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Wearing Hair Styles
that Celebrate our African
Tradition |
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Why do so many people of African origin dislike braids, rodded afros, puffs, dread locks and baby dreads? It is important that we remember that African adults have undergone a powerful "seasoning process" at the hands of Europeans. This process involved stripping away every idea that people of African origin once had about themselves and replacing them with new ideas--ideas, which considered everything of African origin to be BAD.
The average adult of African origin has been so conditioned that it is nearly impossible to present their traditional cultural ideas to them--to help them to remember that they once knew themselves to be
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beautiful--that they once knew themselves to have beautiful hair. I do not recommend trying to teach adults that they should begin to love and wear their natural hair. However, I do believe that if parents continue to send out the message that they dislike their natural hair, chances are their children will continue to grow up believing that African hair is Bad Hair. They will continue to refer to people of African origin who have naturally straight hair as having "good hair". In otherwords, hair that is better than theirs. Remember, our children learn by our example. We are responsible for teaching them to cherish themselves--African hair and all. It is important that people of African origin stop passing the learned "seasoning process" of self hatred down to their children. For generations we have taught our children to hide their beautiful African hair. We have told them their hair must always remain straightened because it is difficult to manage otherwise. We have created a "WE MUST HIDE OUR HAIR" generation. Imagine the damage we do to our children when we continue to send them the message that the European slave master taught us to send them--that they are not beautiful in their natural state of being--as their true African selves .
Again, I do not believe it will be easy to re-condition the minds of adults but I strongly recommend that we stop conditioning our children to hate themselves--that we teach our children the beauty of their hair by simply allowing them to wear it--at least some of the time.
By doing this we will create an African nation that has a self love that we have not witnessed since Life Before Physical and Mental Slavery.
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| Copyright, December 1989 |
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