My Chemical Romance

I'll admit, everyone around me has started making me feel a little guilty about liking my relaxed hair. From those youtubers who demonstrate how they beautifully maintain their natural hair texture to girls I know who have cut off their relaxed hair and have begun the transition to natural. Truthfully, for the past 2 years I've had somewhat of an internal conflict once the time to relax my hair draws nigh. To creme or not to creme is the question I ask myself before ultimately relinquishing and relaxing. Explaining this to one of my best friends, she asks "Ten, don't you think that by us relaxing our hair we hide from our true identity. Don't you think we're trying to be, white?" and even likened the act to someone who bleaches their skin... I gasped! She stared blankly. The audacity of her to compare the use of chemicals to alter the hair's texture to that of someone who uses chemicals to alter their skin's pigmentation... Wait, what!? Can both really be compared?  Are we really attempting to pursue a more Anglo-Saxon appearance? This thought  startled me. To think this is what some people may perceive hair relaxing as, after all, for a person to bleach their skin they must hate being black. Right? Personally, I've never felt that by relaxing my hair I was hiding my true identity or making myself "less black". I have always viewed it simply as a coping mechanism. It makes my hair and life a little more manageable. Point blank. Period.  I'm fully aware of who I am on the inside, and isn't that what really counts anyway? No amount of procedures, chemical or otherwise could ever alter anyone's heritage.

Hair is versatile, it is an extension of how we feel on any particular day. And today, I think I'll continue to pursue a relationship with my relaxer. Although a year from now I may very well be au naturel. Who knows. As for  individuals who bleach their skin, liken them to the tribe in Asia who blacken their teeth or the African clan who paint their bodies in red clay. We don't get it. And probably never will. In their communities however, I'm sure there are others looking on with admiration in their eyes. In some way or the other the common thread linking everyone in every walk of life is the need to feel accepted and to belong.  Some pursue more "extreme" measures than others but at the end of the day everybody wants to put their best face forward.   Is there a concept more fluid and more relative than that of beauty anyway? I can't think of one. Who are we to judge the methods anybody uses to make themselves more beautiful. Live and Let Live! Opa!