Twelve Percent

It really irks my soul when people have crap to say about girls wearing their natural hair.
It’s on their head!!! What does it matter to you? You dont have to live with it..they do! They ain’t go natural to please you! If they wanna have their natural hair sitting on the top of their head doing absolutely nothing then SO BE IT. Because its their hair, their head, their natural, their definition of beauty, their happiness, their choice. And none of it…absolutely NONE of it…has to do with you! You think your opinion really matters?? They wouldn’t have went natural if they cared what you or society thought.

Sigh. I feel better.

To the lady in Illinois I’ve been preoccupied with for the last week, Medill.

The unconscious bias in this nation is too much to handle! Lawd Jesus! It was bad in 2008 when President Obama was elected but goodness gracious I must have forgotten how bad it was! Here we are, in 2012, and I am again shocked at the unexplainable HATE towards my president that characterizes many of the conservatives in this country. My goodness! I’ve only lived through three presidents so I can’t really speak on this historically but I just have never experienced such a level of disdain for somebody from a whole sector of the nation for seemingly no reason. I understand you can disagree with the man and I understand you might think it’s time for a new president but must you berate him on such a non-factual basis?

I just heard someone say that President Obama was the worst president this nation has ever had. *eyes widen, mouth drops* WTF?!? Where the hell are you getting that from and can you state some reasons why you think that??? Out of all 44 of them, ALLLLL 44 of them, dating back to freaking 1788, President Obama is the worst. Really? REALLY??? U.S. News actually did an article on the worst presidents the nation has had based on FACTS from their presidencies and President Obama didn’t even make the freaking top 10. But according to some idiot, he’s the worst. Like really? The worst?

I really just can’t take it. Like its funny how dumb people are, but at the same time it’s like these people are American citizens and we walk the streets with them and they have jobs and children and they really believe what they say!

And PLLLLEEEAAASSSEE don’t try to call them out on their racism. No sirree. They are NOT racist. They just don’t like President Obama but they don’t know why.Wake up and smell the coffee! You’re racist! If these people would seriously take a minute and just try to realistically justify why they don’t like the president SOOOO much, it’s because he’s a black man and they can’t stand it. This is the underlying reason, but it’s aggregated by the fact that he’s not of their party and he has some differing beliefs. But I bet you if President Obama said, “God is good,” they would find some way to hate him for it.

As much as I thought President G.W. Bush sucked, I never, never, never disrespected him. I never harbored such ill-hatred towards him. Like, never. Never thought of it and a lot of the people I associated with were the same. What’s going on with these conservatives right now is just disturbing. It’s amazing to see how nasty they can get.

I am willing to put everything I own on the fact that the majority of these comments from the far right would not be going on if President Obama was a white man. They would disagree with him still, but they wouldn’t hate him. Bottom line.

I am in no way saying it’s all due to race and every negative comment about the president is born out of the racist bias that lies at the heart of this country, but I know for sure that it has to do with a lot of it. Point blank.

They can deny it all they want, and they will continue to deny it and you know what, I think honestly some of them think they really just hate President Obama because they don’t like his policies. They can fool themselves but they can’t fool those of us who have accepted that racism is still alive, unconscious racism is real and both are something that really needs to be dealt with.

A response to an article at Clutch Magazine by Kirsten West Savali:

Nostalgic about getting my hair done at a beauty salon? Not in the least.

The horrible memories of sitting in the beauty shop for hours upon hours upon hours totally outweigh the fleetingly pleasant times I had listening to gossip and watching interesting people come in and out of the door.

What we loose from no longer spending enumerate amounts of time and money at the beauty shop while inhaling toxic relaxer fumes and blackening our lungs with the smoke coming off of people’s fried hair strands, we gain in the sense of community and betterment through our natural hair journey.

Going natural is so much more than a bi-weekly change in hairstyle; it’s a change in mindset, it’s a change in lifestyle, it’s a change in the way we see ourselves as black women…and who better to go through that experience with than other black women?

What we lose in town gossip, we gain in bettering ourselves and our community. We usher in a new era of not only taking care of ourselves, but sharing those tools and ideas with other women of color. We begin to learn about ourselves, therefore helping us to be more open in learning about others.

The idea that natural hair is the end of black beauty culture is a ludicrous idea. Natural hair in the black community actually brings us to a more conscious level of black beauty culture as we truly embrace black beauty and not the European beauty standards that we, as Americans, have been brainwashed to believe as the only beauty standard.

For all it’s worth to me, the black beauty shop as we know it could go completely extinct. What our future holds in taking care of our own hair and sharing those experiences with other black women via YouTube, blogs, twitter, Facebook, or just seeing another natural sister on campus and telling her how much you admire her hair are far better for our community than what the black beauty shop offered.

Even ladies who are still wearing their hair relaxed can experience a level of self-awareness comparable to taking care of natural hair by nurturing their own strands between relaxers.

Yes I – like every other black girl – have fond memories of getting my hair done in a kitchen while laughing with my mom, aunts and cousins…

But the freedom from the extremely long bi-weekly appointments at a hair salon as well as the mental freedom that comes with wearing your hair natural is so much sweeter to me than the sense of “community” I felt at the beauty salon… which mainly consisted of one lady getting up to leave and everybody talking about her private life and affairs after she was gone.

Maybe it’s because I was there during the weekend but Paris was SO gracefully slow. Like when you go to a big city like New York or London, everybody moves so fast, like they’re all always on a mission.

Paris, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Everyone was just chill for lack of a better word. Like our tour guide said, “In America, you live to work. In France, they work to live.” It’s amazing. And then the city…I haven’t been many places so this probably doesn’t mean much but Paris is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I love the village streets. So narrow and the buildings so vertical. Just gorgeous. I want to go back…every day… lol. I love Paris.