honeycomb719
New Member
LOL, I knew when I posted my opinion wasnt the popular one, but hey its mine. I own it!
"Why do so many blacks prefer straight hair?"
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Bint Yusef
New Member
I actually think its quite popular or else this debate wouldn't be going on, no?
Je Ne Sais Quoi
Well-Known Member
I guess i should have been more clear. Really what i meant is that your answer is why many blacks prefer straight hair. The mindset of a certain type of hair is very negative to many in society for one reason or another. I'm not saying the reasoning is right or wrong in this post since the reasons are varied but when it's all said and done I think it's sad on a huge level.
honeycomb719
New Member
OK, I sooooo wasn't gonna comment but ... really? What is "the look" that all AA can't pull off? Looking like THEMSELVES? If it grows out of your scalp - regardless of texture, length, or color - it's your look.
*leaves the scratch head*
The look Im speaking of is wearing your have naturally...I thought that was made clear in the OP. If I was speaking in a thread about relaxing and I mentioned "the look" I can only hope that the readers would make the correlation of "the look" pertaining to relaxed hair styling...
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thank you! to you youngsters reading this thread....please know that your natural hair is beautiful in its natural state and not 'slave like'.
BEAUTYU2U
Well-Known Member
VictoriousBrownFlower
Well-Known Member
Ok I've since changed my mind about some things. Maybe it does run deeper for some then I thought. I will still stand on my stance that not all aa women feel this way but I guess more than I was willing to see do secretly harbor those feelings...
honeycomb719
New Member
Yeah, but I havent read the whole thread to see if someone has stated that POV in the manner I did. Which, Im sure some others made feel the same way, but was just expressed in a different manner.
BEAUTYU2U
Well-Known Member
The look Im speaking of wearing your have naturally...I thought that was made clear in the OP. If I was speaking in a thread about relaxing and I mentioned "the look" I can only hope that the readers would make the correlation of "the look" pertaining to relaxed hair styling...
I know you meant natural hair. I'm going a little deeper into the meaning than you are.
Bint Yusef
New Member
I think that your opinion is popular amongst black women, not necessarily in this thread but I havent read the entire thread either. But since most black women are not natural it serves to conclude that many agree with you in some form.
I just personally dont understand how someone can think that only certain people are capable of wearing their natural hair. What exactly determines who can pull off the look if you dont mind me asking? Also are you working under the assumption that there is only one look? I mean you can be natural and never wear an afro being that an afro is merely a natural style and not the totality of natural hair. There are infinite possibilities and looks that each one of us are capable of defining for our own natural hair. Which is why I dont understand how one cannot pull off "the look".
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Miss*Tress
Well-Known Member
And the winner is...
You hit the nail on the head and it *is* a popular opinion that many have been skirting around and saying in not so many words.
honeycomb719
New Member
The bolded is exactly why I edited my post cuz I knew someone would go there with the slave generation. Anyone reading these post shouldnt put more into it than whats there! Im not knocking naturals at all. Im natural myself, But I prefer not to go strutting around with my TWA in public cuz that look doesnt fit my taste.
Yes, some might like Kizzies look, or Florida Evans to me thats wasnt very flattering for those two.... But that not to say I dont think the same look isnt well suited for Eryrak B or Indie Arie. Some "the look" looks well on, some it dont IMO!
chrisanddonniesmommy
New Member
nikolite
Well-Known Member
Funny, I've never heard someone say that a black woman just doesn't look good with straight hair or can't pull of the straight look. Its like straight is always the default and nappy is an option that might or might not work (translation: depending on how "good" or "bad" the hair is).
BostonMaria
Well-Known Member
First of all welcome. May I ask what you're doing on this forum with a bunch of women of color? I am not asking to be rude, just a legitimate question since this is your first post and you kinda came out of no where.
I am from Boston and I have tons of friends from different colors and backgrounds. My best friend is white (sounds cliche i know). Boston is known for its diversity, BUT unfortunately its also known for its racism. Racism does exist, wish it didn't. Maybe if you went to a 70% white high school with more diversity you'd encounter more of the truth. When I used to go to a 100% Dominican school down in the Dominican Republic we didn't talk about racism because we were all the same.
nikolite
Well-Known Member
Not just weird but sick and perverted. I think sometimes people take the "youth and fertility" standards of beauty a little too far. These theories imply that men secretly want to sleep with young girls who are like 6 or 7, since most grown women don't fit descriptions of what people supposedly find beautiful.
honeycomb719
New Member
So in this instance you talking about apples, while I was talking about oranges, OK! Originally it came off as you was knocking my comment when you asked what "look" I was talkin about...
lovegymnasts
New Member
Dang good point and so true
BEAUTYU2U
Well-Known Member
kmn1980
Emoticons don't affect me
When you can show us where your people were stolen from their land, brought over here to work for free for 4 centuries, raped, separated from their families, lynched for no reason, told you were ugly, had your hair called "dreadful", made to change your religion, not keep your own name, not speak your own language, not allowed to learn to read, not allowed to marry, were made to cover your head after you had been freed because your oppressors said your hair is offensive (research Ante-Bellum law), etc...
AND, after you built this country on your back
you weren't allowed to vote, go to school where you want, live where you want, eat where you want, have limited use of PUBLIC transportation, still getting lynched for no reason, churches burned, dogs turned against you. waterhoses put on your children, etc..
which ends up facilitating an atmosphere where
no matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how talented you are, etc..
you are still expected to jump through hurdles to get to the same place that the children of the oppressors (who may or may not be as capable as you) can casually walk to...
AND
the country that your ancestors built on their backs, gave most of their ingenuity to in the form of both primitive and modern inventions (like the cell phone) to make both your life and the life of your oppressors easier...
THEN
tells you that you aren't even important enough to have your TRUE story put into the history books for generations to come to know the truth about who you are, tells you through television and print that you are an insignificant part of the collective like a shrub or a bush,
THEN
talk to us about how friendly of a white person you and your friends are.
Do not talk about Black experience, because you are not Black. I don't care if you have 56z hair. You are not Black, have never been Black, will never be Black, and you have benefited in one way or another from the systemic racism of this country.
I could go on but I'm sure you get the message:
Don't make yourself a mascot.
Every time...every single time, they come into targeted sites and start with the race-baiting and I'm sick of it.
We were having a conversation basically about slave psychology in relation to OUR hair and here comes the troll bringing up something TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the conversation.
What kills me more, is that you have people here giving her props for the completely baseless $hit she's spouting.
Here's what's better (and proves she's a mascot): she came in here spouting that same Kum Bah Yah/ I'm not like that/ I have Black friends stuff that they all spout when they hear the truth and feel indicted. Her whiteness shows because she feels that since she didn't do it and allegedly doesn't know anyone else who is her definition of "racist" that we coloreds must be delusional and overly-sensitive.
So her experience is the only one that is valid and that counts for something.
To the brown people on the board: sound familiar?
Bad news for you East Cleveland, racism is not just people not liking you because of race. Go back to the beginning of this post and re-read if you're still confused. Your friends have already told off on you. Start reading... start with Tim Wise, Molly Secours, and then keep going.
I'll leave you with some Robert Jensen, a white guy, who authored a book entitled "The Heart of Whiteness". It goes like this:
"It may seem self-indulgent to talk about the fears of white people in a white-supremacist society. After all, what do white people really have to be afraid of in a world structured on white privilege? It may be self-indulgent, but it's critical to understand because these fears are part of what keeps many white people from confronting ourselves and the system.
The first, and perhaps most crucial, fear is that of facing the fact that some of what we white people have is unearned. It's a truism that we don't really make it on our own; we all have plenty of help to achieve whatever we achieve. That means that some of what we have is the product of the work of others, distributed unevenly across society, over which we may have little or no control individually. No matter how hard we work or how smart we are, we all know -- when we are honest with ourselves -- that we did not get where we are by merit alone. And many white people are afraid of that fact.
A second fear is crasser: White people's fear of losing what we have -- literally the fear of losing things we own if at some point the economic, political, and social systems in which we live become more just and equitable. That fear is not completely irrational; if white privilege -- along with the other kinds of privilege many of us have living in the middle class and above in an imperialist country that dominates much of the rest of the world -- were to evaporate, the distribution of resources in the United States and in the world would change, and that would be a good thing. We would have less. That redistribution of wealth would be fairer and more just. But in a world in which people have become used to affluence and material comfort, that possibility can be scary.
A third fear involves a slightly different scenario -- a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized. One hears this constantly in the conversation about immigration, the lingering fear that somehow "they" (meaning not just Mexican-Americans and Latinos more generally, but any non-white immigrants) are going to keep moving to this country and at some point become the majority demographically. Even though whites likely can maintain a disproportionate share of wealth, those numbers will eventually translate into political, economic, and cultural power. And then what? Many whites fear that the result won't be a system that is more just, but a system in which white people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites. This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear of non-white people. It's a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?
A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people. Virtually every white person I know, including white people fighting for racial justice and including myself, carries some level of racism in our minds and hearts and bodies. In our heads, we can pretend to eliminate it, but most of us know it is there. And because we are all supposed to be appropriately anti-racist, we carry that lingering racism with a new kind of fear: What if non-white people look at us and can see it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our anti-racist vocabulary and sense that we still don't really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know about us what we don't dare know about ourselves? What if they can see what we can't even voice?
I work in a large university with a stated commitment to racial justice. All of my faculty colleagues, even the most reactionary, have a stated commitment to racial justice. And yet the fear is palpable.
It is a fear I have struggled with, and I remember the first time I ever articulated that fear in public. I was on a panel with several other professors at the University of Texas discussing race and politics in the O.J. Simpson case. Next to me was an African American professor. I was talking about media; he was talking about the culture's treatment of the sexuality of black men. As we talked, I paid attention to what was happening in me as I sat next to him. I felt uneasy. I had no reason to be uncomfortable around him, but I wasn't completely comfortable. During the question-and-answer period -- I don't remember what question sparked my comment -- I turned to him and said something like, "It's important to talk about what really goes on between black and white people in this country. For instance, why am I feeling afraid of you? I know I have no reason to be afraid, but I am. Why is that?"
My reaction wasn't a crude physical fear, not some remnant of being taught that black men are dangerous (though I have had such reactions to black men on the street in certain circumstances). Instead, I think it was that fear of being seen through by non-white people, especially when we are talking about race. In that particular moment, for a white academic on an O.J. panel, my fear was of being exposed as a fraud or some kind of closet racist. Even if I thought I knew what I was talking about and was being appropriately anti-racist in my analysis, I was afraid that some lingering trace of racism would show through, and that my black colleague would identify it for all in the room to see. After I publicly recognized the fear, I think I started to let go of some of it. Like anything, it's a struggle. I can see ways in which I have made progress. I can see that in many situations I speak more freely and honestly as I let go of the fear. I make mistakes, but as I become less terrified of making mistakes I find that I can trust my instincts more and be more open to critique when my instincts are wrong. "
I'm done with this one.
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honeycomb719
New Member
My answers are in purple.
honeycomb719
New Member
And this is why threads get thrown OT most times. If asked, I can attest to many women who should not try to pull of the bone str8 hair either, but thats not what we are discussing in this thread.. Nor did I say those words! I dont like it being put in my mouth (or insuinuated) that I believe that nonsense either.
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N.P.R. Addict
New Member
Exactly! Also, no one ever says some black men can not pull off natural hair.
Lenee925
Well-Known Member
/devil'sadvocate
Not that your opinion needs defending, but I think I get what you are saying. Maybe if Kizzie had at least detangled, juiced and threw on a cute headband, she would have looked alright? In the movie it did look really matted. Stop me if I'm reaching here..
Mareeღ
New Member
I thought mods were supposed to remain neutral? Not try to blow threads wide open
erplexed
Rocky91
NYE side boob.
so the juice woulda made errythang betta???
Bint Yusef
New Member
HC I see what you are saying and respect your POV. I just read that you are natural and it may be that you are struggling a bit to find your place and styles you feel that enhance your particular personality and look? I feel like you've boxed natural hair into sort of an earth mother box and you are right that particular style does not suit everyone, but natural hair is not limited to that. I also feel like the more women that go natural of varying backgrounds contributes to the increasingly growing dialogue and the face of natural hair may be more palatable to some women. I think if you look around you will see that there are quite a few people around here that don't do the boho look, self included. It just takes some trial and error and everyone is able to get to a point where they can pull off their own look
It could just be a matter of getting more length if you feel that the shorter styles dont suit you.
Lenee925
Well-Known Member
I thought mods were supposed to remain neutral? Not try to blow threads wide open
I am so glad she was honest. Bint was saying that her opinion was probably very common among us black women. What annoys me is that it took this long to finally get to the point of the entire post. Folks getting called nazis and insecure all because we don't want to read between the lines. Even had 2520 folks in here sitting back taking it all in. SMDH
nikolite
Well-Known Member
And this is why threads get thrown OT most times. If asked, I can attest to many women who should not try to pull of the bone str8 hair either, but thats not what we are discussing in this thread.. Nor did I say those words! I dont like it being put in my mouth (or insuinuated) that I believe that nonsense either.
That's exactly what this thread is about!
But IMO, if a black woman has hair that grows straight or kinky out of her head, its a good look for her.
ETA: I wasn't putting those words in your mouth or even referencing you. I was saying that no one on this thread or IRL has said that to date that I've ever heard.
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cocosweet
Well-Known Member
I had to quote this because the thanks button just wasn't enough.WTH are you talking about? This thread isn't about you or anti-whiteness. Is it ok for something to not be about you? This thread is about the psyche of black women as it relates to OUR hair.
If you are going to be a fly on the wall, sometimes it's best to just be quiet ( and gain some insight while withholding judgement) or in this case withhold those keystrokes.
Kmn1980 already nailed it, but if you know anything about the history of black people in the Americas, or the prevailing beauty standard, you'd understand (at least a little bit) why black people feel the way we do. I find all this so called naivete really disingenous and dismissive.EastClevelandK
As a white woman...
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