EX, I try not to expect anything from anyone. That helps curb the disappointment.
MissKriss is right. Black women are very diverse. That's why it irks me that MOST black women choose to kill their hair because they "like the way it looks". Hey, I'm not going to lie...I used to love perms. But then again I didn't know half the history of black hair in America, nor did I know the health facts related to perming.
MissKriss, said that our hair is "all about us", but is it really?
*SLAVE OWNERS told black women to cover their heads because they didn't like the way it looked.
*Part of our jobs as slaves (if you worked in da Beg Howse) was to style the WHITE WOMEN'S silky, long, flowing hair while hiding our short, nappy mess under a rag.
*MADAME CJ WALKER makes this same SILKY, LONG, FLOWING, hair available to "us" for cheap.
*My MOTHER relaxed my hair so when I got older I followed suit.
All that hair history and not once am I (or any of the people reading this) involved until now. I feel my strong desire to perm was a product of historical/maternal influence, not a truly conscious decision.
Much of not perming and perming is about acceptance of self, not acceptance of blackness. You hair is not just growth, it's a part of our heritage that is unique to us and ONLY us. Why ruin it to look like someone else? But, there are folks out there with natural heads and processed minds. And many processed heads have "natural minds". It goes both ways.
Today I came up with the saying, "Black is Beautiful...after we've worked on it a little." It has been my experience in life that many people are quick to talk about how much they love being black, but hate the very things that set blacks apart from the rest. When you have kinky hair many men won't talk to you, women whisper about you when you walk by, your family always talks about you "old hair" as if it were a person you killed, your own people make assumptions about you upon sight based off the hair texture, BLACK people touch your hair like they‘ve never seen anything like it, BLACK WOMEN come up and tell you that your hair is beautiful but they “don‘t have the guts to pull it off“. All this because you’re permless?? To me, people that feel “it’s no big deal” think that because they’ve never gone through the things my natural friends and I have. Besides, if it’s no big deal then how do you explain what I just told you?
EX, you asked why is hair such sensitive subject. Well, all women are into their hair to, but black women have suffered the most trauma due to white influence. It’s the same reason many Africans bleach themselves and it’s the same reason North Indians think they are better than South Indians. No one likes to hear that they have been strongly influenced by white culture. People hear that and translate it into “Pop thinks you want to be white!!” *lol* If you’re black in America white culture has been shoved down your throat and we need to think about what we can do to start changing that. That’s all I’m trying to say! But for some people THAT’S TOO MUCH. They slap “militant” on my butt and run from the room screaming with their hands over their ears. Sorry, the truth hurts, and if you can’t accept that fact all American Blacks are a product of attempted assimilation then you have a long way to go.
AKA2D: Yes there are more important things in a sense. But talking about perms is not just talking about hair, it’s talking about how this bad white world has tried to make us feel for hundreds of years. That’s a serious topic. How can we move on to bigger things when people still say “good hair”?
------------------
Oh, these little earthquakes
Here we go again...
Doesn't take much to rip us into pieces...
“Tori Amos”
[This message has been edited by Poplife (edited January 26, 2001).]
|
Hybrid Mode
