Munroe?? - with her long hair she was just another pretty girl - she cut it off into a curly little blonde bob and became a bombshell.
Is our hair really that bad? I sure as heck have never thought so. As a matter of fact, many times I look around me (e.g. surrounded by whites, Indians and Pakistanis on the train) and I am bored of seeing lank, limp, greasy, straight, heavy hair. Why should we all have hair like that? It would be dang boring. When I look around me in situations like that, usually I'm thinking, "Wouldn't it be great to see some fluffy heads of gravity defying, upward growing, textured hair in this place?"
Can you imagine it - if many many black women were to wear their hair in big *** afros (maybe with a flower to the side - like the Fijians do), high puffs, low puffs, twists, dreads, cornrows in intricate designs. Don't you think that would be a great spectacle? We would have them staring at us in awe. There is strength in numbers - so when all you see around you is hair that looks one way, you start to wonder what's wrong with yours why it doesn't look like that. The answer is: nothing is wrong with yours - it is what it is and it is beautiful.
I'm not saying that natural is the only way to go (I have relaxed hair myself). I'm just saying that seeing our hair all around us styled attractively in the way it naturally grows would be a positive thing for many many women with unnecessary inferiority complexes. So the next time you're surrounded by people of other races - pls try to imagine the image I painted above.
Again: THERE IS NOTHING INNATELY GOOD ABOUT LONG HAIR. It is not necessary for your health, your happiness, or your beauty. It's just something we have *chosen* to pursue - for whatever reason. So don't take it up like the Cross of Calvary and use it to beat yourself - this should be fun. Or else, don't do it at all, and just let your hair be. A few months ago, I wanted, and had, big natural hair. Now I want long relaxed hair and I'm working at it. But there was a time in my life when I kept my hair no more than a few millimetres long and would take a pair of scissors to it every month - sometimes every other day. It suited my personality, features and figure quite well, and I am very likely to go back to that cut in a decade or so.
I'm a shocked at those who are trying to attach some kind of essential goodness or rightness to long hair by quoting scripture and what not. Every time I read that quote about "A woman's hair should be a coverning and a glory to her" in this context, I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Come on. Which would you really guess is true?:
Option 1: God really is really concerned that women should have long hair.
Option 2: Maybe Israelite chicks at that time were getting their hair cut short and the men didn't like it, so they decided to tell them what "God liked".
Option 3: Those men were just affirming and reinforcing a prevailing cultural or aesthetic preference at that time and place for long hair on women. (and remember that at other times and places, long hair on men has also been the ideal).
Now, given my experience of the world and plain common sense, I would think that options 2 and 3 are most likely. God (if he exists) has better things to think about than to go around prescribing long hair.
And let's be real - the closer you are to pure sub-Saharan African, the harder it usually is to grow your hair extra long. Everyone who talks about "women in my family who grow their hair without effort" knows well and good that they have a little something something mixed up in their family. Yes, most of us Blacks in the West are mixed to some extent, and not all mixed people have long hair yadda yadda - but we all know the truth. My mom has thick hair that she grows past shoulder length quite easily. But I'm not going to pretend that the little bit of Asian blood a few generations back in her family has nothing to do with that. My sis and I have inherited some of that - so shoulder length is not a big deal for us - but our hair is more fragile than hers - we have to care more to get the results she doesn't do anything for.
But SO WHAT?? Hair that doesn't grow long easily isn't "bad hair". Who told us that hair "should" be long anyway? Where did we get that from? Are you cold and need it to cover you? Let's leave aside the scripture quoting - totally irrelevant IMO. What we're doing here growing our hair is purely an aesthetic, vanity project, and we should just leave it at that and smile.
Because it's not! If Africans have tightly coiled hair it is a blessing because without it their heads would boil in the scorching sun. 
