Hating Your Own Hair a Serious Disease!

Many women are now suffering alopecia because of the constant abuse of their natural hair

By the beauty myth, I mean the idea that for a Black woman to be considered beautiful. She must wear fake hair. These days, the trend is Brazilian hair.

Past fads included Russian, Indian and Peruvian hair. And for those who cannot afford human hair, there is always the synthetic option. No matter the choice, as long as a Black woman is wearing fake hair that has either been glued or sewn onto her own hair, she passes the beauty yardstick.

Aside from fake hair, the beauty myth also says that long acrylic nails and long fake eyelashes are a must. And when I say long, I mean long. For both nails and eye eyelashes. Some even go as far as having long toenails! As if all this is not bad enough, some Black women (and surprisingly some Black men, too) have fallen for the beauty myth that the lighter the skin, the more beautiful the person.

To get this light skin they so desire, dark-skinned people bleach their skin with dangerous chemicals that are known to cause cancer. With all this fakery and skin bleaching, today’s Black woman is looking far from Black. And this concerns me. You see, each race was created with our own unique features. And one of our features as Black people is our kind of hair.

The Black race is the only one whose hair grows upwards. If we want our hair to flow naturally, we can plait, twist or lock it. Another option is to hotcomb it.

Otherwise, the only way we can get our hair to flow down is by chemically straightening it. Incidentally, the chemicals in hair relaxers have also been known to be the cause of cancer in some Black women.

With regards to our skin colour we come in shades of black, while some of us are very dark-skinned others are very light-skinned, not forgetting the shades in-between. Despite this and for a very long time, Black people have been made to feel having light skin and fine straight hair will make them more attractive and also be considered more appropriate to fit into the workplace. When I talk about skin bleaching I do not face much opposition.

At least not as much as I face when I tackle the issue of false hair. It seems women who wear fake hair easily get offended when this topic comes into discussion.

Yet if you ask me, I would say skin bleaching and wearing fake hair are one and the same disease. Because the reason people do both is the same — they either hate their hair and/or skin or feel they will not be accepted unless they change them.

Every time I talk about natural hair, women who wear weaves get up in arms. They take my campaign to encourage women to wear their natural hair as a personal attack. Yet this is not the case. They go on the defensive and there are two phrases I hear time again and again: “I am not my hair” and various opinions that say “It’s my choice to wear a hair weave”.

Sometimes they give me the lame excuse of natural hair being too hard to manage.

So what does “I am not my hair” mean?

We can look at this in two ways. Literally as in meaning, I am not the hair I am wearing. In which case I have to agree. Because as a Black woman, if you are wearing Brazilian, Indian, Russian, Peruvian or synthetic hair, then of course you are not your hair.

Unless you are a Black Brazilian for example, Brazilian hair is for Brazilians, Indian hair for Indians, Peruvian hair for Peruvians and kinky/curly for Black people worldwide. Whether born in the Middle East Africa, Europe, America, Asia or any other part of the world, all Black people are born with strong hair. Our hair comes in all forms of kink. From soft manageable type to the very had tough type that makes you cry as you comb it.

That is our hair. So when a Black woman tells me she is not her hair, I think, well actually you are.
And this is the second way I want to reflect on this issue. Of course, a Black woman is her hair. Just as her teeth, blood, sweat, bones, etc, are part of her DNA.

Hair has been used to identify people. For example, hair found at a crime scene can be traced back to the perpetrator who has committed the crime.

So how anyone can say they are not their hair mystifies me. The hairstyle a person chooses to wear says a lot about them. For example, a conservative person would never wear a Mohican, whilst a person with a flamboyant personality may not only wear a Mohican but dye it an outrageous colour.

Just by seeing this, you decipher something about the person. So, again, people who state “I am not my hair” really mystify me. But try as I might to get this point over to the Black women who weave, they just never seem to get it. Then there is the issue of choice.

Yes, I totally agree that as human beings, we have the right to make our own choices in life. However, I also believe sometimes, the choices we as individuals make, have to take into account the effect our choices have on others. And I wish women who weave would bear in mind how their choice affects all Black women.

You see, we live in a world in which we are bombarded with the image of a beautiful woman being one who is European with long hair.

For the Black woman to be considered beautiful she too must look like her European version. Hence the weaving of false hair. And the bleaching of the skin. Aside from the beauty aspect, there is also this notion that for a Black woman to be accepted, both in the workplace and socially she must conform to this look. And that is what is happening. Black women have been so brainwashed, they have accepted and conformed to this look. And that is what is happening.

Black women have been so brainwashed, they have accepted and conformed to this image imposed on them. Today, for a Black woman to wear natural hair, she is considered Afrocentric, radical, a rebel, or controversial. Wearing false hair is now normal for the Black woman, whilst wearing her own natural hair is not the accepted norm. Does this make any sense?

I (perhaps) might not so anti-weave if this is not the case. But to tell me, as a Black woman, that for me to ahead, to be accepted and to be considered beautiful I have to weave the hair of other races is something I will never buy into.

And each time a Black woman weaves, she makes it harder for those who choose to be natural. That is how their choice affects others.

You see, by conforming, the Black woman is agreeing that “yes indeed, her hair is ugly”. She is agreeing that with natural hair can still teach. She can still drive a bus. She can be a doctor, a dancer, a friend, a mother, a wife, etc. Everything the Black woman is doing now, she can still do with her natural hair. But because we do not see this, Black women no longer believe it.

The Black woman now believes she looks much better with her “ugly” hair hidden under a weave from the head of a Brazilian, Peruvian, Indian or Russian woman. I wonder if Black women ask themselves how real this human hair is? Because if you calculate the amount of hair Black women buy, you have to ask if there are enough women with hair to cater for these numbers? If this is not hatred of your own hair, then what is? And to hate your own hair is I think a serious disease.

Because deep down inside there must be something wrong with the woman that looks in the mirror and hates what stares back at her. Just like the anorexic person hates their body, so too is the hatred of one’s own hair and skin an illness.