Relaxed, Natural or Someone Else’s?

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By Dani

I have always considered myself versatile in how I like to wear my hair.  Now that I am trying to venture into the professional world, I have to take how I wear my hair a little more seriously.  After high school, I finally made the decision to stop getting relaxers, and have loved my decision ever since.  Since then, I have rocked my curly fro, I have gotten it pressed straight, worn it simply blow dryed with a headband and have gotten weave during the summer because its harder to maintain my hair during the hotter months.  Being in college around a myriad of hairstyles influenced me to try different colors, longer weave, and even debate getting locks…

However, we know as Black women, our hair is a sensitive topic!  India Arie broke through with her song “I Am Not My Hair”, but girl, I care about my hair a lot, as do most of us.  To some, it seems as if when I wear weave, I am suppressing my true identity because I “desire to look/be like another race”. I do not feel this way because I love the way my hair looks naturally–I just get bored with the same style.  Not to mention the fact that weave tends to be extremely convenient :). I must admit that the weave does seem to get a bit overboard in the nightlife scene of my hometown (Atlanta). And on TV!  When was the last time you saw a woman rocking her “NAT-CHU-RALE” in a music video?……………thinking?………still thinking?………exactly.  It’s unfortunate that while some women wear weave occasionally for convenience and variety, others swear by it because they hate the way their real hair looks.  I went to college with a girl who said she had never seen her mom’s real hair in 20 years of living.  Needless to say, I had never seen hers :-/

Depending on the profession however, many Black women find it difficult to gel or blend in the mix of their other co-workers when they wear their full, beautiful Afros for an extended period of time. Its like people get scared that we’re gonna start a revolution or something because we rock a fro…It’s just a fro! For some, the good-ol perm (relaxer) has done us justice every six weeks, and kept us out of the conversation at work for the most part, but is making my hair become painfully straight how God destined things to be?  Does it matter?

We have a pretty hard time finding the niche’ of out tresses, but whatever you decide to do with your hair, make sure its cute :) Represent!