Crowns, culture, or hairstyles? Our African hair-story

Well, they say that beauty is subjective but today I will convince you that the African kinky hair is the standard of beautiful hair. It is moreover a symbol of freedom and royalty.

In schools African children are forced to cut off their hair to almost baldness for them to be admitted, sometimes it includes black girls. What do you think is the message getting to the child's head? Aren’t we telling the child that kinky hair is ugly? We all still have that colonial mentality which should be discarded if we are to command respect from the world.

Different African hairstyles

In the Ethiopian guerrilla war against the invading Italians that led to Emperor Haille Sellassie being exiled in the 1930s, the Ethiopian army vowed never to cut off their hairs until Selassie is released. After a long time, their hair formed into long locks that are believed to be the beginning of the Rastamen and women's movement, simply a movement of freedom.

 

Historically, we further see dreadlocks being worn by most important black nobles like the ancient Egyptian royalties. The African people are very much blessed with strong and tough hair which can be designed in very many different styles that make us look more beautiful. We Africans have natural crowns; that is our hair.

 

Pharaoh Amenemhet III

From ancient Egypt to West Africa to South Africa, our black women came up with different ways to make their hair beautiful which is an art passed down to black women today. 

Dating or marrying a black queen seems like practising polygamy because she is a new person every day which I find amazing. She will come with a different hairstyle every week and you are left wondering if it's her twin sister.

For many years since colonialism and slavery, Africans have been made to hate their hair and everything of their kind but love European standards of beauty. Physical slavery ended but its psychological effects still exist.

In many offices today, Africans are required to have extremely short hair to look “beautiful” or “official” which actually sends a negative message to the person especially when that person realizes that the target is only people of his kind while other races are not attacked for their hair.

Across the streets, so many blacks have fallen victim to oppression just because of their hair. Sometimes the police and the public accuse dreadlocked men of crimes they haven’t committed. Dreadlocks have been turned to be a symbol of crime and this is only a western and Asian perspective that we should change.

 

Since the beginning of time, Africans, men, and women have been putting all kinds of styles with their hair. It has always been a source of pride and beauty to the people until we were made to change our culture.

 

In the 18th century when slavery was abolished in the USA, freed black women started putting all the kinds of hairstyles they did in historical times, it drew the attention of white Americans and the government leading to laws being put in place against it. 

The famous one is the 1989 Tignon Laws in Louisiana which now required black women in the USA to cover their hair. This was a revolutionary call to the movement, black women started covering their hair with beautiful fabrics that made them even look more beautiful, a reverse of what they were expected after the laws.

 

The revolution got into black politics where our race leaders like Marcus Garvey are quoted saying that we should remove the kinks from our minds, not from our hair. This means that we should deal with the colonial mentality that makes us hate our culture, we should not tamper with our bodies just to be accepted in another society.

 

Our fathers in the 1960s had afros as their hairstyle. The freedom fighters and politicians in the African liberation struggle had afros, or maybe it is a symbol of freedom? Then who taught us the contrary?

Black Panther Party Women pioneers

The US Black Panther Party women’s league of the 1960s led by Angela Davis made afro hair become adorable to the world. The black panthers generally made afro hair become a symbol of black power. Even today most of our black celebrities like Beyoncé, Lupita, Yemi Alade, and many others wear natural hairstyles that resemble those worn by our ancestors in the 15th century going back.

 

Bob Marley and other reggae musicians have also done a lot in preserving the locks culture, they introduced it to the reggae music and spearheaded in speaking up against the victimization of Rasta people. I would say that dreadlocks and afro-hair are a symbol of a liberated mind.

 

Jay-Z who is an icon for most growing boys has a lesson for black parents, he has proven that you can wear your cultural African hair and still become an influential world billionaire, marry the most beautiful black woman and be a king of your family. It’s not about being a thug, it is about royalty.

US rapper and Business mogul, Jay-Z

It is said that the best way to fight an alien culture is to embrace your own culture. We Africans should get back to our rich culture, I believe our current state of inferiority in the world is entirely because we hate ourselves and have no respect for our kind. 

 

Look at how confident the white and Asian woman is with her blonde hair, the white man and Asian man with his curly hair but we Africans hate our hair and have carried on alien traditions that promote so.

 

One day, laws and our mentality should be changed to incorporate all our positive African cultures which include keeping our nature-endowed hair.

 

As Africans, hating our kinky hair was a colonial psychological tool to make us ashamed of ourselves, forget how royal we used to be, and become inferior thus easy to be manipulated by the enslavers and colonizers.

We should free our African cultures!