Nah Tyra

Ima need you to come up out them lace fronts more than once a year before you start trying to moderate discussions about black women's hair issues. Win your own battle first or at least try to fight the damn battle. Cornrows for a day. Sit down somewhere.

Ok Ok at least she tried to put the discussion on the table so let me ease up... Just a bit.

Choice?

I am not of the opinion that black women choose to perm their hair. I personally believe we are compelled to relax due to a high level of indoctrination. We all know what that includes: Being told by the people who should love us that our hair is ugly, unmanageable, bad etc. Many of us haven't seen it in so many years that we don't even know how to style it. Our own hair is alien and repulsive to us. We murder it. We hide it away in shame. We are inundated with images of women in magazines, on television and in movies with hair that looks anything but like the hair growing out of our scalps. Our naturally nappy hair has not been glamourized and associated with all things beautiful. Women want to be beautiful. Women want to be admired and adored. Nappy hair has not been associated with any of these things. Black women may make a conscious choice to buck the system and wear their hair natural, but the relaxer is not a choice we make by and large.

As For the Show...

Clearly those women are mentally sick. Their minds are severely broken and it is a sad thing to witness. They are creating more sickness. This is what happens when a child is not told she is beautiful and a glorious reflection of God. This is what we get when we withhold approval from our babies. We get girls talking about "I got that white girl flow" as though her black girl swagger is inferior. We get girls who grow up to bear children whom they think are not beautiful even though their children have the hair of their mothers. They burn their daughters hair and scalps with toxic chemicals while they are still babies thus telling their daughters we are ugly and need to suffer to be fixed. They are saying I know I'm your mother and if no one else can see your beauty I should, but your hair is ugly, child of my womb. A child growing up under the weight of a self-loathing mother has no choice. She will perm to be beautiful in the most elementary way...beautiful to her mother. She will never stop perming because if your mother can't see your beauty, no one will ever see it. It can't exist.