A woman who cuts her hair is about to change the world. Or get rid of her man. Cutting our hair often signals a major change. We cut to big chop. We cut because of grief. We cut in anger. We cut in growing pain. We cut in joy. We cut in liberation. And sometimes we cut our hair when we should really be cutting people off. More specifically, men. Even more specific, toxic men. Some context. Some of y’all know I loc’d my hair back in late August. I was excited about the journey.[...]
It's hard to let it go because you're attached to it but maybe you’re just comfortable with it because you’re scared to try something new. And maybe you keep it because it let you hide a few things you don’t like about yourself. So you hang on it. You try to manipulate it into being what you want. Pulling, tugging, permanently altering things about yourself to make it fit. Plus your momma ‘nem always been hella invested in you maintaining it. Sometimes you wonder if it belongs to you[...]
I went natural because of the possibility that relaxers contributed to fibroids. The start of my journey was about my physical health. That said, the big chop was a moment of liberation I’ve sought to recreate in a subsequent big chop and two natural hair journeys. Less than one inch of tightly coiled locs against my scalp felt like freedom. It was about me and what I wanted to do with my hair for whatever reasons I chose. That freedom lasted about as long as it took to grow my hair out becaus[...]
Language is powerful. So much so that many underprivileged and underrepresented groups (i.e. people of color, women) have ceased using terms like “minority” because of the necessarily negative connotations. Usage of “minority” when applied to certain groups makes even less sense when you consider that some of them actually constitute a majority of the world’s population (i.e. people of color, women). What we know is that language is used to socialize. If an oppressed group learns to se[...]
