The Biggest Haters of the Natural Hair Movement

More and more Black women are discovering their natural beauty which starts and stops with their hair. They are breathing free of the creamy crack, unplugging the pressing combs and wearing their hair just as God intended it. Thanks to the countless number of blogs, forums, websites, and of course the greatest encyclopedia eva, YouTube, Black women are feeling empowered to wear chemical free hair. This journey is not just a physical journey. The journey to wearing non-treated hair is mental. A Black woman has to say 'SHUT UP' to 500 years of hate from both external and internal sources all while learning the mechanics of her own hair and that is no easy challenge. It is made even harder when people who seemingly should encourage the freedom from subscribing to European standards of beauty don't. White people LOVE when Black women wear their own hair. Often Black women who decide to go natural are greeted with compliments from white people. When you are free in your originality (WHITE PEOPLE), you can celebrate others originality as well. Older Black men LOVE natural hair. Younger Black men and other Black women tend to toe the line between loving it and hating it depending on how mentally jacked up they are. However, the biggest haters of natural hair are (drumroll, please) OLDER BLACK WOMEN.

Yes, I said it. I know we don't like to call out our elders, especially our beloved mothers and grandmothers but almost all naturals can attest to their matriarchs saying slick stuff about the natural look not being 'presentable', a stigma of political angst, questioning their sexuality, or downright questioning our mental state. The crazy thing is most of these women had big beautiful afros in the '60s and '70s. They even grew my generations (30 and under) natural hair pretty long before putting in the perm when we were in grade school, from whence some of our hair has never returned. They even bemoan and regret how much damage that 'one-time' when we got the perm and broke all our hair off. These are the same women who are walking around with bald spots in their hair because of decades of perming and pressing their hair. These are the same women who depend on wigs from the Asians that they detest to make them look 'presentable'. The men in their generations love the afros and think their very becoming. What's up with these women?           

Why you trippin' gmom?

A girl (the small ones and the big ones) get their standard of beauty, not from magazines. They get them from their mothers. When Chris rock made that docucomedy called 'Good Hair' about the Black hair industry, he said what prompted him to make the movie was his own very young daughter saying she 'needed' her weave even though he said he told her he loved her everyday. He thus went on to showcase Black women's addiction to perms and weaves instead of looking at the woman who influences this little girl the most-her mom. 

Malaak Compton-Rock i.e. Queen of the Half-Wigs 

Seriously plug in her name in any search engine and here comes a flood of coifs like this.



How much easier would it be for us to love our whole selves (going natural is an expression of self-love) if we knew we would have the support of the older women in our family? Or if they loved themselves first? Too often, this is not the case. To all the Black women over 50 years old who have issues with natural hairstyles:

Why would you want to continue upholding a standard of beauty that places you and your daughters at the bottom?

 Why would you want to continue upholding a standard of beauty that you can barely imitate?

Do you want your daughters to have severe balding like you do from the years of perms and hot combs?

Why is a black woman wearing her hair as it exits the scalp offensive and strange to you but 'awesome' to a white person?  Do you not see the irony in that?

Why is a black woman wearing her hair as it exits the scalp offensive and strange to you but 'awesome' to a Black man your age? Do you not see the strangeness in this?

You are the women who showed the world how cool black hair was in the '70s. Why are you acting funny now?

Older women: Respectfully, deal with your self-hate issues. My generation is S-L-O-W-L-Y dealing its self-hate issues hence the move towards natural hair. But its safe to say, our self-hate issues came from somewhere. The older generations never want to admit their faults but they are there. This is just one example of them