Throwback....I am not my hair...

Wow talk about full circle!!
A friend of mine jus sent me a link to a trailer of a Chris Rock movie/documentary about black women and their hair.

Chris Rock Documentary on Youtube

And not long ago I wrote something about how i personally feel about the whole hair issue:

I don’t have a problem with women wanting to relax, curl, iron or braid their hair etc or whatever they feel makes it look good. What I have a problem with is the pretense that it’s an emotionless act.
Just like most black people I have grown up relaxing my hair and never thought twice about it. Everyone did it and you'd receive heaps of compliments when it has just been done and lots of questions if it started going kinky at the roots. Hours where spent in blow dryers and rollers. I’d look at the pictures of the little black girls with long hair on the relaxer box and wonder how long it would take for me to get that long soft hair that blows in the wind and is seen by everyone to be the perfect hair.
No one ever told me that it was okay to have natural hair. As far as I was concerned it was something poor people couldn’t do as messed up as that sounds, because if u were poor u couldn’t afford to straighten your hair.
It’s an unspoken fact. You are considered more beautiful if u have long straight hair as a black person.
I’ve mentioned to my friends many time that I want to go natural and they would give me these "are u serious?" looks and say "girl your natural hair would be too kinky and shady looking, its better u stay with relaxer”. Or they give me that lame excuse of natural hair being hard to maintain, like relaxed hair is effort less. Every 3 months you're applying chemicals and if u really want to up your game u need a tong, hair iron and blow dryer. Then there’s the endless braiding and treating so that your hair grows and doesn’t fall out at the front. It’s not an excuse; all types of hair require maintenance.
Then there’s the whole debate of light skinned dark skinned. Apparently light skinned is trying to be better than black but dark skinned is too black, what?!
I looked at the history of all this, to help see where our assumptions come from. It's black American history but I think it’s relevant to us since we tend to model our behavior after their society.
When black American women were being assimilated into the working world they were made to straighten their hair so they could be accepted by white people. Light skinned slaves were made house slaves while the darker ones were made to work in the fields. The light skinned ones could sometimes pass as white and were more accepted into white communities. They had a paper bag test, if u were darker than a light brown bag; u weren't accepted into certain schools or churches. (This is a rough outline; please feel free to correct me)
These things affect us today because those ideals have been passed down to us. We’re still being told light skinned is better and natural hair is not good.
Even worse is how people have taken this to heart and think less of themselves if they don’t have perfect hair or the right skin tone.
I want to say to you all if you don’t already know, the world owes u nothing. They don’t have to think you are hot or sexy and they definitely don’t have to tell you, but you do.
It’s time we women accept that when we strip ourselves of all chemicals and enhancements, what we have remaining we can’t change.
Your hair will be kinky if you ceased relaxing it and your skin tone won’t change.
Just accept u as u are because u are who u are, and if you should choose to perm your hair or bleach your skin, that’s fine, as long as u accept that kinky hair or darker skin does not mean you are any less beautiful. This also applies to having booty vs. being naturally slim.
It’s pointless to hate on light skinned girls because just like you they can’t get any darker and girls with naturally straight hair can’t make it kinky and girls who have curves can’t make them disappear, at least not in a healthy way and the only way slim girls are getting curves is by getting fat. If society says they are hot, they just happened to hit the genetic jackpot.
The next time someone says my hair wouldn’t look good natural, I’ll ask for whom? Because the only person I’m trying to impress is me. Society has done nothing for me.
Say it with me: kinky or straight, light or dark, curvy or not, I am hot!

Chris Rock was inspired to make the docu/movie because his daughter came home one day and asked why she doesnt have "good hair".
Seeing famous black actresses in the trailer talk about how they have to straighten their hair to be accepted by the industry made me really sad.Chris also went to the factory where relaxer/straightener is made and found out how strong the main chemical ingredient of relaxer:hydrogen peroxide, actually is. Cue the horrid relaxer stories of how women get bad scalp burns from it (something i eventually got used to as a child). It sounds ridiculous when someone else tells you about this insanity we go through to make our hair look straight.F&%^$K!!!why do we do this to ourselves????We black women look stupid.Yeah I said it.STUPID.
Why are we chasing this holy grail that is unattainable?stupid.