I had to share this incident really quick. It really made me think, and it made my heart break. I took my daughter to the Dr office to see about her allergies. When we were called to the back the nurse that weighed her, and took her temp etc took one look at her and told her how beautiful she was. Now that is pretty normal she gets that all the time. Then the nurse goes to say and "Oh my god and your hair is just so beautiful, see you got that good hair. I wish my daughter had good hair like you. Well she does right now because she is only 2 months old. Oh and your eyes I love them, my daughters eyes are brown, I was hoping that they would come out lighter but Oh well." My heart really started to hurt. I felt so bad for that little baby girl. She as only been in the world for two months and the brain washing has already begun not by the world but by the closest person in her little life. I know as she grows she is going to always want to have "good hair" and will do anything she has to in order to get that. I hate how as a society we constantly want to look like something someone other that the way god made us. We yearn to have straighter hair, lighter eyes, some of us even want lighter skin. Even as I type this my heart is breaking, and I want to cry. It makes me so angry mainly because I dont know how to change it. The desire to be other than what we are is so strong and so wide spread that it almost seem like it will never go away. I wish there way for more women and men to love themselves. TRULY love themselves. I want to so badly be able to tell all of these beautiful brown baby girls that you are beautiful just the way you are. You don't need straight hair for the the world to see and love you................ I don't know even know what to say my heart hurts so badly right now.
9 comments:
I know how you feel, my kids are quite light with a finer texture of hair than mine, and I know my aunts in America have something to say. Not my mother so much which is good. I don't know how to deal with the whole thing, because in Australia, in the Black (Aboriginal)community its like the opposite and my husband got a hard time because he had blonde hair and blue eyes. So its a trade off I guess, they might get looked at funny for being light out here, but I am just going to try to instill them with a sense of identity from their Aboriginal side, and their African American side. Thats all you can do really, and its definitey sad :((
Wow, that is sad. How can somebody be that nit-picky about the looks of their child at that young of age? I really don't understand why people can't accept who they are as they were born to be. I especially don't understand why it is only/mostly in the African American community that we have this "good hair" "bad hair" garbage. Many might blame slavery or white media or whatever but at the end of the day we do it to ourselves and to our children, and it's a damn shame.
I cried reading this! My mother is from Alabama and she has the dark skin complex. My daughter is lighter complected too. My mother always has something to say about her being light and having "good hair", not realizing that my nieces are always close by and sucking it all up.
I try to instill in them and my daughter that beauty is the way you feel about yourself.
I would have had to tell her how I felt about the comments she made. I wish that black people could stop allowing white people determine our self worth.
I am saddened and surprised to read that people are still hung up on that Good Hair Bad Hair nonsense, and that light skin, light eyes nonsense. Like you, I feel bad for that little girl who is going to have to grow up with a mother who wished she were something else. That means she is no doubt going to try and change her daughter. Very sad.
Unbelievably sad.I am so glad we don't have any of that 'good hair vs 'bad' hair' nonsense here. Sadly we do have the 'light' skin is better ideal :( But only among the more rural population.
This is sad. But you are doing what you can to change it by giving your daughter love and accetance for who she is and wearing your natural hair. You are being the change you want to see in the world and blogging about it. Yay you! I am praying for the mother and daughter you encountered.
That really hurts my heart as well. I have found that it is assumed that the lighter a feature is, the longer the length of hair, it is just assumed that it must be better. As a fair skinned, red head, I'm here to say, it is not better. It is what contributes to all the variety and beauty of cultures. This appears to be an issue in many ethnic groups and it is so sad to see this "inward" prejudice. I pray that 2 month old grows up and embraces her brown eyes and her thick, short, wavy, curly, straight, whatever type of hair, cause a SMART mother knows, hair changes ALL the time...plus my theory is, good hair is the hair you can pass a comb through or styled neatly (for those who sport locks)and those two things aren't determined by length, color, or thickness
I cringe when I hear the term good hair/bad hair. My son is part Greek and has curly hair. I stop people in their tracks if I hear that good hair comment.
I love your dreadlocks, and the reason why you did. April the 16th, it would be four years that I have them. It took one years and half, to think about doing it. I love them, it me. Only thing is I wish I had did it years early.
People have says negative things to be about my dreadlocks. I do not care what anybody say about my dreadlocks. I'm very happy with them.
It was nothing easy about my dreadlocks journey. But, I was patient and stuck with it.
I'm very happy with the way it turn out.
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