It's done so often as of today, no one questions it any longer. What is wrong with dreads or twists or braids. I understand that for some it is just a personal choice but there are others that don't even ask themselves what they prefer, they simply fall in line.
A post from a reader:
Many races of women straighten their hair because they want to fit into cultural standards in America. No matter how you put it, the "normal" or average person in America is white with white hair and features. Anything outside that box is considered "ethnic" "urban" or "exotic." True, we have so many different kinds of people here but you all have to understand that white is the norm. Therefore white beauty standards become the norm. And so does long straight hair. Black women have the curliest hair of all the races and have the hardest time fitting into the "norm." This is what this whole disposition says to me, "I straighten my curly hair. I use a flat iron. I do it for managability and because I prefer my hair straight and long. Just because its my personal choice I don't deny that I am doing it to fit in to the cultural norms of society." Now I know white people get a little upset but it's true. But it's not due to racism or self-hatred. White people have the power right now, and they influence society. That is the truth. That shouldn't make anyone mad or hate on white people. If someone thinks that shouldn't be the case, then they can try to change it for the future. But that won't change that right now white people have the power. The people with power call the shots. But this ideal of beauty issue isn't just a black thing. If it was just a black thing then Asians wouldn't be having surgery to widen their eyes and middle easterners wouldn't be getting nose jobs. Many white people do the same to look "normal." Its just that people have an image of beauty that their society creates. However a person (no matter their race) decides to fit or not fit into that image is their personal right. Just because a black woman has dreads, don't think she isn't professional. There is much more to her than her hair. But, keep in mind that just because a black woman straightens her hair that doesn't mean she is not at peace with her race.
<------- I don't agree with all of this. For one I believe that because of the psychological effects of slavery, Black women have been scarred and left with the impression the long, straight hair and light skin is what is accepted in this society. During slavery, straight hair and light skin was what kept the mulattoes alive and the house negroes with better treatment. Heated forks were used to straighten hair so that their chance of survival was greater, so Black women straightened their hair for survival not for beauty. Somehow along the way the concepts were perverted. Another point I would like to make is about the image of God being white or having Caucasian features. How the white man looked like God and therefore was God because he enslaved the heathen, the devil (Black people) and we were less and should attain god status which is striving to be white. White Jesus, we were given the Bible to keep us mentally enslaved even when the slave master wasn't cracking the whip on our backs. Because the African is so spiritual, he bought into the belief that Jesus would actually save them one day. That the white man, the same one keeping them in captivity, would come from the clouds and save them. Now do you see how deep this gets? It goes far beyond the said topic and into a world not known to many.
And quite frankly...
I don't care what excuses black people make.
They straighten their hair because they are ashamed of it.
They have been brainwashed by the media which is controlled by whites that Caucasian type hair is the only hair that is beautiful.
Dreadlocks, which we will call "locs" for the simple fact that Dreads comes from European settlers who came to the Caribbean and saw the hair of the natives and called it "dreadful" hence the term dreadlockks, are not unprofessional. I know people who have them and they are very clean.
That is just plain degrading.
This is the same reason why black women wear weaves. They don't like themselves and have been brainwashed.
When they look at themselves in the mirror they are saying " Oh how beautiful i would be... if only i had hair like a white person"
Start liking yourselves black women.
We are the only race in the world with our type of hair. Because of this we should see it as something great and should therefore make other races envy us. When we straighten our hair we are basically telling other races that we don't like ourselves.
Many white people have asked me "Why do black people straighten their hair. It is so unique and beautiful"
When we saw Michelle Obama trot out her daughters at the Democrat convention, the first and obviously crafted image we saw was that the girls now had straight, shiny, long hair. And Michelle's hair had a new, less "helmet-like" look as well. Obama's political advisers obviously didn't want to present the image of little black girls in corn rows running around the White House, given the fact that one of the girls had her done in that style the week before in Hawaii. When I see women like Beyonce Knowles and others wearing hair styles that are seemingly impossible to create with African hair, I have to ask why? When black women are making great strides in society today, are proud of their achievement, why won't they leave their hair the way it is? I cannot recall the last time I saw a black American woman, regardless of socio-economic status, wearing her hair in an afro. White wigs or extensions look silly on black women. It isn't natural and it doesn't look right. Be proud of your looks as you are. I submit black women hate their hair, and black men hate the way black women look. There is no other explanation. And please, don't tell me it is the same as white women curling their hair, or pulling it up for an easier to manage hairdo. The Obama girls don't need "easier hairdos".
Reply from a reader:
The line "relaxed hair is easier to manage" is convoluted with fear and shame.
I'll go out on a whim and say that women who say this haven't had natural hair since they were a tot, and at that time it was their mother or some other adult who styled their hair. If you've never styled your own natural hair, how can you say it's hard to manage?
I, too, made this excuse when I had relaxed hair, but I said it out of ignorance. It wasn't until I wore my hair in its natural state that I realized that I had no idea what I was talking about before. Natural hair is easy to maintain.
After I wash/condition it, there's no need for heat - no blow-dryer, no flat iron, no curling iron; no heat whatsoever. I don't have to wrap it or curl it or do anything to it except let it be. How easy is that? And it looks good. In fact, once I went natural, the health of my hair returned with a vengeance. It hasn't looked, felt or been as strong since I was a child, and I'm thirty years old.
I'm sure some black women don't mind the whole styling process; in fact, there are some who even enjoy it. For them, it's like a journey towards temporary self-esteem. But for others I'm sure they just like the process.
But I wish black women would stop hiding behind the excuse that relaxed hair is easier to manage. I think the more appropriate comment for these women to make would be that relaxed hair more easily feeds their subconscious need, and that need is to fit into the norm.
Let's face it - to wear natural hair is to go against the norm, and it takes confidence to do it. Even more than that, it takes knowing, appreciating and then loving what you naturally have, and unfortunately many women don't. What a pity. Embracing what's naturally yours brings a type of freedom and confidence that you can't attain by doing anything else, no matter how hard you rock that weave.
I don't hate on women who wear their hair relaxed. To each her own. I just want many black women to to do some serious introspection and uncover the real reason(s) why they don't wear their hair natural.
Regarding that comment about Michelle Obama and the Obama girls, I felt you on that. When I watched the Democratic convention on tv, I actually wondered how America would respond to Michelle if she wore her hair natural, or even if she sported a fro. The thought of it makes me chuckle.
<--------
My mom said the same thing in regards to Michelle Obama rocking the natural look. How would Black women feel about that? How would they begin to feel about themselves?
She is an image that Black women now look up to and the damage is being agitated because MO doesn't even wear her hair natural, but is that really her choice? Regardless it would be a huge impact upon the structure of black society. And another thing is that Black women, on a majority, are impatient. They need they're beauty fix right now. They haven't been taught by their mothers, grandmothers, how to care for Black hair so it's condemned and stigmatized and as soon as they child is old enough, it's straightened either with a relaxer or hot comb. It's a psychosis and Black women won't acknowledge it and when it's talked about they become disagreeable and upset because they cannot face their own psycho trauma. We have always been told and shown that Black hair needs to be cut or needs to be straightened because it "looks good". Nappy is considered "bad hair" and straight or curly is considered "good hair". Why is that? The only "good hair" is healthy hair. Black women have been so psychologically conditioned to believe that the hair that has grown from their very scalps since birth is bad hair that they go out and buy wigs, weaves, extensions, flat irons, relaxers and the like. It is the standard of beauty in American society that has generated this mass psycho trauma. Even women and young girls that come here from Africa have their hair straightened which is even more discouraging considering that a woman from the motherland is thought to at least have more sense and love for herself. If young Black girls were taught by their conscious Black mothers then we would have a generation of Black women that knew themselves and loved every aspect of their Blackness. Wake up Black people.
Why do Black Women Straighten Their Hair?
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Arab Slave Trade
While Europeans targeted men in West Africa, the 'Arab' trade primarily harvested the women of East Africa to serve as domestic slaves, wet nannies and sex-slaves in the infamous harems. This trade trickled over millennia is estimated to have taken 10 million Africans via the Eastern route to India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and also via the Trans-Saharan route to North Africa and the Mediterranean, where in slave markets such as Ceuta, Morocco, Africans were purchased to work as servants in Spain, Portugal, and other European countries.
This trickle trade really only boomed in the 18 th and 19 th century, prior to this period the trade between Arabia and Africa was more focused on iron, ivory and animal products. There is very little evidence in the sources to support the claim that slaving was ever a major enterprise of any significance prior to the 18 the century boom.
LEGACY AND DIFFERENCE
Arab enslavement of Africans was radically different from its European counterpart. It was more complex and varied depending on time and place. Thus the slavery seen in Iraq with the zanj was not similar to slavery in Zanzibar. Also 'Arab' is not a racial group, some Arabs are African and some are White and Jewish.
One of the biggest differences between Arab slaving and European slaving was that slaves were drawn from all racial groups and they were rarely used as a means of crop production; slaves were not the economic engine behind Arab economies. Arab slavery generally lacked large droves of sugar plantations where slaves toiled to the crack of a whip in the hot sun . Unlike the European trade in enslaved Africans the physical remnants of this trade are very hard to measure. There are no Ghettos, mental institutions or prisons holding African people. Many women stolen from Africa were stolen to serve the infamous Arabian harems; their children were thus born free to Arab fathers and thus would have been heirs to wealth and status, fully and equally assimilated into the population. Many African people thus rose to great stations by virtue of their Arab fathers. The infamous eunuchs were infertile, and the other men who were enslaved would have gradually married non-African women, hence facilitating the absorption of African culture and lineage into an Arab one. The contrasting differences between racial definitions on the Arabian continent as oppose to Europe assist in blending the majority of Africans stolen from Africa into the general population of Arabia. However, in the West there was no transcending “racial stigmas.”
ISLAM AND SLAVERY
When Islam arrived, war and servitude were features of African and Arabian life. Judaism existed among certain Arab tribes as well as Christianity, and like them Islam did not blatantly out law slavery; Islam did however blatantly outlawed chattel enslavement. The Qu'ran with every reference to slavery ask the believer to free the slave as atonement for sin, the term "emancipating a slave and feeding an orphan" are repeated constantly throughout the Qu'ran as acts which gain God's favor. Also there were regulations which enhanced the pre-Islamic laws with respect to the treatment of enslaved people. They were entitled to good care, to the same clothing and food as their masters. These enslaved people were more akin to indentured servants in Europe than Chattel slaves in the Americas.
They are your brothers whom Allah placed under your hands. Feed them with what you eat, clothe them with what you wear and do not impose duties upon them which will overcome them. If you so impose duties, then assist them.
Whoever kills his slave, we will kill him.
Whoever slaps his slave or strikes him, his atonement is to free him" (narrated by Muslim by the way of ibn Umar).
It became a fundamental principle of Islamic jurisprudence that the natural condition, and therefore the presumed status, of mankind was freedom. Despite this, there were the greedy and the vindictive that sought to make slaves of their Muslim brothers and sisters as well as other Africans. There were also many Christian and Jewish Arab tribes and well as other indigenous Arabs that continued their tradition of slaving. Because Islamic Sharia had laws pertaining to slavery it was seen by the opportunist as a natural God sanctioned feature of life. Conveniently, the numerous laws of manumission were given a social back seat.
Overzealous Europeans have always over-documented the Arab trade in enslaved Africans to alleviate their guilt concerning their own trade. "Well the Arabs did it too " became the common tone of contemporary historians. Sadly, many African-American historians who have only these European sources to infer history from have taken these second-hand guilt-massaging accounts as gospel. However, it is a well-known fact that Europeans in their artistic depictions of slave raids have always intentionally portrayed slave raiders as Muslim Africans or Arabs .
This trickle trade really only boomed in the 18 th and 19 th century, prior to this period the trade between Arabia and Africa was more focused on iron, ivory and animal products. There is very little evidence in the sources to support the claim that slaving was ever a major enterprise of any significance prior to the 18 the century boom.
LEGACY AND DIFFERENCE
Arab enslavement of Africans was radically different from its European counterpart. It was more complex and varied depending on time and place. Thus the slavery seen in Iraq with the zanj was not similar to slavery in Zanzibar. Also 'Arab' is not a racial group, some Arabs are African and some are White and Jewish.
One of the biggest differences between Arab slaving and European slaving was that slaves were drawn from all racial groups and they were rarely used as a means of crop production; slaves were not the economic engine behind Arab economies. Arab slavery generally lacked large droves of sugar plantations where slaves toiled to the crack of a whip in the hot sun . Unlike the European trade in enslaved Africans the physical remnants of this trade are very hard to measure. There are no Ghettos, mental institutions or prisons holding African people. Many women stolen from Africa were stolen to serve the infamous Arabian harems; their children were thus born free to Arab fathers and thus would have been heirs to wealth and status, fully and equally assimilated into the population. Many African people thus rose to great stations by virtue of their Arab fathers. The infamous eunuchs were infertile, and the other men who were enslaved would have gradually married non-African women, hence facilitating the absorption of African culture and lineage into an Arab one. The contrasting differences between racial definitions on the Arabian continent as oppose to Europe assist in blending the majority of Africans stolen from Africa into the general population of Arabia. However, in the West there was no transcending “racial stigmas.”
ISLAM AND SLAVERY
When Islam arrived, war and servitude were features of African and Arabian life. Judaism existed among certain Arab tribes as well as Christianity, and like them Islam did not blatantly out law slavery; Islam did however blatantly outlawed chattel enslavement. The Qu'ran with every reference to slavery ask the believer to free the slave as atonement for sin, the term "emancipating a slave and feeding an orphan" are repeated constantly throughout the Qu'ran as acts which gain God's favor. Also there were regulations which enhanced the pre-Islamic laws with respect to the treatment of enslaved people. They were entitled to good care, to the same clothing and food as their masters. These enslaved people were more akin to indentured servants in Europe than Chattel slaves in the Americas.
They are your brothers whom Allah placed under your hands. Feed them with what you eat, clothe them with what you wear and do not impose duties upon them which will overcome them. If you so impose duties, then assist them.
Whoever kills his slave, we will kill him.
Whoever slaps his slave or strikes him, his atonement is to free him" (narrated by Muslim by the way of ibn Umar).
It became a fundamental principle of Islamic jurisprudence that the natural condition, and therefore the presumed status, of mankind was freedom. Despite this, there were the greedy and the vindictive that sought to make slaves of their Muslim brothers and sisters as well as other Africans. There were also many Christian and Jewish Arab tribes and well as other indigenous Arabs that continued their tradition of slaving. Because Islamic Sharia had laws pertaining to slavery it was seen by the opportunist as a natural God sanctioned feature of life. Conveniently, the numerous laws of manumission were given a social back seat.
Overzealous Europeans have always over-documented the Arab trade in enslaved Africans to alleviate their guilt concerning their own trade. "Well the Arabs did it too " became the common tone of contemporary historians. Sadly, many African-American historians who have only these European sources to infer history from have taken these second-hand guilt-massaging accounts as gospel. However, it is a well-known fact that Europeans in their artistic depictions of slave raids have always intentionally portrayed slave raiders as Muslim Africans or Arabs .
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