Usually when I talk Natural Hair it is the “how to” the “what to”, I do curly countdowns and share other people’s hair stories, but this is different.
This time I want to delve deeper into this hair story…so over the next three Friday’s I’m going to get real about natural hair.
So why am I getting so serious? Well you see how the magazines are now all; Natural hair FTW! how billboards display kinks with glee? GUYS! it was not always like that and I’m not talking years ago in the dark ages. I’m talking last year, I’m talking last month, last week, probably right now somewhere. Somewhere right now some boskop chick is being told her hair is not work appropriate. Some auntie is asking her daughter/niece if she is going to “fix her hair”.
My hair was often a topic of conversation…I was teased for my kroes kop (coarse hair) dik hare (unruly thick hair). My mom was called lazy for not wanting to put me through the chemical treatments and constant heat treatments and my memory of “getting my hair done” is full of hairdressers tossing coins so the loser could get me, getting pulled and prodded and being forgotten under hairdryers – too shy to speak up.
I remember hiding at hair time because I was not keen on being pinned down by my aunt while my hair gets pulled and I’m told to “suffer for beauty”.
So the truth is, although people on social media are all “love your hair”, “naturalistas ftw” and all kinds of hair love. Most Natural hair people (I don’t know about this term because, say now you are born with straight hair and don’t chemically or heat alter your hair then it is also natural – but it is only term I can think of for those of us who have decided to “Go with the Fro”).
Most Fro Faries (my newly coined term) I know, have had to deal with a lot of comments a lot of naysayers a lot of “why would you do that to yourself”.
I chatted to Mandy Cooke of The Mandy Expedition and Cape Town Curly the extremely well known South African Naturalista , co organiser of the Cape Town Naturally Events and creator of the Mandy Mix.
She agreed that there was something deep when it came to choosing to embrace your natural state, a big F YOU to European beauty standards if you will (My phrase not hers).
“I think the worse thing anyone ever called me is AFKOP. I remember having to find out from friends what the word actually meant. It’s a derogatory term used to describe someone with a kinkier hair texture. I remember feeling broken at the time because my character was judged by the kink in my curl and yes, also for the colour of my skin! What about my personality? I’ve also been called kroes kop and of course bossiekop. These things offended me deeply but I was always taught to rise announce injustice. When I decided to leave the creamy crack behind I chose to own my bossiekop. I discovered that once I did that, it wasn’t as painful anymore.”, said Mandy
I chatted to a few other naturals about this topic so do look out for the next in the series and please do email me if you would like to weigh in…
Hi. I think this is a topic that we need to have. Looking forward to the series 🙂
I identify with this testimony, thank you