I saw a post on Facebook by a successful black woman who owns a high-end wig store.  She was ranting about the natural hair community being hypocritical.

Here’s the thing…naturalistas don’t care if black women want to wear wigs or weaves.  It’s your money!

But don’t shame me for my natural hair.  Don’t look at me like I’m the dirt on the bottom of your shoe or snigger at my locs and say sarcastic remarks turn up your nose and roll your eyes at us.

The reason why many black women have decided to go natural is because we are tired of dedicating precious time and money to hours and hours in beauty shops getting hairstyles that are not sustainable. We were tired of hairdressers who over book and kept us waiting in beauty shops for precious hours in order to make their quota to pay their “rent” to work for greedy beauty shop owners.  We had enough listening to idiotic and ignorant arguements while sitting in the beauty shop all day.  We were done with painful treatments that use cancer causing chemicals to change the chemical STRUCTUE and tears our natural hair out.

Naomi Campbell with her natural edges exposed

We were tired of , in many cases, staying out of the water and, in many cases, not learning how to swim for fear of messing up our hair.  We were done with being afraid allowing a partner, boyfriend or spouse to caress our scalps or run their fingers through our wigs and weaves.  We were done with crazy expensive prices for all hairstyles. We decided to let go of being sheep.  We recognize the folly of spending over $1000 for the wig or weave that Oprah, Beyonce or Michelle Obama is wearing. ( Yes, I love Michelle and she wears wigs and weaves) Some black women have transcended the simplistic Eurocentric standard of beauty that is shoved in our face by the media and entertainment industry.

We are clued in to the fact that the main reason why black actresses and models in TV and Film are wearing wigs and weaves is because the large corporations who buy advertising to create network TV have subsidiaries that have purchased black hair care companies. We know when these black actresses say that they wear weaves or wigs to “protect” their natural hair this is complete bullshit.

Creating an expensive and difficult to maintain standard of beauty is what corporations do to ALL WOMEN in order to keep us distracted and take our hard-earned money.

Even after knowing all of the facts I stated above, black women still want to feel feminine, beautiful and desired,  In our modern society long flowing hair represents that ideal.

But again… if folks wanna wear wigs and weaves go ahead!  I don’t think that it makes a black woman weak or a bad person if she wears a wig or weave I think it’s that black woman’s choice of how she wants to style her hair.

I also think it’s wise, before supporting the ridiculous rant of a black female wig shop owner, folks should think about her intentions. Be aware…with the internet, largeer society has become aware “black women and hair” issue. Pundits in the media use our hair “issues” as yet another way to attempt to tear apart the black community.

Damn it!!  I got caught up in the fight.

Look the bottom line is… this internal fight makes us weak.  We have more important issues to solve and this is a huge distraction. Go ahead black ladies who weave and wig… tie in that weave put on that wig and let’s come together to talk about healing the REAL issues that our community faces.  Let’s crowdsource our energy to figure out ways of protecting one another, and taking time to develop safe spaces from the real racism.  Let’s remember how to nourish our own sacred mindbodies and create a daily personal practice of self-care and unconditional love.  Let’s come together to crowdsource our  money to buy property and stop gentrificaion of our cities so we can keep our communities.  Let’s work together to break down institutional racism and truly live free. From that space…we can shift the vibration in our communities from the crabs in a barrel mentality we have been taught to exist in since our ancestors were stolen from our mother land and sold into this land as property.

The slave owners knew how to break black women by taking away our natural locs and telling us that our hair is bad, ugly, masculine.  If you’ve transformed that energy and can rock that weave and love yourself authentically and unconditionally awesome.  Come to the table and let’s have a conversation about how black women are being brutalized and figure out solutions for us to protect and heal ourselves.  Come to the table and let’s have a conversation about how black women can bring support and abundance back into our communities creating our own businesses, educating our children and working to change the system of institutional racism that this country is built on.

Our little girls are depending on us. Isn’t that more important that what is on your head?
Ashe.

J9