"whether you're darkie or fair"....

Ah the age old debate about hair. Whether we're talking about "good" or "bad" hair or just discussing the importance of hair in the Black community, this is a topic that seems to never die. Even at the school they are doing a discussion about hair next week. It should be interesting to hear what this generation thinks about it. (If they think at all). I'll let you know what gets said if I remember to go.

I don't know if we still have the debate about good or bad hair. I haven't heard that tossed around as much as the choice of the style these days in my circle. These days the debate I find I'm having more and more is about how we wear our hair. Whether we like it or not how we wear our hair does bring out certain stereotypes. For example, if you are a more tomboy-ish woman and decide to cut it short you face the possibility of being labeled as a lesbian. If you decide to wear it dreaded or natural you are automatically pinged as being that "afro-centric" down-for-my-people type of black person. You weave it and you get another label. And so on and so on...

Regardless of what you do or how you wear it, just like every other thing in life you will be labeled. It's unfortunate and I wrote my opinions about that in a previous post called I Am Not My Hair. I still get funny looks if I do something different with my hair or get looked at like I'm an anomaly when I'm in the hair dresser or in the street because I'm dark and my hair can grow just as long as a white girls. When these ideas will ever change who knows...