Are we really this petty, it's only hair!

[rexbeccarox]

I'm sorry; I can't let this go. It's really bugging me.

While I've never much cared for white people wearing locs, I'm not gonna hit anyone over it. I'm also not going tell anyone what can and can't do with their hair.

Well, that's good, but...

However, the fact that white people in this country can't understand the significance of natural (unstraightened) hair in the African American community and the struggles we have with the right to wear our hair the way it grows, and wear it healthy manageable styles irritates me.

... how could "white people" possibly understand something like that if they've never experienced it? I'm of Dutch descent, and my hair grows half barely-wavy, and half corkscrew. People have told my all my life my hair was inappropriate in whichever way they didn't like it. Should you understand my plight as a Dutch person and consider my feelings by not assimilating my Dutch culture and getting a keratin treatment?

So it's not just hair. It's never been just hair. Hundreds of years of denying black beauty.

How is imitation a denial of a culture's beauty? WTF??

Of being told your hair is ugly, dirty, nappy, unprofessional, inappropriate. And white people can't leave even this unassimilated.

You've never heard that imitation is the highest form of flattery? "White people" wearing their hair in dreads or braids seems pretty much the opposite of them telling "black people" their hair looks ugly, dirty, nappy, etc., don't you think?

So while this woman is very wrong for hitting someone, I can somewhat understand where she's coming from.

I still really, really don't get what you're saying.