Ebony's Kimberly Walker says the "hair police" attacks on Solange call for a reminder that you have the right to wear your hair however you want.
Though most don't have a highly publicized social medium to verbally whip these highfalutin kinksters—Solange does. Natural hair blogger Curly Nikki posted the singer-turned-model's quotes from her feature in the June issue of Essence — which garnered a slew of comments bashing Solo for everything from her love of faux curls to the fact that she favors and typically wears softer, less defined styles. How absolutely ridiculous is it that natural hair enthusiasts would bash someone for appreciating their curls in a less manipulated state?
Solo retorted with a few tweets telling the masses that she never vied for the position of "team natural vice president," nor does she even "know the lingo." She ended with my favorite line, "I don't want to talk about no damn hair … no mo." Who would've ever predicted that "good and bad" hair would play out this viciously in the natural realm? You can't police personal style, folks. Nor should you attempt to create bondage in a movement all about self-expression.
We've become terribly critical of the way women wear their natural hair because of this surge of information and products. It's a blessing and a curse. Simply because we've expanded our natural hair vocabulary to include these helpful styling terms doesn't mean that anyone is forced to scrunch, coil, fingerstyle, spiral set, shingle, braid or twist anything.
Read Kimberly Walker's entire piece at Ebony.com.
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