The first time I got my hair relaxed
was when I was 9 years old. I guess my mom got tired of the hair pulling, comb breaking, crying, just plain ole tired of the naps. When I got it, of course I was
happy happy, happy; happy that I'm not
nappy.
She kept it up for a while; she didn't re-touch it on time all the time though. When I say "on time" I mean the time that the naps start to grow back. My hair started breaking, got short, just all messed up in the game. When I was old enough to take care of my hair I hooked it up, you wouldn't see me without a fresh do, wrap it at night to keep it nice.
I made the decision to go natural after taking a Culture Diversity class in 2003. The professor that I had was a pro black power woman and she influenced me just by teaching me the real history that I thought I knew but I didn't (not sure if you understand what I just said).
Anyhow, I relaxed my hair for the last time On Thursday November 6, 2003. I'm not going to lie and act like I don't have AANS, I have it but it's a very mild case. I don't know if I can justify it by saying I like to get my hair straightened once in a while just because I like how it looks on me, nah, I probably am suffering from a mild case of AANS.
What is AANS, and why are so many black people affected with this dis-ease?
Well AANS stands for Acquired Anti-Nappy Syndrome. Many nappy women every where are affected by this dis-ease. I heard about this dis-ease from a book called "Blacked out through Whitewash" AANS is described as "psychological damage" it is a form of self-rejection and self-hatred The author of this book went on further to say that "Chemical relaxers are absorbed into the bloodstream; they are carcinogenic and can even cause birth defects. I'm not sure how credible this info is cause I'm pretty sure my mom got a perm when she was pregnant with me and look at me, I turned out ok!? LOL . Any how, according to this book some men are affected with AANS, their attention seems to favor women wearing straightened hair.
I'm so frustrated with ignorant black people who are so brain washed that they put their own people down. Sheep dogs are what you call them, they sing and dance for their master or should I say massa.
I get so much hardship for having natural hair, its crazy. I have a lot of hair, and I mean a lot of hair. Sometimes I like to wear it in a big afro, now why is it I can do that in the village or urban places without getting an abnormal look but once I'm on Flatbush or Jamaica Ave these ignorant people have something negative to say? " Yo ma you need to braid that, yo, you need a perm, or saying sarcastically "your hair is nice, how did you do that?" Or better yet, these white women, an older lady and her daughter saw my friend Franny and asked her how she gets her hair to look like that when she was sporting her fro. What kind of stupid question is that? I'm black, that's how I get my hair to look like that, it grows out of my scalp the same way your hair grows out of yours.
I'm not going to try and play tough, it gets under my skin sometimes when people stare at or say something about my hair. It hurts and I start to feel bad about myself at that moment. It doesn't last long, they don't have that much power over me, I'm mad that they have any at all, but I guess that is something I need to work on within myself.
Any how, back to my black folk who deny that their hair is nappy, or the ones who say I want to marry a man or woman with "good hair" so my kids can have "good hair" too and be pretty. Ok for all my people who don't understand let me define those terms for you.
Good Hair = Straight, European style of hair.
Pretty = Fair skinned, not dark, maybe light eyes
This little 17 year old chick at my job said that ish to me and I wanted to choke her dumb behind right then and there, but I realized that its not her fault, she's been conditioned all her life, she's going to have to go through something to understand why what she said was wrong.
I love my hair, it gets on my freaking nerves most of the time but I love it none the less. It takes a long ass time to comb, my arms hurt, I'm stressed, but its mine. If I don't love my hair, who will?
My mom has said to me "Why don't you just go get your hair pressed" like something is wrong with me wearing a fro. She was conditioned a long time ago so its kind of hard to undo so many years but she's slowly coming around.
What else did I want to touch on?
Oh yeah...
My cousin who had natural hair just got her hair relaxed. She didn't even give her hair a chance; she had the natural hair for like two years I think. Now within those two years she would either have braids or she would go get it blown out by the Dominicans. Any way I asked her why didn't she just do her hair, she said "it's hard to do, she couldn't figure out anything to do with it to make it look nice, it doesn't come out the way your hair does, you can get away with it, I can't!" This is how we were born, this is how we were meant to look, God made us beautiful, beautiful hair and beautiful skin he or she loves it, and so should you! My cousin mentioned Madame CJ Walker creating the perm and what not. She didn't create it by the way, she popularized the hot comb
well why do you think she created straightening methods in the first place? She was trying to fit in with people who didn't want her to fit in with them; it's as simple as that. It became popular because all the nappy haired women discovered it and said "Thank ya Jesus, no more naps" cause having happy hair is bad, its really bad…at least that's what they think. It's sad that people are like that, we all just need to love our naps, and stop being ashamed of having them.