2020's finally over. Can we not go into 2021 pacifying texturism w "It's just hair" tho?
It was "just hair" until Black Women started exercising the freedom to discover the unique needs & maintenance beneficial to our hair. Then as soon as non black women got wind of it & the nerve to lurk on platforms the natural hair community was uprising thru, nowadays you've got all these non black women bandwagoning & hashtagging literally everything under the sun w/ this fake ass inclusiveness, advocacy, relatability & support for textured hair. Like all women have suffered oppression around wearing their real hair 😒. Like all races of women have been socially targeted in blatant discriminations against their hair texture, complexion, & how acceptable they are or are not together. I hate the "All Hair (Matters/Is Beautiful/Is 'Good Hair')" clout bc it talks over & totally overwrites the foundational issue around hair & toxic femininity that, at its misogynoir core, has always been that textured hair is unprofessional, unkempt, unmanageable, & ugly. Colorism also erases the initial creators of the movement — which were Monoracial Brown & Dark Skinned Black Women; put some respek onnat, period. Straight hair is not oppressed; wavy hair is not oppressed; all hair is not oppressed. Black hair is. This "all hair is good hair" bullshit is so monotonous & inconsiderate bc its almost like a passive aggressive refusal to acknowledge what antiblackness imposed on Black Women alone. None of you non black know what it's like in depth to be the descendants of a race of ppl who's features, traits & harmless existence have always been insulted, hated & envied by the whole world. Esp not all at once. That is something totally unique to us inflicted & imposed by everyone else since the beginning of time. So why be out here chasing clout under tags & movements & in spaces you are no real part of? Why wanna be a part of the Black Girl Experience that bad? Yall have identities in everything outside of us. Why vulture off of this like you even have reasons to be there? We were investing in ourselves & trying to teach generations of Monoracial Black People how to manage their hair texture & develop cathartic habits thru self care. Nb ppl ruined that.
Looser hair textures have omnipresent representation & acceptance all, over, the, world. There is no lack of being seen, romanticized or exemplified for having texture 1a-3b hair; esp on the prevalent basis around colorism we see regularly on social media & on tv. Yet what remains of the community as it stands is today the furthest thing from textured or Black at all. At this point we owe the decline (if not death) of the natural hair community to the parasitic latching of non black women, the infiltration of "pick me's" & antiblackness generally — but I still be feeling like even that's not direct enough. We're talking ab something authentic & wholesome for Monoracial Black Women created by us for us being straight up sabotaged by races of women the cause was totally irrelevant to & in regard of. Bc that's how cosmetic industries have been towards us for centuries. Bc we were always excluded & thought of least & last. By other women. By all other women; don't get it twisted. So we set out on figuring ourselves out. Doing research on our own. Incorporating self care & beneficial habits in our lives to nourish & feel better ab ourselves & disprove the racist shit non black cultures & ppl either ignorantly surmise, make up or project ab Black Girls. That includes Black Men too in case yall thought yall were safe. Yall are some of the most toxic & prevalent faces behind colorism, antiblackness & misogynoir among black ppl specifically.
But anyhow. At first a lot of the initiation of the vulturing in the nhc light skinned women were the face of. Esp w the clout around having 4c hair amongst the beige-est, most ambiguously or straight up non black individuals, good lord. Then it went mainstream for huwight ppl, whom enevitably invited themselves, & following were the masses of non black women looking to pillage for themselves while the community was being swallowed by the crowdedness & irrelevant content being put out there (specifically on YouTube, Twitter & Instagram) by "hair gurus" of the light skinned, biracial or non black texture 1a-3b variety. Hair gurus who literally may as well've fallen from the sky & met social media stardom overnight based on their hair texture & complexion alone they're so brand new. Hair gurus who aren't even in the community for legitimately informative reasons or purposes unionized in Blackness. They're whole natural hair niche be — as a favorite natural of mine put it — manipulating textured hair into a sort of submission to appear or behave like looser textures do. They'll swear by 'game changer' products they both mention & only use like once & insist you should invest in a $30 8oz. bottle of clarifying shampoo or a $35 cowash if you want your hair to behave & look like theirs. Again, mind you, these types of individuals casually claim having texture 4 hair when they're anything but, just for the attention it brings from both ppl who will gullibly follow their every word & who know what kind of scamming to look for & won't.
If it's "just hair", how come so many of you that are non black are riding the wave? If it's just hair, why have so many of you found refuge in using the hashtags & participating/contributing uninvited? How come so many ran to get a seat at the table w Black Women only to kick them to the side the more popular it became if its just hair? How come nobody was calling it natural hair before Black Women created the nhc & started growing their own? Why was there no natural hair community before Black Women coined it, reminder, for ourselves? If it's just hair, how come so many ran to youtube to begin w to start channels for their own non-textured journeys? If its just hair, why is the nhc so damn obsessed w defining curls & length than overall health & gradual growth? If its just hair, why are white girls anywhere near this? Yall are the most out of place of anyone, honestly. Even if you're curly. Why do light skinned girls get to both represent textured hair & "good hair"? How does that even make sense? Thats just putting monoracial black girls in isolated boxes they're not even allowed to be symbols of or in. If its just hair, why's it so unheard of to see the roles of Black female characters in just ab anything played by actual Black Women? If its just hair, why have so many non or partially Black women worked in ignorant succession to water down & essentially wash out the Monoracial Black Women vital to the community's relevance at all? I really do not get the involvement of non black women in this movement at all — esp when culturally you have no reason to call your hair natural. There are no & have never been prejudice notions around having or growing texture 1a-3b hair. There's nothing oppressive ab it, either. Yall have gotta stop w that. You've already made a mockery of something that was supposed to be beautiful by making yourselves comfortable in & hijacking our space itfp. Theres far too much misrepresentation of textured hair to keep up w now. This is why i say the nhc (as well as culture vulturing generally) has just become nbwoc copying white women copying light skinned women copying Black Women, bc the audacity is unreal.
Its not just hair tho. To those it applies to, yall proved that the minute Black Women started going public w their growth journeys. The minute conversations ab "shrinkage this & 4c that" broadened & went mainstream. Yall couldn't move all at once fast enough when you realized you weren't as special as you thought & had always been told — esp w melanin at its modern value. Now all yall either "natural", seeking black men for either casual sex or cultural infiltration via fetishised reproduction, certain you have texture 4 hair or know the best tips for a DIY silk press 🤭😂 yall can't sit w us. You don't belong here. I'm calling yall out on allll the bs around this "All Hair Matters" garbage, cus yall are now sputtering the same shit while literally wearing your own non black hair in black styles. Be consistent. Make some fucking sense. I don't wanna be part of this fake ass girl squad propaganda that says every other woman never looked at Black Women's hair like it was bottomest of the barrel, foh. We're not on the same team & yall know it.
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