Natural Hair In African American Women

Black women in America today are embracing their natural hair like no other time. Although any one race can be considered to have “natural hair”, the phrase is often defined differently in the female African American community. When I look at my hair in the mirror and say that it is “natural” I am stating that it is hair that hasn’t been touched by that “creamy crack” but, rather, replaced with a head full of “nappy hair”. We as black women are making it a point that our hair is beautiful in the way that each hair follicle grows into the various hair textures among us. For many African American women, natural hair is a way to protest society’s expectations of beauty and create a new standard of what it means. This includes the right to wear …show more content…
When used in referencing the contrast between European hair and natural hair, the term took a derogatory meaning. However, African American women of the natural hair community are taking back terms like “nappy” and “kinky” and reclaiming them in a new sense in this natural hair movement. Women are now throwing away their “creamy crack” or box relaxers intended to manipulate the natural textures of our hair. This is no to say that relaxed hair among black women is a bad thing, but to point out that this style of hair is not the way our hair grows naturally. Not all women are only choosing to go natural to make some big statement against others, but simply because the chemicals in relaxers can cause harmful damages to our hair after prolonged usage. I remember being a little girl and having to sit through the agony of my scalp feeling like it was on fire and being told to sit there and take it because it was “the price of beauty”. This is a statement I had heard and known all too well. When it came to the burns to the backs of my ears and nape of my neck from my mother straightening my hair with a hot comb heated from the oven, I was pretty much a professional on the price of beauty. We as young African American ladies are taught very young that these manipulations to our hair are so we look “presentable” in public. As we get older, these hair routines become the norm therefore to look presentable we must not wear our hair the way that God or whomever created it as it