hot take but the way we talk about natural hair is weird

hot take but the way we talk about natural hair is weird and it's getting increasingly more bizarre in this climate not just because of the current climate that we're in but also with social media rewarding people for hating themselves for I find it so fascinating that you could see like hundreds of videos of people asking how to wear your hair on vacation to the gym to the spa etcetera and they list off a million hairstyles, right? And not one of those hairstyles is just where your hair the way it grows out of your scalp. Right? The solution is to wear your hair the way it naturally grows. And why I don't think that's inherently self-hatred, it does imply there is a bias against wearing your hair in its natural state if you can creatively think of hundreds of hairstyles and wearing your hair that way is not one of them. More importantly though, there is an increase or an uptick of content talking about how much people hate their natural hair or particularly hating the natural hair for their children. And the reality is, is natural hair unmanageable? I don't believe so. I actually think wearing my hair curly is easier than wearing it straight. Looks if it's straight I got to wrap it every single night, I got to update my edges, etcetera. That's a lot of work. But I think natural hair is difficult for people because they're trying to force it to do things that it naturally does not do, right? You want your hair to do something that is unnatural to your hair. Because you don't want to embrace your hair. You want to force your hair to acquiesce to a beauty standard that was not designed for you. In the era of curl specialists with multiple credentials, you can hire a professional to sit there with you and teach you how to care for your hair at home. But it's more profitable to get on the internet and talk about how much you hate yourself because of anti-blackness, especially when it's coming from black people and it's internalized, it's always rewarded in entertainment and media and on social media. Because even as a lifelong natural, I have more traumatic salon experiences than positive ones, right? I have been burned, my hair burnt off, my hair ripped out of my scalp. And I do believe the way we talk about natural hair and how we've normalized killing the curl at all costs, least to even licensed professionals being rough with my head, it's seen as normal. And I do think it's because of the way we discuss our hair that it is then in return enabled some really bad hair care practices. Because our hair is actually fragile and needs tender loving TKO. It does not need us fighting with it. But even in the salon, me and rough with my head, it's seen as normal. And I do think it's because of the way we discuss our hair that it is then in return enabled some really bad hair care practices. Because our hair is actually fragile and needs tender loving TKO. It does not need us fighting with it.