Hairology

This post is a bit heavier than my usual ones so if you want to laugh...go to the next post :). This is what happens when I blog in the middle of the night *spooky noises* (This blog is awesome. Which other blog will give you such amazing sound effects???)

Due to some walldropping -one of my made up words- on facebook (I am not proud...but we've all clicked on a link that wasn't meant for us, am I right?) I discovered something that's been right under our noses...something that could shake the very foundations of our beliefs as Africans. A discovery that will forever change the way we view life. What is this discovery? Hang on... *suspense-y noises* ( I don't know what they are but they must exist) this post is called hairology so I have to explain that first THEN come back to the discovery. I promise they are related.

The link was to a website about black girls getting back to their roots (literally) and growing back their natural hair i.e. operation ditch the perm. It's something I've been considering so I read a couple of articles and they had some really good info ...but there's something unnerving that stood out in many of the posts. My decision to 'go natural' is mostly for financial(I am poor) and time-saving(I have no time for salons) purposes but from the articles I read its like black girls NEED to be convinced that their natural hair is ok. As in this going natural thing is seriously a revolution(trust me to unwittingly stumble into one). There's a particular jargon associated with it, testimonies, encouragement, the whole package. Personally I think its weird that we have to have a revolution for us to do something which is meant to come to us naturally. When did we get to this point where we have to be told that its possible to keep natural hair? When did we start thinking that we got 'stuck with the bad hair'? Obviously if you treat your hair like a white girl it will break like a nonsense because you may think you're white, but your hair knows better. We don't have to copy everything that's thrown at us.
I'm not saying we all have beautiful hair. Some people just have bad hair, but it's not dependent on race. If you're one of those its ok. These days people make very realistic hair, you can go buy some. I'm not saying its bad to experiment, go try all the colours, chemicals and feathers (I've been seeing them in people's hair of late) you want. I'm just saying don't do it to escape the fact that you're black. We are so self loathing that we have to be told that we are fine the way God made us. We've let other people set standards for our beauty, and we try so hard to get to them without ever wondering what was so wrong with us in the first place.

So what was the discovery? I discovered that its ok to be black.