Dont Allow Your Hair to Define You....

In Frankie Lennon’s memoirs “The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life” Plaits was a very intriguing story. I found it very interesting that hair supposedly defines a woman’s beauty, now and even back then. When discussing hair two categories come about “Good hair” and “Bad hair”. I can understand the authors feeling of her hair being categorized as “bad hair”. I was told the same thing growing up.When growing up I always wondered why I had to wear a shower cap when taking a shower and other girls did not. Why did my hair curl up when it was wet? I had the same dream of having the Shirley temple curls when I was young. I wanted my curls to be silky and shiny like other non-colored little girls.

I think that colored women face this dilemma every day. The image of beauty that society presents is hair must be beautiful has long silky and luxurious hair. And anyone who does not depict this figure can’t be seen as beautiful. That’s why I believe the hair extension epidemic has grown so strong, in all races.
I must admit when I was younger I thought just as the media wanted me to think. I did agree that a woman hair did define her beauty, in whatever way she desires to style it. It was until I heard India Arie’s single “I am not my hair” that I was able to understand the way you were your hair does not define you.

“I am not my hair,I am not this skin, I am not your ex-pec-tations ....I am not my hair I am not this skin I am a soul that lives within”…
“Does the way I wear my hair make me a better person?...Does the way I wear my hair make me a better friend?...Does the way I wear my hair determine my integrity?
I had always wanted long and silky smooth hair, because I thought that’s what attracted the opposite sex. I had to learn that it is the inside that matters. I believe that a woman is beautiful whether her hair is long and silky-smooth, cut short, or shaved bald. I can now say that I am proud of my hair, whether people want to call it nappy, coarse tangled or just plain old “bad hair”. I have learned to accept me as I am, and that as a colored woman I am different. I have learned we are not made the same as someone else for a reason. It took me a long time to come to this conclusion.