I remember from a young age, my mother buying packages of Remy African hair and working for hours to completely cover my head in her signature African-style braids. My braids were a significant part of my identity; however, they made me feel different. Going to a predominantly white school, I would get constantly receive ignorant comments such as:
“Why are you wearing fake hair when you have hair?”
“I would never wear weave.”
“Mop.”
And sometimes, the occasional Caucasian hand would slither into back of my braids and tug on them, as if they expected the braids to fall out or as if they were simply curious to discover how the braids ‘worked.’ As if my hair possessed some sort of mystical properties. As if I was some sort foreign creature and not a fellow human being.
To exist in an environment where you are the shiny new toy for your white peers to play with is not an experience fit for anyone. In a Teen Vogue Youtube video entitled, ‘Black Women Share Their Hair Stories,’ Amandla Stenberg and other Black women spoke out against the inherent stigma surrounding Black women and our locs in the status quo. Stenberg explains that we live in world in which beauty is mass-marketed to the general population as white. She comments that growing up, all her dolls had straightened hair and even the Black girls that appeared on television had straight hair as well. When society or the people around us create false standards of beauty to tell others what their God-given features should look like, it creates an intense desire to conform to or to reach these unrealistic Eurocentric standards of beauty.
From as early on as 8 years old I started heavily relaxing and straightening my hair. The braids that I once loved, I then refused to wear. Little did I know, the heavy chemicals and heat I was constantly applying to my hair began to damage it. My hair has lost its natural curl pattern, began to break off easily, and began to thin significantly. In my haste to consume the propaganda that society was force feeding me, I damaged a part of my identity that I once held dear.
When you gawk at us, when you you stare, when you touch our hair, when you stereotype us, when you label us as different, you are invalidating our experiences and culture, while simultaneously declaring Eurocentric and white beauty ideals as superior. When you consciously decide to pet our hair, you unconsciously devalue you us. While some children and frankly adults are curious, curiosity must take a backseat to basic human decency. No matter the color of your skin, white, black, or anything in between, we as individuals are the standards of our own beauty. Since my younger days, I have learned to love my natural curls and my own beauty. If you want others to appreciate you, it is imperative that you first appreciate yourself.
