Believe it or not there are Black people out there who truly hate themselves and their beautiful natural looks! So many sistas, for instance, spend so much time, effort and energy worrying about their hair and spend lots of money actually trying to change it. But, is it really worth spending so much fighting against your natural, God-given hair by perming it?

I do not believe that but I have heard many say “the majority of black women will proudly tell you that their natural hair is unmanageable…”. This is a terrible nonsense!

It suggests that, subconsciously, you believe that black people’s hair is ugly. Keeping your hair as natural as you can is not a retro-vision: but strong visual sign of your identity.

I have also met sistas who used to perm their hair a lot. They did not want to go out without a wig or permed hair. But they stopped doing that because they realised that it was another way of destroying part of themselves.

Some white fellows have suggested that I perm my hair in order to look “prettier” and I have honestly answered them: “I like my hair the way it is.”

I assume that they think that, as there are so many black girls with permed hair, our hair must be ugly and so there is no way to look pretty with it in its natural state. Of course, they will never recognise this fact in front of me.

I am an African Spanish girl who has lived her entire life among white people, and my parents, sisters and I have always kept our natural hair without worrying about what white folks might think.

Skin bleaching is terrible and quite widespread nowadays, so please do not dismiss the issue!

In my opinion it is another step forward in the process of alienation. It can be dedined as a complete rejection of blackness. People who commit this do not realise the danger of their actions, which could lead to serious health problems. While white girls try to get some skin colour, some of our sistas try to take some out. That is crazy!

All of us have an European touch. That is inevitable as we are living in a white society. But it seems to me that a lot of sistas are overly concerned with not looking African, even though all of us have African roots whether you like it or not.

To those sistas, I say “stop behaving like white girls copy-cats.”

Peace