I am not my HAIR!

My college years

When I was a freshman in college 23 years ago, I cut all of the relaxer out of my hair. My major was dance and I did not have time to worry about "sweating" out my relaxer. I didn't want to wash my hair everyday and blow dry. It wasn't long enough to pull back into a ponytail and even if it was, the stress from the rubber band would have broken off my hair due to it being fine and brittle.   I did texturize my hair at the time to loosen the curl but stopped doing that almost 15 years ago. My point is; I didn't worry about my hair because at the time dance was more important. Being the creative soul I knew I was meant to be overruled what people would think about my hair. I did have the occasional ignorant comment, even my Mom wasn't happy, but I never let that deter me from what I believed was best in achieving my goals.

I saw in the news that about 33% of African American women don't exercise because they do not want to ruin their hair styles. With the high numbers of obesity in our community is it not more important to be well and healthy? A healthy body makes for healthy hair, skin, and nails. We look better and feel better. It is not about the hair! It's about the health and happiness of the soul inside. I just ask that all women no matter the color look inside and work on loving the beautiful soul that is the self. No, it's not always easy with the way society looks at women, but if we collectively begin to hold ourselves higher we will teach our men and society a better way to treat us.

Here is a video talking about the hurtful tweets in regards to Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas’ hair.