Hair Texture and Blacks

Written by Chance

Forum

Wed

January

28

2009


Madam C.J. Walker hair advertisement

Hair Texture and Blacks

Blacks who relax their hair may at times be told by other blacks -- that they do it because they are filled with self hatred. As it is said by certain blacks, they don’t like their natural hair texture.

Madam C.J. Walker was a black American business woman, and it was she who discovered the relaxer chemical for the black hair type. C.J. Walker said that she was going bald, and she prayed to God to help her find a way to keep from getting balder, and help her hair grow back.

She experimented with medicines and secret ingredients and invented a formula that used sulphur as its main ingredient. The formula stopped her hair loss and caused her hair to grow back quickly.

C.J. Walker said that the formula came to her in a dream when she prayed to God to save her hair.


she later told a reporter for the Kansas City Star in a story recounted in Ms. magazine.

C.J. Walker: "One night I had a dream, and in that dream a big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends; it helped them. I made up my mind to begin to sell it."


Walker then began selling the product to black friends and neighbors. She called the formula “miracle hair grower”.

Walker then started manufacturing the product and selling it to other black women and men and she became very wealthy. Her hair loss was more than likely due to stress. Her life had been hard and rough. She had worked as a maid for a white family.

It is said that “inventions are invented out of necessity”, and therefore necessity is the mother of inventions. Blacks of that time did not use Walker’s hair product out of self hate, and Walker did not invent it because of self hatred.

It was discovered like many discovers and inventions. Generation after generation of blacks continue to use these products because it is apart of the culture. Also if a black man or women go to a job interview with a big afro some employers will not hire them.

These employers feel that they look to afro centric, and this is not a good image for business. Hatred and discrimination also increases a little more if a black person wears an afro (large thick head of hair) too.

So chemical relaxers, perms, curls, and hot combs are good for blacks in America. They can get a job easier this way and even avoid less discrimination because of their hair. It is more of culture that and not self hate. Many blacks go through phases they wear perms, curls, and use hot combs but they also go natural for long periods of time by not using any relaxers.

When whites and other non white ethnic groups use relaxers, perms, curls, etc no one says they are filled with self hatred. Whites and other ethnic don’t need relaxers to straiten their hair but they do it anyway. Whites and other non whites get their hair premed, curled, spiraled, and no blacks claim these people are filled with self hatred.

This shows a double standard. Just because a black person or a mixed race person who is mixed with black relaxes their hair does not mean they are filled with self hate because the same people sometimes wear their hair in its natural texture.

Blacks who wear braids, plaits, corn rolls, and dread locks are not seen as self hating because these hair styles are seen as more afro centric.

Often blacks who criticize blacks for wearing relaxed hair, perms, curls, and spirals are filled with a secret dislike for their own blackness. They wish they had naturally strait hair like whites but since they don’t they attack other blacks for relaxing their hair. It is such a trivial matter to go around worrying about who has relaxed hair and whose hair is natural.

Certain people have issues with their own secret dislike of being black, and this is why they bother other blacks.


All ethnic groups have members who relax, perm, curl, and put spirals in their hair.

To black people and people who are mixed with black who have woolly hair it alright to relax your hair if you want.