Everytime I need to wash my hair, I feel like the love I have for it vanishes. I need to work on myself more and try to see it like a bonding moment rather than a chore or a weekly punishment.
Finding the right balance between ‘I am not my hair’ and actually loving it is tough. If I was to shave my hair tomorrow, I wouldn’t be someone else but would certainly feel like I am not the exact same person.
It’s a bitter-sweet dilemma, almost like being bipolar when it comes to my hair. I wish I didn’t have to defend it so much, sometimes it’s also good to let go and just accept that my hair is here, it’s me, it’s a representation of my culture and heritage, even on the days when I don’t feel like liking it.
People tend to link some sort of responsibility to me wearing my natural curly hair out and often want to associate it with black activist movements. It’s important for me to remind them that it’s just my hair. Their hair is straight, mine is curly and that’s probably the only difference that needs to be pointed out.
Comments on what I should do with my it are also frustrating. I should be able to do whatever I want with it without having someone showing disapproval. Hearing all these remarks can sometimes make you feel like you are someone’s property, something they can touch, someone they objectify and exoticize.
Coming from Sweden, nothing there really encouraged me to be myself, which means that I suffered a lot before moving to France, where I eventually found a way to show my true colours. In addition to France being more open and diverse than Sweden, it’s important to highlight the fact that we now have control over what we chose to see when it comes to content.
I protect myself and make sure I am in a bubble including great representation and beautiful images of ourselves, black women. This bubble is important because what’s outside it is still pretty fucked up.
As black women we need to embrace ourselves, love the lips, the features we have, as much as white women do…