Why Loving Our Natural Hair Is Important

So last week I went to my hair salon “Hair Rules” run by my family friend Anthony Dickey to get my hair cut since I hadn’t been there since September, and I was long overdue. I’ve been wearing my hair natural since then, and after many trials and errors, I finally think I’ve found a remedy for my hair so I know what to do with it when it’s naturally curly.

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When I made my appointment, my initial intent was to leave Dickey’s with my hair curly after I had it cut. But I was informed while there that my hair would need to be blown out and styled then cut. After that they’d wash it again and style it curly. I had no desire to spend that much time getting my hair straightened then curled so I decided to have them leave it straight so I could leave right after my cut.

It looked like this:

When I came into work the next day I got many compliments from the women I work with (all black), telling my how pretty I looked with straight hair. Even my mother said I looked better with my hair straightened. Instead of feeling happy with the praise, I was depressed that in order for people to find me “beautiful” I had to straighten my hair. I like my natural hair and while I’ll admit it might take a little more tender love and care to keep it looking right, I think it’s worth it.

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So I had no problem washing it out after the usual week of bearable itchiness surpassed so I looked like this:

Every young girl of color goes through a moment in her life when she looks at the children around her, the covers of magazines, the women in films and sees someone who looks nothing like her and she starts to think something is wrong with her. I had this moment about when I was seven. I went to a private school in Brooklyn and had mostly white friends, I was always asking my parents why I couldn’t look like them, why I didn’t have “good hair.”

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While I thankfully grew out of this over time, I spent years worshipping straight hair and while I hate to place blame on anyone, I will have to say the women of color I surrounded myself with readily agreed that I should straighten my hair since it would make me look pretty. I was once told my hair was my beauty and I had to straighten it if I wanted to look beautiful and believed it!

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Now I have nothing against women who choose to straighten their hair be it simply by blowing it out, relaxers, keratin or any other treatments they decide. However, I believe that by instigating that straightening our hair makes us beautiful will make our daughters believe that they aren’t beautiful.

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If I have daughters I don’t want them to ever think that they are less than someone else by the consistency of their hair or the color of their skin.When I look at someone like Lupita Nyong’o, who I personally think is one of the most beautiful women in the world and nothing about her has been altered to fit a norm, and I wonder why more women can’t see that same beauty in themselves. I hope that we will all soon be able to look at our hair, our skin and our features with pride, and find ourselves beautiful because of our differences, not in spite of them.