Here at my blog, I do my best to promote black women learning to embrace their natural black beauty. I promote the gorgeousness of OUR African beauty! That means our natural skin tones–including dark skin. That means our natural coily, kinky, nappy–whatever you want to call it–the NATURAL beauty of our hair in all the unlimited curl and kink patterns.
It is so sad, so very sad that some of us are utterly unable to see just how God has gifted us with this completely unique, soft fluffy cloud of gorgeous kinks and curls and spirals, and tight zig zags, and curly kinks, and nappy twists that is OUR beautiful God gifted hair!!! It’s so sad that some of us can’t understand preciousness that is this beauty of ours!
- Sister Mwedzi–If You dont know, ask somebody!
- Extremely long, beautiful nappy hair
I recently received an email of a terrible traumatic experience of one of our own beautiful sisters, Isabella. She’s originally from Holland and was lured to America to seek her fame and fortune as a model. She’s got the look for it, being a beautiful black young woman, but she decided one terrible, fateful day to get a perm in a beauty salon in Chicago, not knowing the devastation that was waiting…
Thanks be to the Lord for the blogosphere! I praise God for this space all the time, because we as black women have been able to reconnect with who and what we truly are in terms of OUR natural beauty! We’ve been able to learn about our own hair from each other and those blogger pioneers who experimented on themselves, relearning how to care for their natural hair. Then they blessed us and created the blogs where we are able to go and learn how to care for our own hair. I thank them all because they have helped us to reconnect to the truth of ourselves, which we have been so alienated from for so very long.
I also am greatly encouraged when my 29 year old son and his naturally beautiful fiance went to a club recently and he was able to come back and tell me that he saw at least 10 sisters rocking their beautiful natural hair! Young black natural women are encouraging others to give up the “creamy crack”! Hallelujah! This is the quiet revolution that only we are talking about. Thank God, that we are slowly but surely turning away from the madness! NO ONE on earth should have to endure such a devastation as what Isabella has endured!
Related articles
- Monica Stewart – The Beauty of Our Blackness in Her Art (nachalooman.wordpress.com)
- Hair (teachermrw.com)
- https://nachalooman.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/albinism-lack-of-melanin-can-be-hazardous-to-your-health/
- The unbearable lightness of skin color (madperiodwoman.wordpress.com)
- Are We Naturals Sabotaging The Beauty Of Our Hair Movement? (nachalooman.wordpress.com)
- Nappy Hair, It’s Not Just A Black Thang (nachalooman.wordpress.com)
- Do Black Women’s Features Look Better On White Women? (nachalooman.wordpress.com)
You Are Leaders! 
i think your opinon may stand strong with some , but what i see too each their own into what they understand what beauty is ,by the i believe that beauty is more than whats on the outside it is a demostration of whats on the inside and how she carries herself ,whats on the outside will eventually fade anyway so
Black women, in my opinion, do not need to risk what happened to this woman, just to have straight hair. The perm that this woman used on her hair, not only destroyed her hair, but destroyed her scalp and hair follicles and her melanocytes on her scalp, (the cells that produce pigmentation y’all) so that she will never grow another head of hair, or even develop color in the horrible pink and white spots all over her head! At least she could have sported a bald head–some women do, but with the awful ugly scalp discolorations, she can’t even do the bald style!!! I bet if she could, she’d take the most kinky, nappy hair that God ever created, just to HAVE a head of hair–in a heartbeat!!!
What we as black women NEED to do, is overcome the hatred of our own GOD GIVEN NAPPY HAIR!!! God gave it to us, so is God wrong? I don’t think so, we’re wrong when we do this kind of thing! It’s a slap in the face of God! No ifs and or buts about it!
God has given us physical beauty, but He doesn’t want us to exalt ourselves and our beauty over Him! God has given us many gifts, but that does not mean he wants us to pay more attention to the gifts, than to Him the gift giver!
Peace brother RTO!
Wanting to look “groomed” has nothing to do with God and what God wants, as long as we love him and know him and serve him I don’t think he cares what is on our heads, its whats in our heads and hearts that count. Black women worry to much about “hair” and superficial things! Personally, I feel that if it looks good on you wear it but know how to take care of it! I’ve been perming my hair for years beginning at the age of 14, my mother showed me how to take care of my hair and I now have locks down my back…”my own” hair. So knowing how to take care of your hair if its natural, weaved or permed ect…is the most important thing.
@Kayla, The Bible tells us that God counts even the hairs of our heads–so interested in every detail of who we are as His creation. And what’s so wonderful is that God has chosen how the hairs of our heads will flow from our heads.
Kayla, do you know how natural haired people will have tighter kinks on the top of their head, and maybe less kinky texture on the back, and thicker on the top or maybe longer on the sides, or finer textured behind the ears? We napptural haired folks have more than one pattern!
And God has made it that way, sorta like our fingerprints, which are not duplicated in any other human being on earth!! God has many infinite designs for his people, which is what makes us our unique selves! And He knows each and every one of us.
We should want to keep ourselves as God created us, IMHO.
“We live from the head down and not the feet up
And I’m adorned with the crown that’s making this up
And I’m fine under cloud 9
Yes I wear the lamb’s wool, the feet of burned brass
And the wool defies gravity like the nature of a gas
And I’m fine under cloud 9
Twist my cloud and it rains
And when it rains it pours
And the energy will absorb
Power for the metaphysical one
Happy to be nappy, I’m black and I’m proud
That I have been chosen to wear the conscious cloud
And I’m fine under cloud 9
I’d be a chameleon and wear it bone straight
Find More lyrics at http://www.sweetslyrics.com
But it’s so much stronger when it’s in it’s natural state
And I’m fine under cloud 9
Twist my cloud and let it rains
And when it rains it pours
And the energy will absorb
Power for the metaphysical one
We live from the head down and not the feet up
And I’m adorned with the crown that’s making this up
And I’m fine under cloud 9
Twist my cloud and let it rains
And when it rains it pours
And the energy will absorb
Power for the metaphysical one”
Song & Lyrics by the brillaint ‘Donnie’
One.
Thank you Brother EAST!! I had never heard of him and now I’m in love!
I really think that it is part of the cost of assimilation. First, they demonize the look that made our women so desired and project unto them version of beauty that can never be attained because it does not even exist in nature!!
Now that they have us chasing and admiring their impossible standard, they get botox and fat injections to try and get the look that they once demonized, one that comes natually to sisters!! That is part of what makes the self-loathing so ironic… that they manage to make us hate ourselves while they try to look and copy so much of our look..
Brother Mark, I think it’s beyond ironic, it’s satanic! Black women are socialized to hate their natural beauty when we see all types of pictures and billboards and commercials and shows that exalt that impossible standard. The great irony is that their women are crushed in spirit by those same impossible standards! Then on the other hand, certain of their women who want to hang with the brothers, and exalt themselves against the sisters, the Kim Kardashian types, start with the brazilian butt lifts, lip fillers and and tanning salons—the whole thing is a bunch of madness, brother Mark!!
Let us all come back to ourselves, especially we sisters and brothers! Our brothers have to learn to accept and properly assess their black woman’s beauty as well. That has been stolen from the man. No one talks about that trauma–when the black man can no longer even determine whether his black woman is beautiful, when he can no longer see her beauty. He can only see her as beautiful if she is wearing the mask of long straight hair, light eyes and light skin! If she takes out her contacts and takes off her long wig, she becomes ugly!! This has to be madness, people! This is because his true eyes for her beauty has been brutally snatched from him!
Who are “they”?
“Here at my blog, I do my best to promote black women learning to embrace their natural beauty.”
Sister Anna, I must say that the above statement of purpose is what I found so compelling about your blog. This ambivalent and chronic state of crying in the wilderness that we as black women want to be accepted/appreciated and loved for the physical traits God gave us is also cyclic.
I remember in the 60’s how sisters actually had to damn near write essays or verbally expressed in a substantive and definitive way why we were wearing our hair “au naturale”! In discussing those days with my peers–we laughed at the insanity of it all and wondered why especially today; we struggle with this again. The cyclic nature of appreciating our physical attributes along with empowering ourselves as women has been going on before and certainly since Madame C.J. Walker introduced us to the straightening comb.
As a young adult, I was residing in NYC and came across a copy of Survey Graphic: Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro in Lewis Michaux’s National Memorial African Bookstore. On the front of the magazine was a drawing of Roland Hayes with a big Afro and inside the same issues we are discussing today were addressed in that issue and that was 1925!!
Prior to that period the Marcus Garvey Movement was strong and there was a poem that was in one of his newsletters that is appropriate for this post and your readership. It’s a poem titled, The Black Woman: http://www.marcusgarvey.com/wmview.php?ArtID=8. It is rather long and I also want readers to peruse the site as well; thus the link.
Your efforts are certainly appreciated!
Thank you sister! That poem’s going up.on this blog somewhere fot sure!
Sister Anna….WE are under SIEGE and where are our Fathers, Brothers, Uncles, Husbands, Lovers and Male Friends? We seem to be the only ones fighting against this mindset!!!
Our brothers are right HERE, encapsulated in this one video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY3gxZzXw1A&feature=player_embedded.
And as for how asians feel about black beauty my blog piece on black women’s body image there’s a picture of a beautiful black girl with gorgeous headwraps and beautiful golden skin, but she actually is asian https://nachalooman.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/black-womens-body-image-how-we-feel-about-it/
Sister C. H.! My Sister! We always have to remember that when we look through the media, we won’t find anything there for us. That includes evidence of the love of our brothers, fathers, husbands, lovers and male friends!! We are simply NOT going to find their love expressed in the popular media. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t expressing their love to us. It happens in our own special media, and in the every day things–when a brother falls in love with his woman’s newly natural hair, when a brother sings a love song to his natural bride, when a father encourages his daughter not to get her hair permed in the first place. These are the stories for us–true stories of love for the black woman, the black mother, the black daughter, neice, auntie!
I learn these our true stories in the media that’s for us—like BGLH blog (Black Girl, Long Hair) or Curly Nikki blog. These ladies have very popular blogs and interview some of our black stars like Janet Hubert of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air or Raven Symone, little Olivia of the Cosby Show. Her mother and father refused her to perm her natural hair. (She did once anyway)
Sister, this is where we need to be learning of our truth.
We have to allow the haters to continue hating for whatever reason they feel the need to hate. They hated Jesus and that didn’t stop His ministry in the least. What I fight against is the young sisters who look to the dominant media, then see no evidence of black love, then become angry and hateful against black men. Based on the black men who are also influenced by the media to hate black women. We can’t get our information from those who are ignorant. We have to get the correct info and teach the ignorant!
There’s one more video clip I have from this blog, then Im going to stop bothering you sister! Please watch this one too! Much love! https://nachalooman.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/did-you-fall-for-the-okey-doke-concerning-black-male-celebrities/
Your links are well noted and I’ve seen them …thanks to you.
However, I wish we could get this into mainstream culture/media because unfortunately, that’s where a significant amount of our young people and children are learning these negative images of themselves or how they are viewed by others. It’s in the schools, “black media outlets”, rap songs, sports and black entertainment, et.al.
Many of us who were part of the black cultural revolution of the 60″s and 70’s made efforts to counteract white supremacist ideologies with our children in how they were reared. That has changed significantly over the years.
“What I fight against is the young sisters who look to the dominant media, then see no evidence of black love, then become angry and hateful against black men. Based on the black men who are also influenced by the media to hate black women. We can’t get our information from those who are ignorant. We have to get the correct info and teach the ignorant!”
That’s my point sister–they get more play and coverage than the ones that are noted in your links. How do we keep that from metastasizing and limiting those of us who want to teach the ignorant and finding more effective ways of communicating it to
those black folks who rely mostly on mainstream media.
I believe that we simply ignore the ignorant stuff, and not link to them on our blogs. Often sisters who blog will re-blog every single stupid thing that’s reported about us, thus giving free air time on their own blogs to those who hate us!
If we just gather the strength to NOT re-report these negative stories, which BTW they are hoping for and sure of and banking on us to do, then we can use our very POWERFUL blog media to benefit the good stories.
Instead of us stopping at the negative blogs and reacting–trying to fight a losing battle, we should gather our courage when we come across this mess, whether black, white, asian, latino, we just have to pass it by.
We are so powerful with this blog medium. We have already created a revolution concerning our hair–all with the power of the black woman’s blogosphere! I see natural girls walking around in all of their nappy glory all over the place. Now we have to use this same blogosphere and shut down all the negative stuff that’s said about us. If we don’t build it, they won’t come.
What I’m learning, slowly, is that there are some black women bloggers out there who are concerned only with building their blogs, at black womens’ expense. They race bait just like white racist do. They bring the negativity, pretending outrage, but they are just building their blogs, getting the ads and creating garbage that rivals Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh. And since we black folks like to say, “Can’t knock them for getting their hustle on” then they pretty much get away with it.
Well, I for one, refuse to build my blog at my own and my sister’s expense.
I hear you loud and clear….
Sister, sorry for being loud 🙂
What a sad and shocking story for this sister. I think of all the years I relaxed my hair with a sense of hate for its natural texture, and sometimes now I look at the beautiful curls that frame my head and think how could I do that to myself and to what god has blessed me with. We are all unique and need to embrace the beauty in our creation. Not saying everyone shares my experience, but for me learning to love and accept myself meant I could not put none of that ish on my scalp anymore. If we want to rock a straight hair look on occasion then just use blow dryers, the chemicals are awful.
See that’s the thing, Ms!
We are blinded to our special beauty! But thank God we are awakening!
It’s also possible someone women want to define their own beauty for themselves, rather than having their race define what they should look like. Just because someone is black doesn’t mean they shouldnt be able to find white attributes beautiful, or because someone is white , or Asian, or Hispanic it doesn’t mean they can only look a certain way according to their race. Some people want to define their own beauty and look the way they want, and they shouldn’t be blasted for taking on a certain look, whether they use weaves and treat their hair, or keep it natural, everyone is entitled to how they want to project themselves out into their world. Anyone who owns their beauty, whether natural or artificial, and uses this as a way to further develop their identity and idea of self, should be praised for doing and acting how they want to.
“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” ~ I Samuel 16:7.
I know some people who wear their hair without a chemical straightener who are godly and some who are ungodly. I know some people who wear their hair with a chemical straightener who are godly and some who are ungodly. As long as a woman is modest and God-fearing, does it matter whether or not she uses Carol’s Daughter or Just For Me? I don’t think so. In a world where hunger, hate, war, prejudice, and haughtiness abound is it edifying to criticize someone because of use or lack of use of a chemical? The air we breathe has many “unnatural” chemicals in it, because we drive cars. One can easily have asthma or develop COPD as a result of breathing unnatural air. Sure, the beauty market is one sided, but God says that was is very precious in his sight is a gentle and quiet spirit (I Peter 3.) I find all textures of hair to be beautiful, because God made them. I prefer to wear my hair relaxed, because I like it. I don’t think I will be sent to hell, because I carefully put sodium hydroxide on the roots of my hair every 3 months.
* God says that WHAT is very precious in his sight is a gentle and quiet spirit (I Peter 3). (Just wanted to make a quick correction.)