"Oooh, girl you got NIGGA hair!"

Last night, my lovely cousin Tywana did my hair for me. I asked her to cut as much of the relaxed hair off as possible. She refused to go any shorter than this. Her comb broke while she was combing my hair, as it was nappy, and devoid of any products. Her mother, my aunt Anna, was surprised that I have "nigga hair." Even my cousin, whose done my hair at least a dozen times, was shocked by the coarse texture of my natural hair.

In my defense, my hair will curl and wave with just a dollop of leave in conditioner, but product would have made braiding my hair difficult.

I wish I had the confidence for the mini fro, but I don't, so I'm wearing a sew-in to let my hair grow out. Don't judge me.

I have always been able to pretend I had "good hair,"  as I have a light skin complexion. Why I even felt this was necessary is beyond me. It is an age old debate about the influence of european standards of beauty. I have been given the compliment, "Girl that hair makes you look 'mixed'!" I always considered it a compliment, until I realized that it meant that being all black was a bad thing. I have even caught myself asking other black people with "good hair" if they were "mixed." I have heard my family and friends around the world joke about the benefits of having an interracial baby, and giving the baby "good hair" seems to top the list. So when I got looks of obvious disapproval from old black women at the grocery store when I wore my nappy hair in public, I didn't take it to heart. I did notice that they all had straight, thinning, relaxed hair. They are doing what I was conditioned by society to do. I am now viewed as a rebel of sorts.

In the movie good hair, actress Tracie Thomas said "I think it's unusual that to wear my natural hair is viewed as being revolutionary." I agree.

My natural journey is not to say relaxers are bad and that women that use them are broken. It says that the process of conforming to unnatural beauty standards has broken me. It has broken my spirit as a black woman. I lived in Utah for nearly 10 years, and the struggle to find hairstyles that allowed me to just EXIST there was a constant battle. I just wanted to blend in as much as possible.

I still have a long process ahead of me, but thanks to the skillful hands of my cousin, I can now "whip my hair" for a few more months. My natural hair still must recover  from years of abuse and neglect.