Monday, June 4, 2012

Demonizing of the Natural Haired Has Begun

I read an article on madamenoire.com entitled "Shyte Natural Girls Should Stop Saying and Doing..." To read it, you can go here. The article is basically saying that women with natural hair need to stop judging women with relaxed or weaved hair. I find that this article completely misses the mark.  I've never said to anyone, "You need to stop putting that creamy crack in your hair."  Hair advice has only been given when asked. 

I also find this article to be disturbing because when I went natural everybody and their mama had something to say about my hair.  People whom I barely talked to where telling me that I needed to get a perm and giving me the number to their hair dresser. Older men where telling me that I would never find a husband. I got called manly.  One of my ex-coworkers flat out asked me, "Your man let you walk out of the house like that?" And her hair was thin and broken off.  Just the other day, I went to a beauty supply store to look for hair accessories and they were two ladies shopping for wigs. They laughed at me as soon as I walked through the door.  I get negative comments all the time from women who barely have any hair at all but I never comment back.  And you never see me mention these things because I do not care.  All the positivity, confidence, maturity, and identity that I've gained from going natural outweighs all of that.  To me, it is a personal decision; it is not natural versus relaxed/weaved. Spike Lee brought up this messed up psychology in "School Daze."  I'm not doing this "good" hair versus "bad" hair thing.

If there are a few natural women out there telling other women that they should stop getting relaxers and weaves, then let them kept doing it.  They have every right to do so with all of the comments that I've gotten over the years. It's almost as if women with relaxed hair get a pass with their comments because they fit into the status quo.  Then if a woman with natural hair makes a comment, then she is stepping out of bounds.  All of sudden, she is aggressive and judgemental.  It's okay for everybody else to say anything they want about natural hair but the girl with the natural hair has no authority to say anything about anything.

When it comes down to it, there was no need to write this article;  just like there was no need for me to mention the negative comments that I've gotten. If I am able to ignore all the negative comments from other people without there being a problem and without me judging them back, then women with relaxed or weaved hair can do the same.  If you're confident about yourself and how you style your hair, then you don't care what other people say anyway.  Ultimately, it's about growth and positivity that can be gained and passed around from going natural and this is what should be written here.  That article should be entitled, "Shyte That Don't Even Matter."

Whenever there's a movement in America, there is always a need to attack it.

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