Stereotypes Vs. Good Hair

As a child, I often hated when my mom would have to braid my thick coarse hair. Why? Because I didn't look like everyone else. I remember watching commercials and walking around beauty stores noticing advertisements of black girls that had hair their hair transformed to straight silk and feeling envious. The world was telling me “straight hair = good hair”, and I had to find a way in. After countless of arguments with my mom, I finally received my wish to straighten my hair in the fifth grade. That day, I received endless of complements and heard comments that were never familiar to me such as “wow she’s pretty for black girl”. Nevertheless, after washing my hair, those comments stopped. I felt as if the world I was living in was telling me; “in order to assimilate with the people you around with, your hair needs to be straight” and soon my kinky curls disappeared.

The documentary reversed my notion that “kinky hair is bad hair”, but more specifically changed the way I felt about mine. However, the documentary triggered something that I will never forget. I remembered something that my grandmother used to tell me which was “your hair is something unique, and don’t ever feel the need to change something that is something of who you are”. The Eurocentric standard had affected me so much, I willingly damaged my hair and confidence in the process of it. Uncovering the world of magazines, and tabloids I realized that I wanted fit into the idolized Eurocentric ideal to feel accepted. However, after viewing the documentary I realized that instead of trying to assimilate in the Eurocentric society, I should accept my curls, my hair, and that is something that is intertwined with who I