Certain Black girls are always complaining about biracial and multiracial girls “going on a natural hair journey” when to them they clearly have already arrived. It’s enough to make you think we have become natural enemies.
What Black girls don’t understand about biracial and multicultural girls is that they grew up in a household with a whitish mother who didn’t—and still don’t know—a dang thang about black hair. My twin nieces are multiracial. They are African American, Panamanian, and French. Their natural hair was curly and thick, then coarse and thick and, over time, grew wavier and coarser and thicker and longer. And everything that goes with all of that. Washing, ugh. Detangling, double ugh. The races were warring in their hair.
When will black and multiracial women get over “The Medusa Complex” and embrace their natural hair?
It took knuckle-bustin’ hours to tame that confusion, to whip that hair into shape. Arms get tired. It’s enough to make a woman flip her wig!
Needless to say, like the rest of us who are over 50% Black, before the twins were out of their Buster Browns good, their mother had relaxed—and ruined—their natural hair. No different than her mother before her. We have adopted a tradition of chemical abuse.
If you’ve ever worked for a social services agency, you’ll know that white women fostering Black children pull their hair out guessing what to do with the child’s natural hair. A young white couple decided to foster a little Black girl. Guess who braided the child’s hair? Our co-worker, a Black woman.
So, look, let’s untangle these fairy knots.
Whether a woman has one Black parent or knots, she may be just as ignorant about her natural hair as those of us who fall on the coarser hair spectrum.
“Natural hair is hot!” –Steve Harvey, Steve Harvey Show, March 13, 2018
If we’re just learning the mysteries of our hair and the secrets to managing our hair, maybe, like us, they’re just learning how to finesse and unlock the secrets of just how fabulous and versatile their natural hair can be too.
Without the white man’s chemicals and relaxers.
One Black woman lamented, “I’m 50 years old and just now learning how to take care of my hair.”
When you read this comment, you can’t help but hear the years of pain suffered aspiring to imitate styles and textures of women who love our men but hate us.
In her comment, you also hear the triumph. You hear the pride of re-embracing what belonged to you from the beginning that was perfect and unspoiled just the way it was . . . before we became natural enemies with our own hair.
Black girls and multiracial girls don’t have to be natural enemies. Or natural hair enemies. We just need to support each other on our natural hair journey back to our natural selves . . . on our journey back to being Black and proud of our natural hair . . . in whatever form it shows up . . . until all Black hair is good—and healthy—hair again.
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Do you think this beef got hairy
when it seemed biracial girls on You-Tube
were receiving more paid sponsors to advertise natural hair products
than non-biracial girls?
