If you're cringing at the title of this entry, believe me; so am I. The truth is, though, that's actually part of the reason why I'm using it. If you were ever a Black in an AP class, a Black that likes to read, or a Black that at any point followed one of those pretentious ass hotep pages, then you've either been labelled or considered yourself a "Black Intellectual". Why, though? Is blackness and intelligence so rarely compounded that we feel a need to specify exactly anytime a Black person is intelligent?
The truth is, we all (I mean as humans) like to think we're special. That we have these amazing attributes that make people like us and make our lives worth living. The truth? None of us are really all that great. No matter how brilliant you think you are, you have to close your eyes and keep them closed for an extended period of time, you have to defecate, drink water, the whole nine. You have to live, and that's all you need to do. Stop placing yourself on a pedestal because you don't fit into the usual confines of what it means to be Black.
You aren't special and despite any ostracizing you may have faced in the past at the hands of other Black people and the patronizing at the hands of White people, what you do is normal. Not good. Not great. Just normal. Keep reading, keep staying informed, stay hydrated. Witcha Black ass.
Alright y'all, so this is from my relaxed hair days. I began getting texture softeners when I was bout ten maybe because heat alone was no longer working to control my hair, and my mom was not with the shits. These pictures were taken freshman year in the early parts of 2014. I ended up getting my last relaxer December of that year. It's weird now that I think about it because I always count myself as being natural from 2014, but if we're being technical, I've only been fully natural since about September/October of 2015 (had a few stray pieces of relaxed hair on my head after my big chops).
As you can see, my hair was EXTREMELY dry and brittle-looking. I thought that was just the norm. I'd wand curl and flat-iron it with absolutely zero heat protectant (I didn't even know about heat protectant to be honest with you), and after it was straightened, I never moisturized it with anything out of fear of it either being greasy and/or reverting back to a frizzy state. I had no curl pattern at all, so my hair was completely relaxed/fried.
The cringe part of me decided to revamp my look by wearing fake glasses (no not those, ones with lenses in them) and cutting my hair to neck length. I absolutely loved the cut, but my hair began growing back out really quickly. Within a few months, my hair was back grazing my shoulders and looked like this:
I still had unhealthy hair practices, but since the cut my hair had thickened up a little and seemed slightly less trifling.
My hair was definitely a little healthier after the cut, but it was at this point I began thinking about my hair and how much it was stunted in growth. What made me realize this was the fact that my hair hadn't changed in length even though I was looking at old pictures from years prior. In YEARS my hair hadn't gotten any longer than collarbone length? That definitely wasn't okay, so I ended up on YouTube looking at this:
*playing the video won't take you away from this page*
Initially, my plan was to simply grow my hair out while continuing to be relaxed. I figured I could have the best of both worlds, but somehow I ended up stumbling upon Jewelliana Palencia's YouTube channel and watched this:
This was all I needed to see to know I wouldn't be following the relaxed hair journey. I immediately decided the big chop would be my next line of action even though I was very afraid of it because I was uncomfortable with my face and head shape, but I didn't care. I figured I would just wear braids or something until my hair was long even though I had literally never gotten braids before.
In 2015, I chopped.The thing about cutting my hair was that I wasn't confident enough to completely rid myself of all the longer pieces. I kept some of them and would bantu knot my hair at night to "blend" it all together. I didn't realize just how ridiculous it looked, but that's okay. We live and learn. I kept rocking this for about a month or so, I think, before cutting off more of the long pieces.
This was the result. I absolutely hated it and felt incredibly ugly because I could no longer do frohawks or anything to make myself look a little prettier.
I ended up getting crochet braids that summer and kept them in for about three or four weeks before I got tired of them.
Fast forward to July 4th. I was super excited to see my length, so I straightened my hair. It puffed back up almost immediately, but when I went to a July 4th celebration, my then-boyfriend's mom (or sister. I forgot.) took the liberty of straightening it for me. (Still didn't use any heat protectant, but I didn't suffer any damage) This was the length I had, so after seven months post relaxer, my hair was looking pretty healthy and layered and seemed to be growing well.
In August of 2015, I dyed my hair a honey blonde. (Ignore my horrible ass makeup) and kept that color for a looooong time. Even after the color started growing out, I loved the ombre look I had going on, so I didn't mind at all. At this point in my hair journey, I still had a few relaxed pieces here and there, but I was about 98% natural. I would twist my hair every single night religiously and grease my scalp with African Pride grease, and I don't even remember what I was putting on my hair to moisturize it (possibly the grease?), but whatever I was doing, my hair was still pretty healthy.
When I felt like I was finally gaining some growth, I started straying away from the safer styles like my puffs. I became interested in top knots and overall would wear my hair "down" a little bit more.
I had told myself I wouldn't wear blue lipstick until my hair was big, so obviously I must've felt my hair was big sksksksksks.
The back of my hair has always been looser, therefore when I stretched it like the rest of my hair, it looked damaged, but I promise it was just overstretched.
One of the very few braid-outs I've ever done in my life.
Baby, spring of 2016, I felt like I had IIIIIIINNNNCHEEES. I was wearing my hair all sorts of ways and really just having fun with it. This crown twist that you see above was like my go-to style other than my high puff with the little tendrils on the sides. My hair actually enjoyed being manipulated and my growth never stunted from me playing with it.
*Summer of 2016 I wore my hair under a wig for about a month, then afterwards I took a social media hiatus to learn how to appreciate the way I look, so I was a lot more comfortable wearing updos like two puffs and things of that nature because I wasn't on Instagram comparing my growth to everyone else's. It was extremely freeing, and the result of all that protective styling was that my hair GREEEEEEW*
My wash-and-gos were so full that I didn't mind the shrinkage. I had never done a wash and go in my life until that summer. By this point, I was a year and seven months post relaxer, and my hair was flourishing. I was extremely pleased with my length.
My hair was healthy, thriving, and I was having a little glo-up too and was no longer dressing like an after-school special.
August of 2016 when school started back, I was too stoo-stoo-stoopid to recognize my depression was in full swing or that I even had depression for that matter. I was antsy and unhappy as hell all the time and couldn't for the life of me understand why, so I did some stuff. Therapy? Nope. Reaching out to loved ones? Try again. I dyed my hair red and started smoking weed. Yay.
I loved, loved, loved this red, but it faded away after about three washes. Tragic. That was my last time dyeing (dying?) my hair while it was long. I was still antsy, so I got an undercut. It was a small design on the back of my head. Really cute. That haircut was a gateway drug to a more drastic haircut, however.
It was somewhat impulsive, but I had off and on considered cutting my hair this way even when it was short. I ended up getting this little bit of hair that was left shaved down as well, so I was working with a tapered fade (and still kept getting my undercut design shaved into my head). I didn't even make it to two years post-relaxer before cutting all of my hair off. I was like a year and ten months post-relaxer.
I loved the cut and rocked the hell out of it from October 2016-April 2017. I got tired of it, then I decided to start from scratch growing it back out.
This is what it looked like after four months of growing out the top and sides.
Fast forward two years after my third and final big chop.
After two years of switching up regimens, hearing unsolicited comments on my texture, loving and hating my face shape and hair type, I'm here. I'm also incredibly late with this post even though I promised it on my Instagram weeks ago, but here. Here it is. Thank you all.
Just so y'all know, clicking on the videos (well on my recent posts anyway) won't take you out of this tab.
I recently wrote a nonfiction piece detailing that through most of high school I used boys as a distraction and filler from what I was missing from my home life. I did edits on it at places where it was just tooooo cringe even though to some degree it is supposed to be cringe because it's written from my voice at said time. Still, it was just....a lot in some places. I read back over it and realized it was mainly shit-talking my ex-boyfriends and not really expressing why I needed them or how I was using them. It was, but not enough, so I withdrew it from any magazines or journals I sent it to. I told the truth, but I was also making myself look better than everyone else.
And I have a bad habit of doing that. In a lot of situations when I'm telling the truth, I don't always express my part of the truth. That's unfair. At the end of the day, I know those people will probably never write about me and put it on a public platform. I didn't say they couldn't. I said it probably wouldn't happen, so whatever little platforms I get to discuss them, I should be fair.
They're victims too, just in different ways from me. So how do I go about fixing this? How do I learn to tell my story (and theirs) in the most neutral way possible while still having emotions and a good story? Simple. I listen to myself in my most humble state. In my humility, I tell the truth on equal and respectful grounds. The opening of the piece is truthful. It's just the rest that needs work. Wish me luck.
