Good Hair? Bad Hair? No... Your Hair

For some very odd reason, some folks thought that Hair Week would be a treatise against natural hair. Not sure what gave you that impression. I have nothing against natural hair. Nothing at all. Nope.

Just Wednesday night, I had a whole convo with a lady in the oils lane at the Farmer's Market. She didn't understand how to use her coconut oil. I told her what she needed to do and how to mix it with something else. I was glad to be helpful. I've been known to mix up a concoction for someone's head now and again. Again, I am just glad to be helpful.

Some of my friends have natural hair. I've put up pictures and done posts on my blog, because I have natural hair friends who like to see the pictures. Here are some older pictures...

The Green Eyed Bandit's Bantu Knots:




My friend Dawn's twists:


As recently this Saturday, I took pictures of Green Eyed Bandit's 2 week old twists...










I even took pictues of my friend Aunt Rae-Rae's natural hair...



An interesting conversation occured concerning her hair.

"Rae-Rae, you hair, is it naturally wavy like that?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"So no perm, no nothing?"
"No, just my hair?"


I looked over at Green-Eyed Bandit. "So, is her Aunt Rae Rae's hair considered natural hair?"
"Yes,"Green-Eyed Bandit replied. "It's natural hair because their are no chemicals."
Aunt Rae Rae nodded in agreement.
"Rae-Rae got that good natural hair!" I said.

Green Eyed Bandit yelled at me. "You better not say "good natural hair" on your blog!!!".

I frowned."What, Man?"

She repeated herself. "Don't say "good natural hair"! Don't do it!"

Right, right. Can't say that.

Because that's improper. I will get lit up.

Hell, I just found out that the word "nappy" is a bad word. You not suppose to use it due to it's connotations as a bad word or something like that.

Right, right.

So many rules.

A lot of the sh** is new.

New rules.

Tell me somthing: Is Aunt Rae-Rae's hair considered natural by the Natural hair people? Or does she not count because she probably doesn't experience shrinkage, she has no tight curl pattern (nappiness, if you want me to be politically incorrect)?

I don't know. I'm just asking.

Here is my issue. First, I don't really need to be worried about this type of stuff anyway. It's a high class worry issue. It means that I have no other problems in life, so I can worry about things that are relativity insignificant to the daily woes of my own life.

Second, if you have known me for any length of time, you will soon figure out the type of person I am, and one of my major characteristics: I support my friends in their endeavors.

I have an eclectic crew of friends. Many have diverse interests. I support this. If you like kayaking, I'm going to ask you about it. I'm going to go read an article or two on it, so I can have an intelligent conversation with you about it. If I know there is some special gear you need, I will run in the nearest sport store and get it for you, just to surprise you. If you have a race or competition, or you just going kayaking on a challenging river, well, if I can make my way there, I'm going to come watch and cheer you on. Just because I would never do such activities for myself... you NEVER have to worry about me turning my nose up and criticizing you for doing something you obviuosly enjoy. I just pat you on the back and say "GREAT JOB! I AM PROUD OF YOU!"

That's the way I am.

Same way with the natural hair interests. I will ask you about it. It is something you are interested in. CowgirlCre is natural. I was quick to bring her some of my shea butter and coconut oil to use if she needed it. Told her some stuff to do.

"You have to watch the youtube videos, girl!"

"You have to do that DC and cowash stuff, girl!"

"Talk to Serenity and them, girl. She don't mind helping you. She don't mind at all!"

I think I even took camera phone pics of her hair and sent them to folk so she could get some assistance or just to share with some of my natural hair folk.

Here is my dilemma.

So as I said, I like to be knowledgable and supportive. That means going to read what you read, etc... so I can have an intelligent convo with you. Nothing wrong with that. But Lord have mercy, just reading some of the posted links some have put up, when reading comments... wow... there are some hateful chicks out there. Not sure why some natural hair people make such vile comments about women with perms. Just vile and uncalled for.

After all, weren't you all JUST permed up? Within the last 10 years? Had just as much perm in your hair as the next chick. And to top it off, I remember much wailing at the BC (big chop) and TWA (teeny weeny afro) stages, because people were telling you how much they didn't like it. Some of you had to suffer through those stages of people making comments.

Now you wanna turn around and hate on people with perms.

Right, right. That's real fair isn't it.

Then I got on twitter. Bunch of natural hair chickens over there.

And my timeline is sprinkled with "Natural Hair Rules" comradarie. Nothing wrong with that.

But it gets a bit strong at times. Deeply narcassisic. Easy to just log out and go do something else.

Because I'm sorry, it's just too much. To the point where one guy, who's woman has natural hair tweeted "I love natural hair, but ya'll really need to get over yourselves!"

I hurried up and got off of there. I don't follow the guy. But other folk started retweeting it, which usually means they are in agreement too.

I don't know if I agree with that. Ladies in my immediate vicinity aren't like that. I asked one of my friends who has been natural for 20 years why she doesn't act like that. I mean, I notice her hair and all, it is always beautiful, but there is not all of this "Look at me, look at me, I'm natural and you're not" attitude.

Her simple response was "It's just hair. It's just hair."

And she took a few mintues to explain to me why this phenomena is occuring. And how nobody cared when it wasn't a popular fad.

A good history lesson, it was. I hold her words close to me. They keep me from going nuts.

It's just hair. But it saddens me that we as black women have used it as yet another weapon to have the one-uppance on one another and to put each other down. Long ago it was skin color. Your acceptance was based on whether your skin was lighter than a paper bag or not. Then it became permed hair was better than kinky natural hair. (Can I say the word "kinky"?). Now it's natural hair. If you don't have natural hair, then it means you don't like yourself. That you don't care about your health. There is something wrong with you.

Really?

My sister had some stress issues and her hair fell out. When it started growing back, she decided to not perm it. She told me that she was gonna try to "go natural". It pained me to have to talk to her about this, not because she was going natural- I support whatever she does- but I had to talk to her to make extra sure that she wasn't around friends who were looking down on her for having permed hair. If that was the reason she was doing it, well, I was going to have to spend time talking to her about that, and the difference between doing things you want to do versus doing thing due to pressure from friends. (She got some extra special friends. They chide her for having hobbies that they don't like. Sigh).

I remember how some natural hair people got upset when Jill Scott permed her hair. I was O_o when it came to this. You don't pay Jill Scott's mortgage or bills. So you really can't be all pissed and annoyed that she permed her hair. The woman may have wanted a change. That is her choice. Live with it. Be happy that you apparently have nothing substantial to be concerned with, so you concern yourself with her hair choices.

Then I saw the following that just had me a bit outraged

"Beyonce would feel better about herself if she had natural hair."

Really? How sick in the head do you have to be to think that, let along tweet such a thing.

Beyonce don't even have to touch her hair. She can pay someone to follow her around and comb and brush and weave it up just right... on demand. Beyonce don't have to brush her teeth or wipe her behind. She can pay someone to do that.

She don't look all that depressed to me because she don't have hair like YOU.

Like the fellow said in his tweet. Get over yourself.

Then something interesting happened: I got lectured about putting a perm in my own hair. Mind you, perm stays in my hair for about 2 minutes before I rinse it out. But I got lectured. By a natural hair person.

Man, that was interesting. I was still dazed and confused by the Beyonce comment (made by someone else). So this was mild. And just someone trying to be helpful.

But here's a helpful hint: it's pretty rude to lecture someone who has health problems that affect their hair. Rude. I'm just trying to work things out for my own hair. Don't need to be lectured about what it does to my body. Sorry, but that ain't the cause of my health problems.

But people don't know any better. I've been lectured before. I will be lectured again. I have good control. I don't snap on people. I stay calm. But at the same time, several people saw the lecture and one tried to rescue me. I turned on her. I felt HORRIBLE about that. I made sure to apologize behind the scenes. Made extra sure. I don't want ANY bad blood with certain people, and that was one person I consider an asset. Not a good look. Plus this had a bad affect on those who saw the whole exchange. They felt bad. I had to talk to them about it. I also let out my true hurt feelings to some over it. It is rare for me to share my emotions with people. But I am thankful for those who didn't blow me off and let me just share. I think I even shed a few tears over it in my personal time. That's not good.

One thing you will learn about me: I don't care if you criticize me or what I do. I am grown. A highly accomplished woman with my own choices and life. However, I am DEEPLY affected when people around me are emotionally affected in any negative way by something I go through. That bothers me something terrible, to the point where I disappear. I never want to be the source of anyone's discomfort.

With that said, it was time to get away from twitter. It's one of those mental honeybuns of my life. I engage with mentions of me that come to my phone. I don't go on twitter and read any timelines. Nope. And there is more free space in my mind due to it. And I am happy for that.

No I don't hate natural hair. My hair has been "natural" for two months. I have a thinning area that I just don't want to perm. One of my meds or something else is causing a baby hair issue in the top. Otherwise, I would perm it, like I do every 5 weeks or so.

I wouldn't dare say I was natural, as I don't want to be associated with that community. And I have special considerations that frankly, make me exempt. I don't want this to ever be a major topic of my conversations. Ever. I just don't care much of anything about such, and it is not a hobby, etc.

It's just my hair. And I don't EVER want my hair choices to be a criteria of whether I am acceptable or unacceptable as a human being. Ever.

I don't hate natural hair. I just have issues with the group mentality. And it's like with any group mentality: there is always a very small percentage who holler "This is who I am, so this is who you should be too."

Naw. That ain't the case. We are all individuals. With our individual lives and ideals. Our interactions should teach and increase us. Not degrade and decrease us.

This is a small percentage within any big group. It's the reason I don't care to join a vegetarian group. Nope, I don't want to look down on meat eaters. Just want to learn. And i understand that it's all like having a cup of milk. The milk is nutritious, but there are flies in the milk. You gotta get around these "flies". I'm the type that unless it is waaaaay improtant to me, I aint dealing with the fly in the milk. A convoluted example, yes. But you get what I'm saying.

Maybe I'm being unreasonable? Maybe. I just choose to believe that whether you have "Good hair" or "Bad hair", that it shouldn't matter. What matters is that it is YOUR HAIR.

Do with it as you please. Whether it is natural, or permed up and dyed and bright pink.

You do you, and I will do me.

As long as you are happy with who you are, and the good choices you make for yourself. And it's not based on whether others are happy with you, or unhappy with the choices you make... for yourself and your own life.

I still have a couple more hair posts to put up. Just my personal thoughts all week concerning things. Blogger was being a buster for a good 24 hours and not letting me post. So i am a little behind.

But thanks for joining me and keeping an open mind.

Appreciate that!

I'll leave you with this timely song about hair...




You have a fine holiday weekend... On purpose!