So tonight I washed my own hair for, like, the second or third time ever. In life. I'm pretty darn proud of the job I did too. (If I didn't tell y'all before, let me tell you now: I am a complete novice when it comes to taking care of hair. I don't know how to braid, barely know how to wash it, and really don't do much with it besides either wrapping it or putting it in a ponytail. But I'm learning.) As I sat down to let my mom put my hair into cornrows (I'm gonna do the lil krinkly style as seen in my pic in the last post), my dad asks "What you tryin' to do to your hair? Why you decide you wanna be nappy-headed? You doin' this 'cause of your boyfriend's hair, ain't you?" Now, because of the nature of my relationship with my father (let's just say it's less than stellar) I was ready to go off. But I kept my composure and simply said, "This has nothing to do with him. I just want something different," and went back to reading. He then began to make comments on how he sees some women at work coming through looking "rough" and he wonders why they don't "do something with their hair, get a perm?" To this i bristled. "There are people with perms looking a hot mess too. And just because you're natural doesn't mean you have to be unkempt." He took this some kinda way; I didn't care cuz his feelings aren't important.
What is important though is noticing the response that I've been getting from people when I say I'm going natural. I get a lot of "girl why?"s, "don't do it"s, and "whaaaat?!"s. It's like so many people believe that it will be some terrible experience and that I'll look and feel awful. I don;t get it! Why should I be scared or ashamed of what God gave me in the first place? I've come to love and adore my dark skin and my full figure, so why not my natural hair? Why do people assume having natural hair means looking raggedy, or being militant, or lesbian? (All stereotypes and assumptions I've heard based on women having natural hair). What's with all the stigma around it? Why are WE such haters of our natural hair?
The only reason I was getting perms was because my mother felt my hair was not manageable. She didn't want to put forth the effort that's all. When I tell people I'm going natural, I don't get bad comments because my hair looked naturally straight when I was perming it, but it's naturally wavy.
ReplyDeleteThe more I talk to people about it, the more I start to think that it may just be a southern thing. My friends and relatives in/from the south are much more adamant about me keeping a perm, but those from above the Mason-Dixon line are much more supportive. Amazing how the opinions differ depending on where you are!
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