Re: Natural Hair Snobbery

This is my response to an anonymous post on CurlyNikki regarding Natural Hair Snobbery CHECK IT OUT!!!

The first thing I read was that God should not be associated with hair.  And I respectfully disagree.  I see my hair as God given because I believe he is the creator of all things, even the texture of my hair.  When he breathed life into the human race he gave us limbs and organs and purpose – and hair.  So I will continue to claim that my natural hair is given to me by God : ) 

Not only that, but for so long many people did not and could not embrace the beauty they were born with, from skin tone to height to weight to features to hair texture.  Instead of loving what they were born with, they spent money trying to buy the beauty that society sells them.  But now there is enough information that we can boldly wear the hair that not too long ago was (and unfortunately sometimes still is) banned and shunned and considered ugly.  

Also our love for curly hair doesn’t automatically mean that we inherently hate on relaxed hair.  But you posted this on a natural hair blog! What did you expect? While many people do indeed bash on relaxers and texlaxers and any other chemically altering hair technique/product, the mere existence of a site like CurlyNikki is not a slate against straight hair. It is just an acceptance that the blogger and the followers have finally been able to come around to because for so long, we were little black girls with a complex about our own hair. We couldn’t feel beautiful unless our hair was down our backs (or our weave was) because no one ever said we were beautiful unless we had silky straight tresses. And guess what? God didn’t give us hair that grows from the scalp straight!! He gave us the kinks and curls and coils that the natural hair community celebrates.

And there should be no hostility towards that point. Because as someone mentioned, all you have to do is walk outside to be accepted if you are rocking a relaxer or pressed hair. No one will have a problem with your perceived view of the world or assume that you are a political radical. No one will send you back into a salon to “fix” your hair or suggest ways to style your hair as if you didn’t spend hours on your strands *eye roll* 

The heart of the matter is that if I say my blog is about natural hair, why would you come looking for people to praise your chemically treated hair? Life isn’t a Burger King and you can’t always have it your way. But you CAN make it better by making your own space to talk about the proper use and care of texlaxed hair and even if you don’t believe it, we would all support you!!! I would definitely be a follower. The lovely people on CurlyNikki are so encouraging and although there are some questionable comments at times, we are bonding together over the struggles of taking care of our crazy beautiful heads of hair.

You don’t have to throw out your chemicals to be a part of the family but don’t expect a whole lot of discussion on how much people love straight hair. The site isn’t called STRAIGHT Nikki in case you haven’t noticed  ; )  

And I say all this not to be mean or vengeful or rude (although I realize that it may have come off that way), I only say this so that you can understand a little more why hair is such an issue for black women across the globe.  For me personally it’s not as simple as saying “It’s just hair” or else I wouldn’t expend so much energy taking care of it.  I just hope that with all the comments and responses that the original poster does not feel attacked because I, for one, enjoy a good debate!