Yeah....you can touch my hair.....

Hello Lovelies!

Today, as the title suggests we are talking about hair. Specifically Black women's hair. Mine.

A few weeks ago this article came across my Yahoo daily news stories and of course I clicked it intrigued.

Basically a woman named Antonia Opiah, the founder of a site called un'ruly created an exhibit in a New York city park where black women held signs up saying ' You can touch my hair.' Here is a video.



I found this all so interesting for many reasons. My hair.....is such a huge part of me. Its one of my most defining features. When my friends describe me to people, something about my hair is inevitably in the description. Also, black women have a long standing love hate relationship with our hair. Society and media show us that long, flowing, straight (ish) hair is the pinnacle of beauty. Just look at any hair care commercial. Most black women DO NOT have hair that looks like that. So we torture ourselves with heat styling, chemical straightening, weaves, ect. One interesting thing to note however, is that White women have been doing the same things to their hair for years, but have only recently become more....open about it shall we say.

My natural hair after 45 minutes with a flat iron...

Many black women will tell you NO, you may not touch my hair. Black men are trained that when in a romantic situation with a black girl you do not, for any reason touch her hair. I never felt this way. My black friends will tell you its because I'm not a 'real' black girl, but that is a post for another day. Black men that I dated would oooh and ahh and touch the curls, or run their fingers through it endlessly when it was straight.

Crazy curls!

Its not just black people that respond to my hair though. People come up behind me at work and fluff it when its curly. One white guy I dated used to pull the curls over and over to watch them bounce back up. In fact, most of the white guys I've dated prefer it wild and curly. I get endless questions, because I'm usually the only black person around, about how long it takes to do my hair....and if I wear it straight after a long stint of curly if its all mine. (The answer is yes, no weaves here.)

Yep that's all mine...down to  my belt.

That's why this exhibit was so interesting to me. People have always touched my hair. Most without asking. Whether it's curly, straight, long, short, braided or loose people always have their hands in it. Most of the time I don't mind. The time a girl in the library randomly ran her fingers through it looking for weave, I'll admit I was a little annoyed.

That time I had a curly faux hawk

I'm curious. What are your thoughts about hair? Are there questions you've ever wanted to ask a black girl? (Please do because I love it!) What are your hair hang ups?

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