Society Views on Kinky vs. Straight Hair

Coming from the South to New York, I thought that I would finally get rid of the 1960 ways that Southern Americans are still living in. I thought that North would be different from the South because over the years the South has been still enduring the psychological effects of slavery. The Willy Lynch theory and slave mentality shows the many effects of these individuals.

When I made it to New York to accomplish my dream without having to deal with any prejudice, I still encountered it, and it was from my own family. My family bashed me for my hair as they seen me. They didn’t understand why I would go on an interview in Manhattan displaying my natural, soft, puffy hair pinned up neatly in an updo by bobby pins. They proposed me perming my hair or using a texturizer. They felt that I would look better going on the interviews with straight hair. My own cousin, at the age of 11, said my hair wasn’t pretty because it wasn’t straight like white people. As these insults were flying through my brain , creating stains and leaving its marks in my memory box, I started to see that New York was just like any other place in the United States.

The media has consumed our daily lives everyday. We see diversity on major television stations with black anchors and actresses, but the diversity that we see are just darker reflections of white people. We do not see many black natural hair women. We haven’t seen this diversity since the Cosby’s, but even Claire Huxtable displayed on the show as a business woman wouldn’t dare to be seen in braids or an afro because to viewers it would loose her sophistication and class that she carried along with her being a lawyer on the show.

Attending FAMU, it had me forget about the American standard of beauty outside the campus. I forgot my own experience with trying understand the standard of beauty at a young age. At the age of 12, I begged my mother for a perm. I was tired of getting teased from classmates because of my thick, puff, soft as bounty hair. It was the natural state of hair that God gave me, but my hair was different from the many children around me. I didn’t have hair that was similar to the children in school. Their hair was straight and when damp it displayed big loose curls, and my hair when damped, displayed small tight curls. They teased me because their standard of beauty was different.

When I first got my perm, I was so excited. I finally thought that I reached this level of beauty that the kids talked about and the celebrities had that I seen on TV. When the new growth in my hair began to show, I knew it was the ‘bad hair’ being showcased, and I needed to get a perm. When everyone saw the new growth, they told me that I’m lucky because I have ‘good hair’ and I don’t need to get a strong perm. What is good hair? Chris Rock tried to tell us in his documentary, but it neglected to go into details on why black people think straight hair is ‘good hair’. How is the natural hair texture that we are given by God bad hair? There’s no such thing. Why must us black women and society teach our children that straight and long hair is the best kind of hair to have? Do our hair really make us who we are? Does our hair make up our personalities? We have been subjected to this television propaganda giving us subliminal messages that black hair is not good hair unless it is mixed with hair from India or synthetic. This is purely ridiculous. Since when did our hair showcase our personal attributes? Why must I have to go on a job interview with a perm?

Because television has been embedding our children with false information telling black children that their natural hair is bad, it is up to parents to teach their children that the media is wrong. Black successful individuals must be role models to children, and tell these children that they are beautiful the way they are. I have been stared at by white people every time I wear my big fro in public. Some may think I’m part of the black panther party, probably scared thinking I’m trying to bring back the 80s, but I’m just displaying the hair God gave me. I even get stares from black people.

Before I made it to NY, I was in the airport and I seen some elementary students walking with their teacher. One of the little girls resembled me as a child. Just like me, she was different from the other children at her age. She had natural puffy hair, while the other children had straight hair. As the children passed, this little girl paused and starred at me and saw her hair was similar to mine. Here I was in the airport wearing this big fro and wearing a FAMU Alumni shirt and I smiled at her, showing her you can succeed in life no matter what your hair looks like, and it is alright to be different then what television shows us.

A friend by the name of Ms. Callendar gave me this quote,
"Don't remove the kinks from your hair. Remove them from your brain."-Marcus Garvey

Black women-something new?

This past weekend for the fourth of July, I went to Orlando to have a relaxing vacation. One of my friend’s who was with me brought her friend along with us to Orlando. Her friend, who was white, joined five black women on an exciting tour of the town. When we arrived, we went to two separate majority all black clubs and then we all noticed that our white friend was getting all the attention from black men. Everywhere she went with us, all the black men followed. She got more attention then us black women, who came in all shapes, looks, hairstyles and sizes. She even got more attention than all the other black women in the club. I wasn’t mad at the girl because she was cool to hang with, I was just curious to why so many black men wanted solely this white girl in an all black club. My friend Alvin told me, “It’s like when your not use to seeing something your curious about it and therefore you want to know about it.” He said it would be the same thing if a black man was in an all white club.


After seeing this reaction with black men to our white friend, I noticed that black women are really depending too much on black men to be loyal to black women and solely date them. I think it is time for black women to…date outside their race. “All black women should try at least once in their lives to date a white man,” said one of my friends, CAT. Im am a strong advocate for black love, but oviously there is more disapproval of black love among black men than black women so why not change the way us black women think. Why don’t we think more like the black men?

I currently believe that black woman don’t date outside their race because 1) They don’t know where to meet other races and 2) They have a strong commitment to the black race because they have been currently caring the race over the past few years. Black women currently account for:
 Double the bachelors degrees than black men
 71 percent of all masters degrees earned by African Americans
 Majority of the black entrepreneurship

Along with education, black women are raising most black children without a father figure in their household. I’m not trying to butcher the black male, but until these statistics change, I think that black women need to start dating outside their race. It seems that black women settle for the “bum” black man because of not seeing many successful black men and seeing all the successful black men dating white women. They become inpatient and end up dating the black men who are players, criminals or lazy to just have a man because of the scarcity of black men. I think that black women should not settle for less then the best. Rather then settling for a black man who is not doing anything with his life, they should open up their options and date outside their race. This might help the statistics of black women being married rise or it could give them something to do until they meet that good black men.But black women make sure you look at all your options! Dont solely go looking to date a man just because he is of another race and distant yourself from all black men. It might be a form of 'self hatred'. The truth is that you might have dating problems because you do not like yourself and your black skin. My point is to just be open-minded about dating other races.
PART 2 BLACK MEN SPEAKING DOWN ON BLACK WOMEN(One of their reasons for interracial dating) COMING UP SOON

Rappers influence on black men

It seems to me that men don’t want a good woman. I’m getting tired of these rappers parading women in their videos around like their sexual objects. I’m getting tired of seeing artist dating strippers. What is this telling the world? In order to be with black men then you have to be overly sexual. I know a lot of attractive young females, but I feel that men just don’t want the good girl these days. They want the good hoe. To all the men who say “girls like bad boys.” This is such a lie. The only reason these men are saying this is because they may be seen as unattractive to the women they are approaching or they are a ‘pushover’. You don’t have to be a bad boy to showcase style and a great personality. Women just don’t want to date a ‘pushover.’ We want a man who is strong. It’s all about confidence. I would take a good guy with a career any day over some street pharmacist or ‘wanna be’ rapper.
I’m fed up with most rappers. They are the most influential people in this country, but all I hear on television is the same coonery degrading women. I hate when rappers say that they shouldn’t be blamed for what’s going on in the black community. Hello, black children are being raised by you. Their parents can’t raise them because most of their fathers are absent and their mothers work long hour jobs just to provide for their children. I think rappers are playing the coward role. They are not standing up against these record companies and speaking about some real issues that will help our community. The only thing I hear is “hoe shake this” and “bit#$ bend over”. It’s no wonder our black men are treating us like we are all hoes.
As a black woman, I feel that I have endured every stereotyped thrown at me, whether it’s been a stereotype associated with me or a stereotype I have encountered dating a black man. Sometimes it feels almost hopeless to obtain love with a black men. I just knew that I would marry a strong black virtuous men when I was younger, but with the constant statistics that I hear from the media about black women being unmarried to what I see in media as a representation of black women married to black men, I get doubtful at times. I may be young, but I’m already tired of the dating scene. It seems like every guy I encounter thinks his life consists of an imaginary rap video with all the hoes, and I refuse to be that video hoe playing any part in it.
I just want some diversity in music. I want to hear music speaking positively about a black women without calling saying, “I love my bad bit$h”. Folks, that is not a compliment. I want to have a black men approach me with class for once.