Am I not my hair???

I love India.Arie’s song “I am not my hair” it speaks about how we cannot or should not be judging others because of how they carry the hair on our heads....As black ladies we get to choose how we want our hair, you can have it long this week then short next week and longer the folowing week. We braid, bond, cut, relax and colour our hair. Though recently I started questioning this, should we really not worry about what is perceived as beautiful hair? Or should we? As a mom to a young baby girl I want to raise her to love and accept herself as she is, this is including her nappy headed hair! Just last week I received a very disturbing e-mail with even disturbing pictures of what the weave is doing to our black sisters’ hairline. I myself am a recovering victim of a receding hair line because of mainly having the weave on for most of the time. What happens is that your hair is braided and tightly pulled back then the weave or hairpiece is sewed onto your hair so that it can sit tightly and look almost natural. Otherwise glue is used to stick it on for the longer beautifully, sometimes curly luscious hair. This comes at a price, a costly price which is your hairline. This is almost if not totally a chronic disease that cannot be cured or reversed.

Now do we want our little black girls to think that beautiful hair is bonded or weaved in Indian Remy or Brazilian hair? Are we saying our locked curly natural hair is not good or beautiful enough? Beginning of this year I walked into a hair salon and asked the hairdresser to cut my chemically relaxed bob cut hair to a brush cut. His question was “who made u upset?”  My response was no one I need to see my natural hair. I did not remember the last time I had my hair grow naturally without any chemicals so that is what I wanted. Walking out of that salon was so liberating felt like I was just born. Now I’m not say all this cause I am team “Au Naturelle” these days... most people that know me will tell you I’m the weave queen. Just that I feel we need to give our hair a break now and again, let it grow and show us what God had in His mind when He created us. Most of all give our baby girls the choice to wisely choose to go natural if they want to...