Good hair, bad hair debate continues
Rebelliously natural, with every curl, every kink, and every damn nap, I wonder why black women continue to believe the myth of good hair and bad hair.
The kink versus the curl, both natural but different. Why does one rest uncriticized and prized while the other is forced to relax?
Maybe the difference offends you or possibly more plausible it is the natural kink you resent, the kink of Yoruba, Ebo, Baraabra, and Kawahla.
The kinky ish, the thick nap...the bad hair versus the defined curl, that wet and go ish...the good hair.
There's always a sort of pressure within the black community. If you have good hair, you're prettier or better than the brown-skinned girl that wears an Afro.
During her "Good Hair" interview, Nia Long highlights the largest travesty in the modern ideal of beauty, an idea of a hierarchy, the idea that the fair skin mulatto with the loose finger wave is prettier than the chocolate girl who gains her shape with a pick instead of water.
Good or bad hair both serve as foolish constructions that pre-colonial America created for you and me years ago, used to separate a race and cripple the implication that black and beautiful coincide.
Due to the nature of the historically fictitious narrative, we define beauty as the closest resemblance to the white Jezebel like Marilyn Monroe, thus unconsciously we define anything, which does not resemble her to be inferior.
Quite often, you will tell the natural girl, "Girl, you are so brave I could never do that."
When did wearing your natural hair become a sign of bravery?
Unless maybe you feel she is making a statement that you are ashamed to make or maybe it is because she goes against the norm but when did normal begin to mean augmentation?
As Paul Mooney said in Good Hair, "When you're hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy then they aren't happy."
Mooney shares how your choice to be relaxed has less to do with you and more to do with the majority.
Frankly, you choose to relax your nap because it puts the white folks at ease.
You will relax your hair to add the $250 bundle of Brazilian Remy, which even with the strongest of perms will never resemble the hair that grows from your scalp.
The idea of good hair and bad hair is simply a modern battle of white versus black, fighting to assimilate to what is seen to be better...white.
Good hair and bad hair is more than just hair, it's a statement that one is greater than another; carrying a greater weight of beauty than one. I hope you have begun to ask yourself why the curl is valued over the nap.
Weaved, relaxed, nappy, and straight, the beauty of the black woman's crown is not defined by its grain or even the nappiest of naps.
The beauty of her crown lies in her confidence.
The bravery of the natural girl is not in her choice to be natural, but rather willingness to accept who she is.
True beauty is an unapologetic bravery to stand as you are with both "good" and "bad"
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