Weddingbee boards

Hello everyone,

these are completely random questions but I recently had African American Studies and I was wondering about the views of people toward AA. Mainly the hair...

How do u feel about AA women who wear their hair natural?

What do u think of the permed vs, natural conflict?

Anyone can answer these questions. I wanted to gain deeper insight on the social outlook on something as common as hair types...

thanx in advance for sharing ur opinions!

@bells: I can understand where u may believe that but even in cultural seperations there is an outlook that a person has on another culture or better to say that there are expectations on what is socially acceptable on a universal standand.

@muckmoo1: Thank u for answering! LOL to the answer to the second question! In class it was speculated that someone with permed (in the AA community, the perm is used to straighten the hair) hair is more socially accepted among all races versus someone who chooses to keep their natural texture. It is said that AAs with straightened hair has a better chance at getting a job and being considered attractive across the line of cultural backgrounds...

@bells: I am not asking someone to tell me how to deal with AA hair, I am asking about the social acceptance of AA hair in the american culture. U have seen an AA right? and u probably have seen some with natural textured hair and some with straighter textured hair... the question is about ur feeling toward the 2.. Would u consider it to be more or less socially acceptable for natural textured or straighter textered hair across the board of what we consider to be normal? I didnt want to ask the question like that so I asked" How do u feel about AA women who wear their hair natural?" Is it aesthetically pleasing? Is it acceptable? do u feel there is a negative outlook attached to natural hair, u could even describe some things u have heard about AA wearing natural hair.... U would be surprised as to how many people have a opinion about something that is not culturally apart of them in any form....

@vanilla frosting: First I would like to say U have picked a fantastic day to get married!! It's my 30th bday! LOL unfortunately there is a conflict but it seems to be only among the AA community itself... I will wait for more answers befor I come to this conslusion but it seems that other cultures or people who haven't taken a AA course don't seem to put such a big emphasis on it... Hmmm...food for thought on my behalf**

Oh wow.....ok there is SO MUCH that I could say on this subject.  As an AA women who is transitioning to natural hair this is a subject that I have had a lot of experience with and there is really no simple answer that I could give you over a message board.  But, I do want to say that this is really an issue that has the potential to have very emotional & controversal reactions.  This is an issue that is so deeply engrained into the fabric of what it is to be an AA women that I can really only recomend that you can check out the website: curlynikki.com and the forum there to see a whole range of experince of AA women and their natural hair.  You can also check out Chris Rock's documentry "Good Hair" and you can learn a lot about AA women with relaxed hair and weaves. 

@Ducks35: Thank u so much for ur imput, I do understand all the reactions that this particular post can cause, I've experienced a lot of the reactions first hand but only from the AA community so I was curious as to how other view the situation... If the view has been restricted across the cultural lines or is it isolated to the AA community. I am already familiar with the curly nikki website and chris rock's good hair. I wanted to get the opinion of others outside of what has been shown and outside of people who are already deeply imbeded into the hair community... so this is general inquiry...

but since u are transitioning, have u found this process to be more/less accepted by those around u? what are ur transitioning methods? how long have u been transitioning? will u bc or will u transition the entire way through the process? U don't have to answer I was just curious about ur experiences up until this point...

@tranquility: OMG, she is gorgeous! I love it! LOL... thank u so much for sharing...

@AnnieAAA: Thank u for sharing... and thank you for stating that a lot of what is considered acceptable is media generated for all culturals not just one or the other.... this was also a topic of discussion in class and I agree.... A lot of what we go through as people comes from some fantasy biased idea of what perfection is...

@caitlanc: Thank u for sharing! I truly appreciate it....

Oh wow healthily_married you are asking some deep questions here lol.  And you know about Currly Nikki?!  Go ahead girl!  And tranquility  your daughter is so very cute! 

Well to answer your first question, the reaction to my transition has been a mixed bag.  There haven't been any overt negative reactions, but the questions that I've gotten do make me realize that there is a lot of ignorance in regards to AA hair.  I'll focus on the reactions that I've gotten in the work place(the corporate office of a well known nation wide retailer).  Right now I'm wearing mostly braid-outs with about 2 inches of natural growth (transitioning about 5 months).  I've gotten a lot of people asking me if I've put a curly perm into my hair and a lot of people asking me if this is my "natural texture".  One co-worker actually thought that mine & all AA women had naturally straight hair, lol all I could say was "No, have you seen the movie Roots?".  I've also gotten a lot of compliments from ladies in my office when I was first starting to wear my hair curly, which was very nice :)  But more recently I went to the salon for a trim, they had to straighten my hair (with heat, no chemicals) to get an even cut.  I wore my hair straight the next day & let me tell you that almost all the people in my team made it a point to tell me how nice my hair looked this way.  As is, "oh your hair looks nice both ways but we really prefer the straight hair".   Overall I mostly get people stairing at my hair and honestly I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!  And honestly, no matter how much I hate to say this, but if I had to go on a job interview (depending on the job) I do feel like I would have a better chance with straight hair.  I have gone on one interview with my hair matural hair, but I did have it pinned up in a very conservtive up do.

I could say more, but this post is getting pretty long lol.  I'll briefly answer you other questions:  My transitioning method is mostly braids-outs, to make the relaxed hair match the natural texture more closely.  As of now my plan is to transition for at least a year. I'm a long term transitioner, very difficult at first but I'm getting the hang of it!

@Ducks35: Thank u for sharing! I think that little snippet of ur experience can give some a little insight on the AA experience... Long term takes a lot of patience! It's good that u have found a salon that will work with both textures of ur hair at this stage I hear that it can be hard to find stylists who are versitile enough to do that! Good Luck on ur hair journey!!