Two days ago I received a phone call that tickled me.
It was from my sister, and her simple words have had me smiling ever since I heard them.
"Oh my God, Khadija, I absolutely love my hair."
This from the girl who, just a few short weeks ago, held back tears as she watched her once long hair being cut short to remove the last remnants of perm forever.
My sister's decision to go natural was shocking to say the very least.
Fareeda's always been the stylish, glamorous one.
Her appearance is never less than flawless and her chemically straightened hair had been beautifully styled to complement her image.
Style-wise, Fareeda and I are as different as night and day.
While Fareeda's always been cover girl trendy, I've always been a plain jane, refusing to wear make up ("If a man doesn't have to wear it, why should I?"), get my nails done ("It's just going to chip in a matter of seconds anyway"), or spend hours at the mall ("God, I hate shopping, let's go have lunch instead!"). But for all of our differences, eventually, both my sister and I would come to the decision to grow out our perms and "go natural" instead.
It's a decision that scores of Black women across the country have made as well.
Which is why when Chris Rock released his movie, "Good Hair" I was struck by the untimeliness of the film. Black women in America are experiencing a hair revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since the 70's. I know very few sistas who still perm their hair, much less have a weave. One need look no further than youtube to find COUNTLESS videos of sistas talking about their decision to go natural, and showing off their various hairstyles. And for Rock to not interview a SINGLE sista in Hollywood who wears her hair naturally seemed deliberate to me. (I suppose he couldn't get in touch with Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, India Aria, Whoopi Goldberg or any other natural sista to provide an alternative opinion huh?)
But overly-simplistic movies aside, most American sistas of my generation share the same hair story. We're born with heads full of curly hair that our mamas love to style with ribbons and barrettes. As we get older our hair texture begins to change. Our curls tighten up, our hair becomes more kinky, and our mamas, never having been taught how to manage this hair, will eventually take us to the hair salon to perm this unruly mass. It's a win-win for everyone. Our mamas no longer have to deal with it, the stylist is getting paid regularly from a new client, and suddenly, we look like the girls on tv. Our hair becomes long, straight, and manageable.
Much like a white woman's.
I went natural about ten years ago.
I hated my hair.
Hated spending HOURS at the salon.
Hated knowing that my hair had to be "touched up" more often than other sista's because it was so thick and kinky and because I worked out so much that I was just going to "sweat out" my perm anyway.
I hated, hated, HATED my hair...
Until I went natural.
Suddenly, I could DO MY OWN HAIR.
Turns out the unmanageable is pretty fucking manageable after all.
It was impossible for me to keep my hair straight because IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE STRAIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
My hair is black and thick and kinky and that's a-okay with me.
I LOVE the texture of my natural hair.
If I want to wear it straight (which I do once or twice a year) I can have it blow dried at the hair salon. And when I'm ready to wear it kinky again, I simply wash it and it returns to its natural state.
Life's a hell of a lot easier once you decide to stop fighting an unwinnable war.
And my sister's still a trendsetter.
She's had more hairstyles in the short time she's been natural than I've had in the past ten years.
And she turns more heads and gets more compliments today than she ever has before.
I have nothing against perms or the women who wear them. I truly don't care how anyone, besides myself and my daughter, choose to wear their hair.
The beauty of Black hair is that, unlike a lot of other races, we can do SO MUCH with it.
And the beauty of life is that it's never too late to discover that fact.
