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