Black Women need to hear the truth about Natural Hair

    I am a black male born in the south.  I grew up watching Turner Broadcasting Station and local cable and listening to the radio.  I remember being a young boy in school and looking at black girls with disgust because of the way they looked.  My idea of beauty was what I saw portrayed on television; fair skin, a narrow nose and and long flowy hair.  The thought of liking a girl who was as dark as myself that didn't retain any of the qualities that I had come to familiarize with beauty (above) was absurd.

     At the time I didn't realize it, but I had been pretty much brain washed into believing that "Caucasian women" (and men for that matter) were the epitome of perfection and as close as you could get to that the better a person was.  I wasn't alone though.  Many of my classmates had been put through the same system.  None of our cartoons had looked or sounded anything like us.  Except for the occasional crow on a Hannah Barbara cartoons or the sock wearing heavy set mammy on Tom and Jerry there wasn't that much to go off of as far as a picture of black beauty.

  By the time Claire Huxtable from the Cosby Show had come around I had already formed my opinion.  I had always wondered why Mr. Huxtable had two fine light skinned daughters and two ugly ass dark skinned kids and a dark son.

 I cant believe I used to think Rudy was ugly.

 I looked at 227 and to me the only chick worth watching was Jacky.

I don't even remember the names of the other characters on the show.  Of course we all know Whitley killed it on Different world.

 All of the above though did not really rock natural hair on the show so by virtue of hair type nose dimension and skin color they were perfect black women.  The only dark skinned woman who I could ever find any beauty in was my mother.  To me my mother was the perfect woman in looks and everything else.  The only black girls that I ever remember attempting to like were the small skinny ones with slight overbites just like my mother I thought they were cute.

Two things are very influential in creating the concept of beauty in the mind of a man.
 His mother and popular media.
After rereading this post  almost a year and half after I wrote it I found myself somewhat disturbed.  I felt that I may have been too harsh with some of the descriptions, but not to the point of misogyny.  What folks must remember is that I am an American  human with an opinion; one which was expressed in this piece.   This piece is one sided and narrow; it is not fact, but it is an expressed truth.  I read the comments that were written (which I will also leave for all to see) and actually felt the words, it hurt.  Yet one thing I love most is human emotion.  The power to express and understand words so enraged and inspired by other words; written, read and understood.  It was amazing.  And for this reason I will not change the piece one bit.  I will however offer this sincere apology to all those that I truly offend.  I can only offer you that words; though hurt as they may cannot harm you.  As a war vet I must say that to be able to be touched by words is a luxury that many will never know. Please know that I will always look at this piece as a low point in my journalism career "if I have one".  

Separately I would like to say that I never pointed out anyone in particular.  The pictures are totally random I left it up to the reader to decide what was what.  I certainly hope no one was suggesting that I didn't think there are a lot of natural beauties on this page.  >:^(  #norip

NOW BACK TO NATURAL HAIR

Today I am much different.   Black women are like goddesses to me.  I like everything about them from full lips to big hips.  Upon my arrival to Atlanta from Wiesbaden Germany I was totally stricken by my African American sisters.  This was also about the time I first realized what natural hair is or was.  In Atlanta in 2004 natural hair and dreads were really booming.  I saw all types of sistas rocking natural hair style.  Some of the styles were a bit off but for the most part every time I saw a girl rocking natural hair I just had to see her face.  You see with natural hair I would be able to tell how beautiful and confident the woman really was.  A woman with natural hair and a nice confident smile is the ultimate in black beauty.

 But there is another very dark side to this natural hair thing, something I'd like to call Nap"tural" hair.

Naptural
I was with my wife and we were looking through a website of women with natural hair.   The first two pictures were of women who I just didn't find attractive, one looked like a guy.  When my wife asked what I thought of the women I told her.

She said I just didn't think they were fine because they were rocking their natural hair.  This was not true.  The next few pictures were of women with natural hair who looked great and I let her know.  So we went through about 200 or 300 pictures of women with natural hair many of them famous movies stars or singers.

After the viewing I took away 3 very important lessons about black women and natural hair
 1) Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's attractive
2)  Too much Make-up with natural hair is almost always a miss(bozo)
3) Beauty is confirmed with natural hair

3 Very Important lessons about Natural Black Hair

1. Just Because it's natural doesn't mean it's attractive
   Afros, twists, dreads, blow outs there are many things that black women can do with natural hair but they must be sure to choose the natural hair style that works with their face and their body type.

One of the worst offenders of this are  the heavy set women with close kept natural hair styles.  How is a man supposed to become aroused if he feels like he could be looking at a guy from the back?  If a natural hair style has been made to look like a space object or Alien Kling-on type hair style then that is also in excusable (unless at a hair show)

2. Too much Make-up  with Natural hair is always a miss

A huge mistake with some black women who choose to rock natural hair is that they try to over compensate by putting on too much make-up.    A small amount of neutral make-up is OK and even some eye-liner.  Where most make a mistake with is first with the lipstick and then the blush.  The one's with the wrong color lips  end up looking like Bozo the clown or hookers for side show Bob and the ones with blush look like slapped monkey asses.

3. Beauty is confirmed with natural hair

Take a look at your girl.  Now look a her hair.  Now take a look at your girl with her hair, is it natural? is she fine?  You see when looking through the picture of all of the stars with natural hair I noticed one thing.  The girls who had only been mildly attractive with Caucasian styles (with one exception) were very unattractive with natural hair.  The women who I had always thought were beautiful looked stunning with natural hair.  Natural hair is the perfect frame from which to judge a true beauty.  Clean free of alterations and the way God made them these woman stand out far and beyond other beauties of the world.  Shout out to Amber Rose and all those old seventies soul train dancers.

 The one exceptional beauty who I have always thought looked horrible but looked great with natural hair and absolutely no make up was Diana Ross's daughter.  I used to think she looked like a scared scare crow but seeing her natural she was actually quite stunning.(scarecrow on the right)