I peruse natural hair blogs on a daily basis particularly on weekdays. Authors will go out of their way not to use the word "nappy". They will use words like natural, kinky, curly, coily, anything besides describing it the way African hair is...nappy. Nappy has a negative connotation founded by our foremothers of hair that needs to be "done", i.e. straightened. This reminds me of the language hopscotch that African-Americans do when trying to identify themselves. They/we are Black, brown, colored, African-Americans, negros, niggas, blah, blah, blah. All these alternative words for (here's another word) textured hair how we identify ourselves as a race are just measures to babysit our terribly fragile egos. Black people as a collective have a very poor self-esteem and strangely anything even remotely attibutable to old negative descriptions of Black people are not acceptable. This explains when (white) people say all Black people look alike when...they do just like every other race looks like itself, people get upset. What is wrong with looking like Black people if you're a Black person? What is wrong with calling yourself Black? What is wrong with having nappy hair?
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