The below started as a comment on a tumblr but clearly went TL;DR so I made it a "post" a lot less um...polished than some of my recent posting, but that's what you get when you follow this here blog. *Shrug.*
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(Me a year ago, my hair is shorter now, chopped again...)

So apparently all the Black girl appreciation tumblrs (or the one's I follow so the important one's right?) are talking "natural" hair today. What is natural? What is real real natural?

I have "natural" hair in the sense that I no longer have it chemically processed to have it "straightened" (read killed so it lies flat.) I could however give two shits about people's perspective on that. I wanted to get real into the natural hair appreciation community but far to often I felt like people spent sooo much time talking about how better natural Black women felt about themselves than "non-natural" women (need a term for that.) Natural women have better (not just more but better)self-esteem than... "non-natural women."  Personally, I went natural because I moved across the country and had no one I trusted to do my hair and I hate spending time doing hair myself. On my top 5 list of stupid shit to do with my day. Not because I loved my African roots sooo much that I wanted to dismantle the white supremacist, whatever the hell. I mean if that's why you did it then fine do you. But there are all kinds of factors that play into people's decisions about how to wear there hair. Mine happen to be that I am impatient and can't stand to spend the amount of time that most care regimens that long (processed or not) hair requires.

Maybe I also did it because I was soooo scared to chop my hair off. I had long hair my whole life and when I started thinking of going natural I decided I would do a big chop because there was no way I was going to spend the time and energy doing the stuff required to do a transition. Rather cut if all off and start from scratch. But the thought of having short hair, hair that I couldn't hide behind? Freaked me the fuck out. I am a femme, but for years felt like no one respected (or really saw) that part of my identity and I wanted to do nothing to jeopardize my hard one feminine "cred." Cutting my hair till I was nearly bald would be a dangerous (from my perspective) move. Funny enough I think I've gotten more play as a short-haired femme than I ever got with long hair...who knew?

But the point is that there are sooo many reasons why a Black woman can decide to process or not to process her hair or wear "artificial hair". Hell if I could figure out a way to put weave in that took less an hour, for cheap...shooo, I would have hair down my back at least 1 week out of every month. I think Black women are gorgeous regardless of what we're doing with our hair. And I think it's a shame how much people ESPECIALLY BLACK WOMEN police Black women about their hair. The freedom to choose what happens with your hair means you could make ANY choice.

It aggravates me to no end that people honestly believe that *my* (or anyone else's) political "authenticity" can be assumed because of how they do their hair. I'm not saying hair is not political but it is one facet of a persons identity. I AM NOT A (sometimes militant) BLACK FEMINIST BECAUSE I HAVE NATURAL HAIR. I DO NOT HAVE NATURAL HAIR TO PROVE MY BLACK FEMINIST IDENTITY. I AM A BLACK FEMINIST AND I HAPPEN TO HAVE NATURAL HAIR BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE FUCK I WANTED TO DO WITH MY HAIR THAT MORNING.