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This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of a girl being suspended from education for wearing her hair the way it naturally grows out of her scalp and the fact that this principal is black herself is even more ridiculous.

In my what is good hair and how to get it post, I talked about how it seems that we’ve been brainwashed into the idea that afro, coarse or kinky hair is unacceptable, unmanagable and needs to be covered with weaves or tamed using chemicals where as silker hair textures and looser curl patterns get praised. I can’t help but believe that european beauty standards have been ingrained so far into our heads that we subconciously look down on african features such as tightly curled, coarse kinky hair and believe that if someone’s hair is worn in this natural state something is wrong and needs changing. Who said that sleek hair was professional and who told us that wearing our hair in it’s natural state, how it naturally grows from our scalp is unprofessional? It’s all in our heads.

“Remove the kinks from your mind not your hair” – Marcus Garvey

Imagine a world where curly and textured hair was the norm. In 9o% of magazines, tv shows and films, women of all races wore their hair in a curly style. Now imagine that a woman with silky straight hair walked into your school/college/work place. You wouldn’t suggest that this woman needed to use damaging tools, harsh chemicals, cover their hair with a weave that matches the ‘desired’ hair texture (in this case curly) and style their hair in un-natural styles that can cause long term damage simply because the world you live in admires curly hair and not silky straight? That would be ignorant right? So why is this any different when it comes to wearing afro hair the way it naturally grows from the scalp.

While the media does play a big part in the representation of natural hair or the misrepresentation should I say, we as black people can do things ourself to try to shift this. If you relax your hair no you don’t have to go natural (I know that people say natural hair isn’t for everyone), but if you don’t already you could embrace your roots and support anyone around you that is natural, including young children. Growing up around family members who relax their hair and watching films and TV programmes featuring black women with straight relaxed hair  makes straight hair in childrens eyes the ‘norm’. Because of this they may grow up and also want to relax their hair as no-one’s physically shown them that their natural hair is perfectly normal and beautiful. Huffing, puffing and sighing while styling childrens hair may also cause them to grow up believing that their natural hair is ‘bad’, unmanageable and that a relaxer will make it ‘better’ and easier to do when in reality their hair just needs to be managed differently. There’s lots of resources online targeted at natural and relaxed hair care including this blog. Youtube is also great for tutorials.

I would like to hope that as the natural hair movement becomes bigger and more people embrace the way their hair naturally grows from their scalp, that society will starts to realise that this is simply how black hair naturally grows and so also begin to embrace it instead of telling us that natural hair is unacceptable.

What do YOU think!? feel free to comment below 🙂