What is really Natural Hair?

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

Hi Joe, LU Groupii, and Crew: 

I kind of find this a joke.  

As a Black woman who's had a natural hair style since 1966, short and nappy, long and nappy, no relaxer, only shampoo, conditioner, and recently a little help from BIGEN 58 of Japan, these are not what I would call "natural" syles - especially if most of the examples are caucasian females.  

I have never been able to relate to the recent move to semi-relaxed hair, which is kind a nod to Black hair grade, without being fully committed.  I know that our sisters have the capacity to do so many things with their hair - but when I went natural and started wearing an "Afro" as we called it in the 60s, it was a commitment to my beauty as a Black woman - rejection of white standards of "beauty" - i.e. blond. long, straight hair. 

I find it kind of sad, ridiculous, strange that there are hundreds of thousands of African American women who have endeavored to embrace their African heritage by adopting traditional cultural hair styles - corn rows, naturals, short South African hair cuts like Miriam Makeba and other South African sisters; while our African sisters are showing how brain washed they are by wearing some of the most awful wigs I've ever seen - SMH/LOL  

It's interesting, though, when I meet some of my sister friends - especially from Ghana and Nigeria - they become embarrassed that Black African American women are more culturally proud than they are, and have actually doffed the wigs for natural hair styles.  So I think some are coming around to realizing how beautiful being Black is.  We all know that we've been beset by monsters - colonial monsters and slave monsters - and that our hair styles, skin color and others that have been beaten into us - and are now looking to debunk themselves of these remnants of opprssion. And of course, the success of the beautiful Lupita Nyong'o, Alek Wek, and others, has helped make a difference.  

The 60s saw so many African American sisters embrace Black is Beautiful.  Remember Joe, Stokely Carmichael came to Lincoln U in 1966 and declared Black is Beautiful - it was the first time Black people had been told that.  Also remember when Sam Anderson, Paul Moore, Tony Montiero, and Julian Ellison brought the GRANDASSA MODELS, and Dinizulu to Lincoln.  It was the first time ever there were Black models who wore naturals and had modeled African clothes instead of european/american (white) standards.

 

In the 60s we started out raising our children to this philosophy - making sure they had Black educations along with the regulated education of the meanstream - so that they knew who they were and took pride from birth forward.  My daughters never had a hot comb in their hair - and I faught to make sure they had Black teachers to keep the level of brainwashing down.  Most of the principles of Black pride was practiced from then through the late 70s, and suddenly you saw the disappearance of Black pride, replaced with drugs, blaxploitation, and later HipHop era.  Schools no longer taught Black history; Black kids were deemed "culturally deprived" because they didn't have the same "advantages" as white kids - and then suddenly providing lowered expectation levels of education became the standard.  The word "ebonics" was introduced as though we were inherently unable to learn. 

 

Unfortunately, our so-called Black leaders didn't see the danger until it was too late - there was a 20 year period of dis-education.  Our kids were now being treated as retards, basket cases, welfare cases, latchkey kids, etc.  Black models of success were supplanted with what we see now - and what you see is a major gap in what started out as a move toward Black Pride and Black is Beautiful - confused, mixed signals as to what the heck are we doing? And a move back to some form of Black self love. For those of us who never left our Blackness once we found it, the process is interesting to watch.    

But now, in the 21st century, when we are supposed to be the most technologically advanced society ever, whites start telling Black people that they don't like their natural hairstyles, and that their kids are not going to be allowed to attend a particular school, or take a class picture; or that a particular person cannot work at a particular company, or be in a movie, or a myriad of other racist aggressions, it means that they are afraid of our pride, our progress, our independence and love for ourselves.  They are under the delusion of white supremacy, and think they have the right to tell us who we are and what is acceptable.  I think this where this so called "natural" style of semi-relaxed hair came from.  Not necessarily wearing an Afro, but acknowledging our Blackness, while not totally straightening it - middle ground Blackness.

 

https://www.thelist.com/120071/celebrities-look-totally-different-natural-hair/

It's sad - because everytime I see a sister with overly bleached blond hair, and she's darker than me - I subconsciously shake my head.  But I know the extent of the brainwashing, and realize she is a victim trying to make it real compared to the traumatic situation of racism in which we live and must survive.

 

Hey Joe - do you remember this:  UNGAWA BLACK POWER!!!

STAY BLESSED &

ECLECTICALLY BLACK

Gloria Dulan-Wilson - LU 67

 

That hair peeking out from the top 

of the hat is my NATURAL HAIR

 

 

 

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