It was reported earlier this week that two women were denied jobs at Six Flags in Maryland because they wear their hair in dreadlocks. Go on and get your chuckle for a moment, then take a step back and realize we live within a community in which the expression by hairstyles becomes part of the fabric of who we are.
Take a ride around this weekend and really look at your people, check out brothers with mohawks, the baby afros, ceasars, baldies, cornrows, the cats with the 360 waves spinning and the occasional brother stuck in the 80's with the Duke working. Check out how the hairstyle is just about as important as the bop in his step when he walks. But on the real fellas, Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony have cut their cornrows, it's about time for you to do the same, I'm tired of seeing you cats trying to hold on, that era is dead. As a matter of fact, cut those damn Mohawks too and stop sending your baby boys out there with that mess on their heads!
While you're out and about, camp out at any hair salon in the hood and you'll see a menagerie of Black female expression that isn't always good. Sure, there's the women with the dreads, the close cropped do, the Halle Barry style still works, old women rock that Della Reese style, many of you make your way to the Dominicans and get that doobie tightened up and a lot of you sit for two days with the Africans and get those microbraids and that's all well in and good, do your thang sistas!
However, way too many of you are getting your hair done like you're about to perform at the Soul Train Awards, too many of yall are rocking those big Beyonce weaves and wigs! I really don't get it, have you ever stepped back and really looked at yourself? I'm not talking about that, "I'm conceited, I got a reason" look, I'm talking about really picked apart what this hair means for you? I really want to know the reason for the weaves, I'm gonna need you to say something baby, because I really have to understand why would you bypass doing something with your hair to pay an outrageous amount for a lion's mane?
I know some of you reading this have eight extra pounds of hair sewn in right now and you're probably mad at me, but I don't give a damn, if you aren't going on tour, it really looks silly. It's crazy that next to all of those kool-aid colored, aerodynamic hairstyles some of you favor (shoutout to Trenton!), the weave is becoming part of Black female expressionism and you wonder why you can't keep a man, we like to run our fingers through your hair without pulling a track out! I'm not even gonna talk about you wig wearing chicks, let the church ladies have their thing.
The time has come for the laziness to stop, whatever happened to rolling your hair up at night? Do you still wear rollers? How much trouble is it to comb and wrap, wake up and let it down? That's part of the allure of Black women, knowing she took that extra time to look good that morning, just for you. Ask any brother if he's excited by knowing his woman really took her time to style her hair for that Maxwell concert and didn't just have her #68 wig, and watch that Nigga smile like he beat a speeding ticket!
Understand that I'm having fun, but I'm very serious, because this is reaching pandemic proportions. I saw three little girls walking into the bank the other day with lace fronts (?) on and I had to restrain myself from going to shake their mom. Whatever happened to braiding your daughter's hair and putting beads and barrettes in it? Oh yeah, we do that for our sons now…
1 comment
Teef,
You are really saying something with this one. I was thinking the other day that it's becoming damn near epidemic the amount of weave/Indian hair/remi/wigs on the streets. Frankly I don't understand it, and the worst part about it is it's not cute!
I occasionally see a story or two about a Black woman's "journey" to go natural and I shake my head at the notion that it should take a leap of faith and "courage" to wear your own hair. I believe Black women are the only group for whom it's a struggle to wear your own hair in the way that it came.
I'm not suggesting that everyone needs a natural... but the idea that false hair has become so normalized is troubling to the maximum.
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