I use to have this horrible and random worry around my pre-teen to teen years that no charming and fetching man would want me because of my hair. Random. Ridiculous. Absurd!

Is it really that absurd though? There "was" this horrible politics of hair that existed before the mainstreaming of "desirable" black women with kinky hair. It use to be, that you couldn't be a single and ready to mingle "obviously black woman" (i.e. non-biracial by visual standards) and have hair that was not straightened or relaxed.

Don't shot the messenger. These were the dark ages of my childhood in the late 90's and early 2000's.

The fetishizing of mixed chicks was (and is) this thing that made boring old regular black chicks like myself question our beauty. It of bred animosity amongst women who should be supporting each other against each other. It also created a fictitious hierarchy of beauty.



I had a roommate in college a few years ago that actually stated to me that she never though dark skinned female could be beautiful until she came to college. That breaks my heart. This wasn't 50 years ago, this was a little over 5 years ago!



This guy once said within earshot of me, that a chick could look like Gollum (see photo of the Lord of the Rings character above) and be finer than a dark skin girl if she had long hair and/or light skin. (FATHER GOD!)

Obviously, slavery was an atrocity in more ways than one because generations later, all of the diverse beauty within the entire african diaspora  is still not equally accepted and celebrated!

As a girl, I never worried I was too dark. My paternal grandmother was so fair, she could "pass for white" and she rejected my father because he was dark. My father's already difficult childhood was made unimaginably harder after his father died because his mother rejected him due to skin tone. I heard these stories and it built a fortitude within me that prevented me from establishing a preference for or an internal complex related to how light or dark I or people around me were.

However, this fortitude didn't apply to my hair (mostly because of my mother's comments). My hair was never straight and/or long enough to give me the confidence I needed to believe I was desirable enough or that a man would ever prefer me over another.



In enters weave and relaxer dependence for a few years here or there. But, I never felt confident or secure. I feel silly just typing this, but it was my truth for a short period during high-school.



Really early on in my relationship with my husband (pictured above), I cut of all my hair. Rocked a short fro or a long fro. Played with natural hair style and revisiting relaxers with short straight styles. He loved me though all of this and was even proposed to me,  the length or texture of my hair wasn' t what he feel in love with or was attracted to.

I never gave much thought to my lack of hair confidence until a friend who was going natural mentioned she had to rock braids and weaves until he hair was long enough for a properly laid twist-out because she's still single. WORD!? This chick is one of the most beautiful women in my circle. Her skin is like butter. She is funny, educated, kind and has a successful career most women AND men would kill for while in their 20's. But yet and still, she believes she can't land a serious and long-term commitment with an eligible and desirable man with a close cropped natural afro. There is something wrong with the world! Is the politics of hair is still that major of an issue today?

If your wondering, I love my hair now. I actually feel like it adds to my personal sexy.