Why Is It So Hard To Love Our Natural Hair? | Part 1: Insecurities And Self-Love !!

Hey guys welcome to my natural Academia. Today'S video is part, one of a six part series of why it's so hard to love our natural hair. So I know I haven't done one of these natural hair, Deep dive topic, discussion, conversation type of videos um this year at all, it's because I've been very, very busy y'all, but I I don't know I'm finding myself becoming more and more passionate about natural hair and There'S a lot of things that Inspire this deep dive for me, you know if you guys are Avid Watchers of mine or maybe you've come across it or not. Maybe I don't know, but if you haven't my last Deep dive was on our obsession with hair. That is in our own texture and that, I think, was a four or five part series and it took me six months to complete, but I think the series will only take about six parts to unpack and there's a lot. That goes into this topic of why it's so hard to love our natural hair, I'm very excited to kind of um discuss it with you guys, because I love it with you guys. Also um give me your thoughts and feelings in the comments. So yeah I'm excited so I'm gon na call this an episode just to make it sound a little bit more fancy or a little bit more. You know a little bit more upscale. You know I spent a lot of time, writing and researching and scripting um every single part for this series and I'm very excited to get into it with you guys and I'm in the process of creating my own blog, because I write a lot for my scripts And I just don't want it to go to waste, so I think I'm just gon na. I think I'm just gon na create my blog and upload all of my scripts on there, because they're very informative and they're, actually very beautiful, and I love all of my scripts and I think um someone might enjoy it one day. You know one day when I'm dead and gone. Sadly, someone will find it and be like oh who's. This girl, natural Academia who was talking about hair every five seconds but anyways in today's video we're not going to get deep deep into the topic. This video is essentially going to be an introduction to the topic of why it's so hard to love our natural hair and I'm specifically talking about us in the black community. So no one is confused. This will essentially be an introduction, I'll also be going over. What inspired me to talk about this topic, as well as a brief discussion about the topic a little bit later on and then I'll conclude it and then the next. I feel like I'm talking so much, but I'll go in a little bit later on in the video as to what the other five parts of the series will entail. So, as I stated a little bit earlier in the video, the series is going to be all about why it's so hard to love our natural hair, specifically in the black community, and I will personally admit - and you guys can also - let me know down in the Comment section if you've also felt the same way about your natural hair, but there was a point in my life where I was not the most fond of my hair, where I did not like you or I thought it was ugly where I thought it just wasn't Attractive, so I always used to talk down on my hair. I used to think you know in every room that I walked in. I didn't think that my hair was the most beautiful, so um. Have you guys ever felt that way about your own hair? Has there ever been a point in your life, for you just didn't like your hair, for whatever reason, because I've definitely had my own faces and when I I can admit that I did not like my natural hair. So as we continue discussing um, why? It'S so hard to love our natural hair. The different questions that came to my mind when it came to this topic were why is there such a huge emphasis in our culture for natural hair Journeys like? Why does that? Why? What is the reason that natural hair Journeys exist? I don't I'm not gon na sit here and act like I've, never heard any other group of people or you know. A group of people outside of the black community say that they're on a natural hair Journey or say those words specifically, but I feel like it's very emphasized in our culture, to have a natural hair journey. I don't know simple: things is like cutting our hair becomes part part of our natural hair Journey. Why isn't the texture of our hair we're celebrating? Why does kinky short hair get looked down on in comparison to straight short hair? If that makes any sense, why do we think or why do we believe that our hair is so difficult to manage? And lastly, how - and why has our hair become a political stance in our society, so I'm not yet sure which order that I'm going to put those Topics in. But those are just some topics that I've thought of and that are definitely going to be part of this series. So some of the things that inspired this series for me or the thought of even creating a series like this for me, was because it's a conversation that I feel like that happens in our community. Very very often phrases such as I'm tired of dealing with my natural hair or my hair is so hard to manage. I don't know what to do with my natural hair. I hear those phrases so very often from when I was like young to you know. I'M not really well, I guess I'm an adult, I don't know um from when I was young up until now, and and I hear it from children, I hear it from adults. I hear it from adolescents. I hear from everybody like I hear it from so many Naturals, and so that's something that kind of sparked my interest in this topic. Something else that inspired this series for me was a situation that happened to me a couple or not to me, but a situation that I observed a couple of days ago, where a child was I'm not usually around children. I don't have any kids. I don't have friends that have children, but now I do. I think I don't know, but I met a child she's a little black girl very fascinated by the idea of having long hair - and you know that's I don't know children are very impressionable. So what you show them, or what they think is pretty, is usually what they aspire to be or what they aspire. To look like and something that she kept reiterating is like, like she wants her hair to be as long as Rapunzel and y'all know, Rapunzel got them inches, so she just kept saying that and like she wasn't, I don't think she wanted to have straight hair. She didn't say anything about having one of her straight hair. She just wanted to have long hair, and that made me think that, like do, we as a culture have a prejudice against short hair, even though, like I don't want to say, majority of the population but uh like it's. Natural hair comes in all shapes sizes, textures and lengths like it's not uncommon, for people to have short natural hair. Do those people that have short natural hair are they looked down on because they have short natural, hair and I've? You know some may say. Yes, some may say no I've kind of I'm a little bit biased because I was bullied for having you know, tiny hair, but anyways it doesn't have to do with being less feminine a little bit more masculine. So, that's something that I want to unpack in the series - something that not only confuses me, but also inspired me to do this series is the fact that I hear so many times that we lack representation in the media and to me I've always thought that, like It'S not uncommon for us to not wear our natural hair, like especially at Grand events like um, like the black celebrities, that you see, walk the red carpets, a lot of times nine times out of ten. They won't even be wearing their natural hair, all right guys. So it's me natural Academia, editing right now and I'm just realizing how dramatic and hyperbolic I was in this statement about nine times out of ten um black women don't wear their natural hair on the red carpets. I was being very dramatic with that number and I just had to come in and let you guys know really quickly. I would go into a little bit more detail, but this video is already long, as is so. Let me not make it any longer. I hope you're enjoying or the black woman that you see in power - or you know like just in a general sense like even even for events and like oh look, I'm just gon na, say regular people's lives, people that are not celebrities, people that are you know Everyday working citizens, like even for special events in our communities, I feel like hair, is kind of the norm to not really wear her natural hair. So it confuses me in the sense of like why are we pushing or advocating or asking so much for representation when we in our day-to-day lives, don't even Rock the representation that we so desire? So that was another inspirational mind for this topic and, lastly, just like my reason for wanting to discuss the our obsession with hair, that is in our own texture, that last series, like I'm, generally interested in these topics. I actually think about these things. I mean I don't go around like asking people in my life like hey. What do you think of this or hey? What do you think of that like, but the fact that I have a platform to communicate these things about, like I, you know, I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice, not talking about it, and if I have a question on something I'm going to ask like. That'S if you don't know anything about me like I ask well if I'm, if I'm comfortable, not even like, if you don't know anything about me like know that I ask questions, I I'm a person that loves to know things I enjoy commentary. I enjoy knowledge. I enjoy learning things. I don't even know the answer to the question that I'm asking I I learned with you guys. I learned as the series goes on my mind, changes like I, edit things I edit my scripts like I like, as I do research I learn. Um different things, so I'm learning with you guys as well. So I have a genuine interest in this topic and you know I'm on social media. I see the conversations that happen on Instagram on Twitter and all um different social media platforms and people discussing why they don't like their natural hair and see it so often so exhibit a. These are just some examples that I found um. These are some conversations that happened on Twitter that I saw a while ago and I kind of not necessarily resonated with them, but I definitely wanted to have a conversation on the topic that were being had um like the one in the middle says. It takes a lot of confidence, self-love and acceptance to where you're 4C natural hair and it's shrunken natural hair State um. You know why, because people don't like that ish, I should have probably crossed out the inappropriate words, but I did not realize um. Let'S just all assume that we're all adults here, but I will I will go in in a little bit more depth in future videos. When I get you know down into the specific topics about what we see on the screen - and it's generally puzzling to me why it's so hard for us to love our natural hair and it's more than just like an oppressor's answer. I feel like there's something deeper in in that answer, and the biggest inspiration of all is my genuine drive to want to know the answer to such subjective topics like it gives me a sense of purpose. When I tackle these issues, because you know it's different for everybody, people have um their own feelings towards certain things, and I don't know I feel, like I'm conquering something when I discuss these types of um topics, alright guys. So I know I'm doing a lot of talking but bear with me like I'm, really I'm I'm going somewhere with all of this. Like I, I do be talking a lot, though I'm not gon na lie. I was gon na say I don't really talk this much. You know try to be cute about it, but I really do be talking about. I talk a lot like it's it's kind of like a mental stimulator for me, I I I talk too much. Sometimes I think but anyways um. That'S besides the point. Thank you for sticking around if you still are like I mentioned in the beginning of the video, this video is just gon na, be the introduction of the topic just so you guys can have an idea of how I'm going to approach this discussion and just to Let you guys know my Approach going into this topic is not to blame anybody, because I don't really think anyone is really at fault per se. That is subjective, but, like I want you guys to know that. I understand that there are many external factors that have impacted our ability, as a culture to say proudly that we love our natural hair. Like I, I understand - and I recognize that - and it's not something that I'm going to be brushing over throughout this discussion, but something that I admire a lot and something that I strive for a lot is accountability. So my perspective with communicating And discussing this topic is going to be more centered around us and the things that we do as a culture to kind of perpetuate these stereotypes amongst ourselves. If that makes any sense, foreign quickly is insecurities, and insecurities was probably one of the first things that came to my mind when it came to this topic um. If this is just the introduction guys, this is not fact but anyways, something something that I learned. A very very long time ago is that you don't really know that you have an insecurity or you like. It'S not that you don't know that you have an insecurity but you're not really insecure about something until somebody points it out and makes you feel like what you have or the way that something looks on you isn't good enough. I don't think people are just born with hatred of particular things about themselves. I think it's something that we learn and something that we kind of adapt to like nurture instead of nature like personally, for me I'll give you guys a little story about myself a little embarrassing. So well, it's not really embarrassing because I'm overcome, I really do not care anymore, like I'm very well! No, I'm not because I still remember my bullies but anyways when I was in Middle School, like I used to get bullied a lot. Y'All know, if you don't know like my hair used to be very very sore. You know I was a little ball of chocolate walking around campus and stuff when I was in Middle School and I used to get comments from people talking about the color of my skin, which caused me to be insecure in my skin the length of my neck, The texture of my hair, the length of my hair, even um, and even down to like the way my ear folds like I wasn't even insecure about my ears until somebody said that, like why does your ear fold like that like? Why is that? Because you know most theaters kind of like go like that, but somebody pointed it out to me and ever since then I've kind of been it's something that I've noticed. You know I kind of try to hide my ears. If you haven't noticed, I don't really say it very much but anyways it's something that they said to me when I was younger that kind of brought light um like kind of put a spotlight on those issues. When really it wasn't even an issue before going into Middle School, I genuinely did not think that I was so dark. I did not think that my ears were folded incorrectly um. I knew my hair was short, but I wasn't really insecure about it, because I knew that, like I had established you and it didn't really, it wasn't something that, like I dwelled on and cried on before, I came to middle school, but you know going into there Like I feel like a lot of my insecurities stem from like people pointing things out on me and making me feel like it, wasn't up to par or wasn't good enough and yeah. So I feel like a lot of insecurities, come about when people Point them out and make you feel like it's less than what it should be, but anyways my point in exposing myself to you guys. The way that I just did is to help you all understand that I'm completely aware that we live in a society that has instilled in us for Generations upon Generations upon Generations that everything about us is not good enough, like from the shape of our bodies to The pigmentation of our skin, to the way that we raise our sons and daughters even down to the texture of our hair. They have kind of instilled in us that all of these things are egregious and bad, and I feel like when, when you're constantly told these things like you internalize them, and you become very insecure about them. I do believe because of those generational, traumas and and bullying and belittlement. If that's even a word like, I do believe that those have really caused us as a culture to be very insecure about ourselves. Yeah - and I don't think a lot of people know that they're insecure about these things, there's a saying or a quote that I'm sure many of you all have probably heard before in the past it says: hurt people hurt people, so people that um are hurt. Go out and hurt other people just like a crab and a bucket mentality like if you're falling or failing in life, you kind of want to bring people down with you and there's another another quote: misery loves company, like all of those things I feel like. I resonate with those things a lot, especially in today's topic. I feel like this quote brings a little bit more understanding as to why 10 to 20 years ago, everybody was just slapping the creamy crack on the children's heads and you know causing their hair to fall off. But that's you know. Let me not be judgmental, because do you boo, I really it doesn't hurt me, but you do to yourself. I might get second hand embarrassment or I might feel bad for you, but generally it does not hurt me what you decide to do with your hair, but I do feel like the reason why I resonate with the hurt people hurt people with regards to the creamy Crack and how everyone felt very comfortable slapping the creamy crack on their children, because once the comb didn't go through the children's Kings, it was like. Oh, your hair is too hard to manage. Let me just go apply this product, so that your hair will be a little bit more easy to man. I feel like when we live our lives with unresolved issues and insecurities it's very easy to pass that one to our children and our children's children. The people that were slapping the creamy crack onto the children's head - they probably didn't, really have a good understanding as to how they could have taken care of their own head or their. Mothers didn't have an understanding of how to take care of their heads and they grew up to not know how to take care of their hair, which in turn made them not know how to take care of their children's hair. And it's very it's much more easy to it's easier to slap, a Band-Aid on the issue than to actually work on the issue. I honestly have a problem with that myself, I'm a very out of sight out of mind type of person, which I don't know if it even makes sense in with what I'm talking about, but essentially I'm the type of person like if I see mess, which is Why I lose a lot of things like if I see my keys somewhere, where it's not supposed to be I'll? Put it somewhere, where I can't see it so that it doesn't mess up my aesthetic and then I lose the key, because I'm the type of person that just like throws things places. So I don't have to see it, but it anyways back to the topic. Um unresolved issues within ourselves, um insecurities within ourselves kind of I feel like there's a piece of lip lying around. I hope I don't see that um yeah, but anyways unresolved issues within ourselves on resolving securities within ourselves has the ability to be passed down to your children and your children's children if it's not resolved. So if you knew that you weren't raised in a household that prioritized um the health of your hair or taking care of your hair, because we are talking about hair, there are a lot of different issues that we could. You know unpack with that saying if you weren't raised in a household that knew how to take care of your hair or told you that your hair was beautiful or emphasized wearing your natural hair, and you grow up to not prioritize those things yourself. It'S very easy to pass it down to the Next Generation and then those generations of children to end up. You know doing the same things to their own kids and that's why it's very important to put a name to our problems and issues and insecurities um. I feel like that comes with every aspect of life, because if you don't know what the problem is, it's gon na be very hard to solve it, which is why we are are asking the question: why is it so hard to love our natural hair? Once we figure out why it's hard to love our natural hair, we'll be able to solve the issue or work towards solving the issue, um and you know, help future generations to not feel the same way about their own natural hair. So that kind of concludes my introduction about this topic. I know I recently spoke about the different talking points that will be unpacking throughout the series and, like I said earlier, I don't know which order that I'm going to be unpacking the different issues in, but the first one was. Why does our culture put such a big emphasis on natural hair Journeys? I myself will admit that I've said this phrase like a million times on my channel like if somebody could well, nobody would, but you know, see I'm trying to get out of the habit of being so pessimistic in life because there might be somebody who's willing to Do this but anyways, if somebody could like watch all my videos and count how many times that I've said natural hair Journey alone like it's about a million times girl? I said it a lot, so I myself am guilty of saying um like natural hair Journeys, like I feel like it's so ingrained in our culture, to to believe that we have to go through some sort of Journey, and it's not even like a belief like I Genuinely think we go through a journey of taking care of our natural hair learning how to take care of it and the different products that work and the different products that don't like it's a journey. But why is there such a big emphasis on it? Because we are not the only group of people that have hair growing up out of our head like, why is it such a big part of our culture to say that we're going through a journey and not just oh? I tried this product and it didn't work for my hair like is it because of hair growth like it's hair growth, the issue with this topic, and if so I want to pack unpacked wide natural hair growth is so important in our culture like. Why is it significant for us to have you know long hair? If that makes sense, I don't know yet girl we a little crusty on the details, but we're gon na get there. Okay, I'm gon na be much more organized. The next video I'm gon na have a little bit more structure. The next topic that I also want to get into in the series is why short kinkier hair gets looked down on more than short straight hair or short straighter hair. I also want to unpack that, and I feel like unpacking that will kind of lead us to the conversation of texturism and lengthism, which I've kind of briefly touched on in my obsession with hair that is in our own texture. So I'll probably have to go. Look at my notes that I did for that video to kind of see if it matches up with this topic. I don't even know if those are actual words, texturism and lengthism. I kind of just started saying it one day and um it's kind of been a history ever since so yeah. I think it's very important to understand why our short, kinkier hair isn't as widely accepted as straight. Imagine here like what is the difference aside from like the textures, what really is the difference and you guys are probably thinking like? Oh these are such obvious questions, but is it really is it really girl? I don't think so. I really think there's more to everything, and I also want to get into the topic of why we believe so much that our hair is difficult. I generally don't think that natural hair is difficult. Does it take a lot of time? Yes, but um? Oh good things come with time. You know, I don't think it's so difficult to a point where, like it gives a reason to give up on. Like you know what I mean like, I really want to know like what about our natural hair makes it so difficult to take care of. Is it our texture that makes it so difficult to take care of our hair or or is it because we don't know how to properly manage our textures? I don't know bro, I'm just we're just gon na be unpacking that too. Okay, I'm just kind of thought that one we'll also be discussing if the texture or if our hair in general is even worth celebrating. Is it something that should be such a topic of discussion? You know because hair grows out above and everybody's head, it won't like. Is it? Is it something that we should be proud of? I personally, I'm gon na be a little bit advised with point, because I do feel like natural hair is our natural hair is very beautiful, like our hair, it like it, it boggles my mind to even think about how our hair is different from every group of People on this Earth, I feel like the chosen one I feel like I was gifted a gift. Does that make sense? The simple fact that our hair defines gravity and the different styles that we can even do with our hair? The fact that we can wear our hair in like locks and it'd be so beautiful and not look like a bird's nest. That'S something to celebrate. I think, but anyways we'll be unpacking if natural hair is even worth celebrating as a whole. What do you guys think? I mean, I don't know I'm talking about these things you guys are free to, like you know, kind of discuss amongst yourself like what you think of each topic. I'M very excited about this topic. If you cannot tell - and lastly, the um, the last thing that I kind of wanted to touch on is kind of the history of um, our our hair, I kind of plan on doing a whole history lesson. So if you're interested in like history or I love history, I love learning about my culture. I love learning about what they did to us child. They did a lot, but I just love all things: black, all things, natural hair, so I'm very interested to kind of go into the whole history of our natural hair. But in the perspective of why and how our hair has become a political statement. So I'm going to be deep, diving into it in that perspective, well, mostly taking some time to unpack the afro figure out how and where in the history like our hair became such a like political statement, because if you go to your job with your your hair, Just in a big afro like you're gon na get weird looks they might even call somebody for you like hey. Like I don't know, there's been so many situations in the past where we've worn our hair in certain Styles and we've gotten the cops called on us. We'Ve been told to go home from work because it's just inappropriate and it's just like it's to me - it's just hair but we'll definitely be unpacking the afro, I'm not even trying to force myself into a little circular, afro just for the sake of excitement. I do believe that, like just imagine y'all, if we all decided to wear our afros out at once, like all at once, every single person in our culture just woke up one day and said: I'm gon na pick my hair out into an afro the grounds on This Earth would shake they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. That'S how influential our hair is. That'S how influential natural hair is, in my mind, um at least but in conclusion, y'all um to kind of uh, not necessarily summarize, but to kind of give you guys a brief uh understanding of where I'm at at this point in my life with regards to this Topic and natural hair at least. I truly believe that natural hair is an extension of our bodies, which, literally it is. It is part of our bodies, just like our fingers and our toes and our skin connects. You know our bodies together, like I, the hair that goes on top of our head goes out of our body and it's an extension of our body, part of the idea of self love um the same self-love that I feel like has been a topic of discussion For many people throughout these past few years, like one of the biggest ideas of self-love, is to love oneself completely like to love yourself down to the core and even down to our imperfections and our insecurities and the things that we don't think are perfect. Because we are human, we're not perfect, there are going to be things about us that we don't like or gon na, be things about us that we wish that you know weren't there or were there um? I think one of the biggest aims or ideas of self-love is to love yourself down to your imperfections and - and it's not just like a mental thing, it's a you need to physically love the way that you look in the mirror, because, at the end of the Day when you, you know, if you step in a room by yourself and you look at yourself in the mirror, all you see is you like? If you look at yourself and you do not love what you see, then you might not have self up and I don't blame anyone for struggling with self-love. I personally struggle. I have struggle, am struggling with completely loving myself because there's a lot to love about me. Okay, I'm taking it one step at a time. Y'All like I I there are things about myself that I you know, I'm not gon na expose myself on camera because I'm not I'm not there. Yet with my insecurities, you know I'm not at the point where I feel like I can joke around, because I just feel like it's gon na make me cry and when I talk about it but anyways, I don't blame anyone for not completely loving themselves. Your natural hair is part of you. I do feel like it's something that deserves to be loved. Just like everything about yourself deserves to be loved as well. I I think that hair is an extension of yourself and, if you're gon na love yourself truly, I think it's partly self-love to love your natural hair as well. I don't know it's just me. It'S just me, don't fight me! It'S and like I said a little bit earlier, I'm on the journey myself. It'S not an easy journey to be completely in love with yourself and especially as time goes on and you age and things change about you, like you're, constantly changing your mindset is changing um. What you find attractive is changing what the norm and trend is, is always changing, so it's kind of very hard to to be completely um in contentment with oneself when there's so so much change that happens in the world and time like time also changes its age. Also changes us, but I don't feel like that, should let you stop yourself from trying at least to love yourself. I don't think that you should let that be the reason why you give up on trying to love yourself, because at the end of the day, when you step in a room by yourself and you're, looking at yourself in the mirror, all you see is you um And if you don't love yourself, like it'll, be very very hard to let somebody else love you and we all want to be loved. I don't know I I I want to be loved at least but anyways. I feel like I did so much talking in this video y'all, but that pretty much concludes part one of the six part series um. I talked about my Inspirations for coming up with this topic. Talking about you know it being an introduction. My conclusion, I really hope you guys gain something from this video. Let me know down below what you think of this topic, if you're interested in it too, because I mean well there's, there was one time that I created a series that I didn't go through with completely because I got very negative feedback. So, like you guys are the ones that's going to be watching this video, so let me know down below if you even enjoyed this topic, if you think it's even worth talking about or mentioning that's pretty much all I had to say for this video, if you Guys have anything that you want to add or if you have any comments, questions or concerns regarding anything that I said throughout this video. Definitely let me know down below and I'll, be happy to answer and I'll see you guys in part two or before then, because I still plan on doing other stuff, but I'll see you guys next time.