Its your Opinion… You are entitled to it

Have you ever found yourself at the point of making a very important decision and then freezing at the thought of what others would think or say about your decision?  The many different imagined scenarios, the advice and warnings, the fear of going ahead with the decision and being told “we told you so” when you fail! Worse still having your choice laughed at and ridiculed? Plays out like a bad nightmare, the kind where you wake up screaming and confused!  You have probably had this experience at least twice… just today.

You might have heard this tale before, but I will tell it to you anyway:

“A man and his son went to a market to buy a donkey.  On their return from the market as the two walked alongside their donkey they passed a group of farmers, the farmers laughed and pointed at how stupid they looked walking when they had a donkey so the Son climbed atop the donkey whilst the Father walked alongside, as they continued on their way they met another group of people who shook their heads at what they saw, “such disrespect for the Elderly” they said.  “Should it not be the Father riding the donkey rather than the young strong son?” upon hearing this, the son climbed down from the donkey and the Father climbed onto the donkey and rode it whilst the son walked alongside.  Further still down the road they met yet another group of people who laughed uproariously?  “look at the lazy man riding whilst his poor boy walks why does he not let him get up on to the donkey so both of them can ride?!”  Again upon hearing this, the son got back up onto the donkey behind his father and the two rode the donkey down the road.  If only that was the end of it…  Further down the road the unfortunate pair met the last group of farmers “Look at those two lazy fools, just because it is a beast of burden doesn’t mean it must be burdened by their fat lazy carcasses, let them carry the donkey so that they can see how it feels!”  Yep you guessed it, the father and son got down from the donkey and indeed carried it on their backs down the road all the way home.”

There are 2 morals here:

1. You can’t please everybody

2. Don’t let people tell you what to do with your Ass!

Cover your Ass!!

It’s funny how major life changing decisions, decisions that are personal in nature always have to take into account someone else’s opinion, an opinion that has no basis and is probably very ill informed.  When buying a car, rather than thinking about the cost implication, and our personal preference, we think ‘what will our friends or family say? Will they be suitably impressed? What would work colleagues say? Will the church think I am rich and should therefore contribute more? Or will they think it is too flashy a car?’  What about when choosing a potential partner? Do we think about that person’s compatibility to us or do we think about what people will say about that person’s appearance, race, nationality, financial status or even gender?

I wish everyone could make their decisions based on what I thought.. Just imagine it!  Nobody would drive a car except me (save on the gas emissions, safe for the environment and all) All beautiful sexy women – except me – would wear hijab and all hot men would walk around shirtless, 50% of the world’s population would be dead because I thought they needed to eat S*** and die and everyone would exist on a strict low carb diet.  Ok so maybe a little bit extreme but it is my opinion and everyone is entitled to one!

And that is exactly the point.  Everyone has an opinion; everyone will always have their own opinion.  Whatever we decide to do with our lives, to one person it will be the right choice and to another the worst decision ever.  The worst damage we do to ourselves is in fact imagining what people are thinking when they have no thought on the matter at all and in fact couldn’t care less what we decide to do with our lives!!

At the end of the day we need to make the choices based on what is right according to our own personal opinion and not other people’s opinions imagined or fact.  So whether you are in love with a Rasta or your favourite car is a Fiat 500 or you choose to paint for a living or write, it’s your choice because at the end of the day you have to live with that decision.

“My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.”

Diamond in the rough or just a pebble?

One topic that is always on women’s lips is the “Mr Right” topic, where to find him, how to get him interested how to keep him.  Mr Right comes in many shapes and sizes and in the same way they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder so too Mr Right is in the eye of the beholder.  Everyone knows this guy, he is tall dark and handsome, drives a flashy car and has money!  Well true that is Mr Right, in the same way a Rolls Royce Phantom is a car…. Lost? Let me break it down to you.

As women we all have the picture of the ideal man we’ll call him Mr TDH aka Tall Dark Handsome.   We have the picture in our heads of how this man will sweep us off our feet and will drive us off into the sunset in his car preferably of the German Luxury persuasion, we picture the luxurious lifestyle we will have and our 2.5 kids who we will send to the best schools in town … you get the picture.  This is what everybody dreams of before they meet Mr TDH without exception!  Who of you can tell me your dream guy was an ugly, gap toothed, short, bandy legged Accounts clerk who takes the bus?

My question today is how realistic is our dream guy (oxymoron I know) and how does our having this dream man affect our ability to find a suitable partner in reality?  Is it not possible that the general Mr TDH is either not suited to you or is perhaps just a little bit out of your league?  How can he be out of your league if he is Mr Right?  Well let’s go back to the Rolls Royce Phantom, it is the ultimate in luxury and opulence, hand built and in a league of its own in other words it is the Mr Right of cars.  But is it for everyone?  I doubt anyone one would say “urgh I hate the Rolls Royce it’s so beautiful”!  But how many people when buying a car would ever go onto the Rolls Royce website to have a look or check the repayment calculator?  I’m not talking to you Mr Trump!  The truth of the matter is, we can dream but at the end of the day you know which dealership stocks your type.

Mr TDH is The Rolls Royce, high maintenance, overpriced and a reality to only a few.  But how is this affecting how we look at potential partners?  Because our expectations are so high, we are missing out on men that could actually be the perfect ones for us.  Just because a car doesn’t have the Head Up Display which projects driving-related information directly on to the windscreen in front of you like the Phantom, doesn’t mean it will not provide you with a comfortable safe drive! It all boils down to high expectations based on purely superficial aspects… nice to have but you can live without it.

Cut and Polished Diamond

Does being a little chubby or short make a man any less capable of being a loving and caring provider for his family?  Or does the fact that he is not at present the CEO of a fortune 500 company mean he is doomed to be an accounts clerk for life?  So he wears a checked shirt with a striped tie and black shoes with white socks “eek”!  If this man has the qualities that make a good partner/husband/father should we not see him as a diamond in the rough?  Honest, loving, supportive, kind and hardworking should be the qualities that make up the cornerstone of what we look for in a man and not his height or his ripped abs and bulging biceps *drool* or his money “kaching”.  I often say to my girlfriends, the polished well-dressed men you see on the street are like that because someone polished them!  Somebody picked up that pebble and took the time to lovingly polish and shape it until it became the stunning diamond we see today is this not why people talk about the “woman’s touch”.  So with love and a little patience most men have the potential to become a shining diamond, note I said “most” some are just pebbles end of story.

At the end of the day, we should not let our judgement be clouded by what society says is the ideal man when we know full well only 10% of the world’s male population fits that mould.  Stop side stepping men because they are not “your type”, how do you know he is not your type if you never take the time to get to know him.  Have a look around you at your friends and family and see how many of them are happy in relationships with Mr TDH, you will be surprised to find that many are very happy with men you would have never pictured them hooking up with.

If you decide to hold out for that Knight in Shining Armour just remember the last Knight was seen in a fairy-tale somewhere living happily ever after with Sleeping Beauty…

Get polishing!

Men… A Bigger Mystery

Recently I read that Steven Hawkins, one of the greatest scientific minds of our time, thinks women are the biggest mystery ever.  I agree, women are a mystery, I’m a woman and I don’t even understand the half of it, but saying women are a mystery Steve does not count as one of your greatest discoveries!  Saying women are a mystery is like saying the sun is hot, of course it’s hot, everyone knows it’s hot, it’s been hot since the beginning of time. That’s why Earth is situated where it is so that we don’t all get incinerated. The same goes for women, they are a mystery, they have been a mystery from the time Shan let Loc hit her over the head and drag her to his cave (Do you really think she went unwillingly?) Or Eve tricked Adam into eating the forbidden fruit.  So why on earth can something we all know is a mystery still be considered a mystery… something to think about…

No good people, the real mystery resides where everyone thinks there is no mystery and everything is cut and dry and straightforward.  Yes the real mystery Steven is MEN.  I have always believed that men are easy to please.  There are so many formulas on what makes a man happy, from the way to his heart being through his stomach, to beer and sport being the recipe to a man’s happiness, monster truck races and entire shower free weekends and four ways to wear your boxers before you have to wash them.  Yes to the untrained eye men are simple organisms with one track minds and bad hygiene, intelligent life forms but the majority are not able to fully utilise this facility right? Wrong!

What do men want?

You think women saying one thing and meaning another makes them complicated?  Men can fully explain something and we are still left thinking “huh?” I have heard men say things like “Why don’t women ever make the first move”. Then when a woman makes the move they say “Men are hunters they don’t want to be hunted”. Men will profess their deep attraction to curvy women but turn around and marry a skinny twig!  They will declare their love for natural haired women and when they have one ask her when she is going to fix her hair! Men will insist they want an independent woman and when they find one they will say she is too independent! Too independent?  Are there parameters that guide independence?  Isn’t independence supposed to be just that?  Men are a paradox I tell you!

The only thing I know for a fact about men is that women will never be able to understand them.  Men always say “nobody knows what women want” but just the other day Wikipedia blacked out because someone asked it “what do men want” Wikipedia drew a blank!  I do not see men going out of their way to actually find out what women want, if we were so complex and mysterious men sure as hell haven’t noticed, or they had us figured out a long time ago and they just use the women are complicated statement to avoid having to actually give us what we want (I had never thought of that till now.. hmmm).  But if you ask a woman, the quest to find out what makes a man happy has gone from hell to high water!  Have you ever googled ‘What men want”?  There are 6 Squillion results of suggestions of things people have tried!  Google “what women want” and you will get 1 million results all referring you to a Mel Gibson movie of the same title.

Steven I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with you.  Women are not the most complex mystery of the ages, yes we are a sack of irrational, angry, volatile hormones, with limited parallel parking capacity and an unlimited supply of tears that are triggered when things aren’t going our way i.e losing an argument – no, women are not a mystery we are just too intelligent for men to understand.  Men on the other hand, the answers to what they want are all there clear as a bell and we all have them… its just that the answers are all wrong.

It’s a fact.

 

 

Hair we go again

Argh its 2012 and guess what… nothing’s changed! Fat people didn’t miraculously get skinny at the stroke of midnight (I’m very disappointed) Dumb people didn’t grow a brain, Dark skin didn’t get lighter and light skin didn’t get darker!  The weaves didn’t go poof in a cloud of smoke and the natural hair is still as frizzy kinky and curly as ever.  Relationships are still mind boggling and I’m still blogging!!

My first thought for the new year is the continued struggle between the Natural Divas and the Weave Queens and the Chemical Cuties!  Ladies put the afro pick and the flat irons down!  Seriously is this ever going to end?! The Queens calling the Divas unkempt and manly looking and the Divas calling the Queens and Cuties fake Barbies who will burn in the chemical hell they are putting on their heads! I sit in a stunned silence not sure which side to take.  I am confused because you see I am a fence sitter.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?

I am a natural girl who loves to change it up and rock a weave when the mood strikes me.  My rule of thumb though is my weave should look like it could be my hair and so since there is no way my kinky hair will ever be long, silky and blond from the root to the tip I tend to stay away from the extremeness of it all and stick to shoulder length 100% yak hair (Coz you do know that’s what 100% human hair is right?)! Why not Brazillian or Indian hair you may ask? Well because till they start making Zimbabwean Hair, Yak is the closest to what the real texture of my hair is when relaxed.

I sometimes feel that being Natural haired and part of the “community” is like being in a cult!  There are rules and regulations that you need to follow to remain a bonafide member, a secret language of BC’s EVOO, 4C’s and Co-wash that needs to be learnt, not to mention the need to ooh and aah at fellow community member’s length checks and successful twist and braid outs!  I don’t remember being a relaxed hair girl being this complicated!

The honest to goodness truth is when I cut my relaxed hair off, it wasn’t because I had seen the light or had an epiphany or embraced some psychedelic funk lifestyle.  My hair was damaged and I didn’t have the patience to nurse it back to health so I decided to cut it off and start afresh. Once I started looking more closely at other women with gorgeous natural hair and the many styling options I thought “why bother relaxing I can keep it just the way it is”.  I was completely oblivious to the politics of hair until the Natural hair Nazis were staring me in the eye and telling me my ends were dry!  In fact it was more political than I ever imagined, the propaganda, the intimidation, the false promises.. Forget the Cult it’s a full blown Dictatorship!

Propaganda – Natural hair is what God gave you (Party Motto), Men prefer Natural hair.

Intimidation – Anything thats not natural is fake and the chemicals are going to eat through your scalp and melt your brain.

False Promises – You will save money, Its easy to care for, You will look beautiful!

Crowning Glory

Why then do I stick with this crazed Natural Hair Party? Well, because its 2012 and I still have free will and the right to choose. Natural hair is natural hair, it doesn’t get more 100% than what’s growing unaltered right out of my own head.  If you take good care of it, it will reward you with a glorious crown, the one God put on your head.

No Means No!… I mean it!

So the holidays are here and we are all gearing up for the silly season, partying and getting wasted will certainly be the order of the day.  You might therefore be wondering why I have this rather odd looking poster headlining my article.  Well this poster is part of an Ad campaign by the Pennsylvania Liquor Board intended as a warning about the increased risk for rape when women drink heavily.  Apparently the advertiser had to pull the campaign because people felt that it implied people who got raped when they were drunk had themselves to blame.

I personally think it is absurd to imply that anyone is to blame for such a heinous violation of their bodies or that they were looking for it.  I did however decide to read what the campaign said and think about this from the advertisers point of view.

We all know that alcohol alters judgement drastically and anyone who has polished off a bottle of wine and then found themselves drunk-texting their ex or crying because their grandfather died… in 1987, will know that once you pass your alcohol threshold you have no control of yourself, your thinking capacity is totally altered and your logic is completely lost.

What we know about people who commit these crimes is that they are sick opportunists with no fear of law, consequence or respect for life.  These people will attack and rape a woman fully clothed from head to toe and completely sober, they rape grandmothers and little children, you don’t have to be passed out drunk for them to rape you… but it does make it much easier for them.

Lets look at it another way.  We all know that burglary is illegal, burglars break into your house and steal your property and sometimes hurt and even kill people in their homes.  Now because burglary is illegal, would you leave your doors wide open, alarm switched off and your dogs tucked into a warm bed at night?  Technically its your house and you can do whatever you want to do with it is it not? If Mr Burglar comes creeping in and finds the doors open and takes your HD 3D TV and all your other equally precious belongings clearly he is the one in the wrong because he entered your property and took what did not belong to him! Yes Mr Burglar is wrong because he broke the law, but you sure did make it damn easy for him to do it.  The first question the police will ask when they arrive, “were your doors locked, and was your alarm on?”  Speaking from experience it is a very annoying question to be asked when you are mourning the loss of your stuff!

Back to the party, as we have said before rapists are cowardly opportunists, they wait for the right moment to attack, it could be a sober woman in a dark corner on her own or it could be a woman so drunk the room is spinning and she cant tell whether she is going left or right.  Our opportunist can choose, he can take the sober woman who will scream, fight and probably bite his ear off or he can have the drunk girl, who is confused disorientated and pretty close to losing consciousness.  DON’T BE THE DRUNK GIRL!

How can we party have a good time but stay safe this holiday?

1. Know your limit!  If you are tipsy after 2 drinks, stop and rather alternate drinks with some water. Don’t push your luck.

2. Don’t leave your drinks unattended. (opportunists might decide to help you along with a date rape drug) Watch as your drinks are being served. If you feel ill or light-headed, telephone for a taxi to take you home straight away.

3. DO NOT leave your friends alone and drunk.

4.DO NOT be left behind by your friends.

5. Tell other people where you are going.

6.Be aware of public bathrooms in clubs and bars. Women have been attacked in the ladies room if it is deserted.

7. Do not let a stranger offer to take you home

Remember that in any situation, alcohol or drugs will impair your ability to be in control. Don’t become a statistic stay safe and enjoy responsibly.

Its only because I love you!

 

 

 

To be or not to be… Friends with your ex!

Now that I have managed to get my head around technology I can finally get down to the business of writing, which is what I generally do best.

Sooo, we all know about what happens at the end of a relationship, the “its not me, its you” (No I mean it that way) the crying the getting over your heart break yadda yadda, but what about when all of that is over and done?  What if your ex wants you to be friends? Surely as mature adults we should be able to just get along? Send each other messages regularly and chat about the weather or some other mundane topic?  Maybe hook up for a drink once in a while and congratulate each other on milestones?  Are you nodding your head in agreement?  STOP!

Unless you and your ex run a business together or share children, there is absolutely no reason for you to remain friends!  9 out of 10 times when a relationship ends, somebody’s heart is broken and they are miserable, making the end of a relationship the worst way to possibly start a friendship! It’s the equivalent of someone deliberately stabbing you in the face with a broken bottle and then saying “hey lets be friends”. Anyone who believes they can be friends with their ex is delusional because it just doesn’t work; it defies all the parameters of what defines friendship.

There is always a reason behind an offer of friendship from an ex and it could be one of the following (I love lists):

1. They are not over you and are hoping that being friends might be a way of getting back together

2. You have just been downgraded to Booty Call status

3. They are evil and are trying to stop you from moving on with your life by staying in your face.

4. They have self-esteem and ego issues and want to know of any new developments in your life

5. They have self-esteem and ego issues and they want you to know of every development in their lives!

6. They never loved you that way and would have always preferred that you just remained friend.

If the reason is No. 1 and if you feel the same way then by all means be friends, get back together and live happily ever after. If it is any of the other 5 reasons then hell freaking no you don’t need that friend!

Regardless of the pitfalls of being friends with the ex, we all still do it and I don’t know if I am alone in saying it is really a recipe for further heart break.  Most of the time when we accept this friendship  we tell ourselves it’s because of reason No.1 , we believe that our ex is still in love with us and is hoping that being our friend will help to draw us close and repair the burnt bridges.  More often than not its everything else but that.

So how do you know your friendship with your ex is not going to work?

1. You still love him/her and you still want to get back together with them

2. He/she broke your heart

4. You don’t want them to move on

If you still love someone, how does it benefit you to agree to just be friends with them? You know full well its not what you want but you agree to it anyway, then whenever you talk you try and steer the conversation to how good you were together. “Good together”?  Are you serious, this Mo’ Fo dumped your ass without even a second thought and you think you were “good together” ?  They broke your heart and left you crying on your pillow for weeks and the moment you are over your broken heart they are back and want to be friends?  Is that some sort of cruel joke?  Where were they when you couldn’t listen to the radio because like Neyo you were “So sick”? Or when seeing a single dove made you weep because it reminded you that “one is for sorrow”!  When you called them and left messages begging them to call you back and they never did!  And now you think this person has the right to be your friend uh-uh no no no no no no no!

How are you going to feel in a month or so when they start telling you about their hot new man/woman?  Are you going to do the friendly thing, congratulate them and be happy for them or are you going to go back crying on your pillow?  Seriously this is foolishness and you need to move on!   And to all those insisting they want to be friends with an ex, get it into your thick skull, the relationship is over DON’T GO AWAY ANGRY, JUST GO AWAY!

My 2 cents worth!

My Heart Bleeds… Hand me a bandaid!

I read the other day that there actually is such a thing as “Broken Heart Syndrome” and people actually die from it!  Don’t start planning your funerals yet people because the good news is death by BHS is not so common.  It doesn’t feel like it right now for me and I’m sure many others out there because damn it hurts! I feel like I was run over by a train and it didn’t even have the decency to kill me.

So what do you do when someone has taken your heart bashed it with a meat tenderiser, thrown it into a blender and flushed it down the toilet?

Well here are a few of my suggestions.  I am writing them down so hopefully I can read them and then actually use them!  So its sort of a “note to self”:

1. Cry.  Crying is the only way to get rid of that suffocating lump in your chest that makes it feel like you are carrying the world and its brother in your heart.

2. Breath. If you don’t, you will die, it’s a proven fact so trust me on this one!

3. Talk. People might start running every time they see you come because ‘oh oh’ here comes Fadzayi with her woe is me story about “that time he lied and she should have known, the lying son of a thousand fathers”!  Talking releases the tension and allows you to get off your chest the things that will keep you up all night, its nice to have someone who can pull you back from the edge when you decide to go and set fire to his house or whitewash his car hmmm that’s not a bad i.. ok NO WHITEWASH FADZI! .

4. Cry. Really it’s a great thing to do; I’m doing it right now.

5. Sleep. At night that is, don’t spend your night blinking in the dark thinking about “1000 ways to die” and imagining his face on all the characters in the film!

6. Don’t blame yourself.  Maybe it was your fault maybe it wasn’t but whatever the case if he/she is willing to see you go through all this pain, it’s really completely their fault!

7. Laugh.  Watch comedy, read Terry Pratchet novels, Trevor Noah really goes a long way on a slow boring day!

8. Eat.  Going on hunger strike never ends well.  Either you die, or you get thin.. wait did I say never ends well? Scratch that!  Actually starving yourself could lead to binge eating and weight gain so put the cookies and ice cream down! Thank You!

9. Pray.  Asking God for strength is not a sign of weakness, Jesus did it!

10. No I’m not going to say “Love”.. that’s coming later… Re-group.  Relationships and break-ups tend to make us lose focus on our lives and we spend our time wishing and hoping and living in the past when we should be planning our now altered future!

11. Understand.  I know it’s a cliché but things really do happen for a reason and maybe he/she really wasn’t meant for you.  It’s sad but true, some things are just not meant to last forever.

12. Enjoy the freedom.  Re-acquaint yourself with you.  You have spent so much time concentrating on someone else you have completely lost yourself and stopped looking after you.  You stopped going out with your friends coz you were too busy hoping he was going to drop by.  Instead your friends dropped you!  Enjoying the freedom doesn’t mean you can immediately start spreading yourself around like soft butter though.  Take a time out from the whole drama of relationships and give yourself time to heal.  The time needed differs from person to person and depending on the extent of the damage to your heart but please if it’s the only thing you do.. Take time to enjoy the freedom.

13. Stop crying!  If you saved all the tears you just cried you could drown his sorry a** in them!

14. Let Go. Stop stalking him, stop stalking his new girlfriend’s Facebook page or asking someone else to do it for you.  Stop wishing; Stop hoping, its ok you can let it go, no ones keeping a score of how good you are at holding onto things. Its not going to win you any points except the ones they use when they calculate whether you are mentally unstable enough for the men in white jackets to pay you a visit.  Or the dosage for the tranquiliser dart!

15. Stay busy. Yes another cliché.  I suffer from anxiety attacks and being in large open spaces make me want to curl up into a ball and scream.  So I stay home and I work on my garden.  I am probably one of the worst gardeners to ever live but you know what, I love doing it and its my garden so I can bugger it up if I want to!

16. Do things that make you happy.  Watching “my sister’s keeper” at this stage is a fail. Only do things that make you smile and laugh and happy.  My thing is writing, I love to write and when I am at my lowest writing has always been my sweet escape.. as is evident at this very moment.

17. Move on.  No matter how badly your heart has been broken it will heal if you give it the right treatment or as Michael Bolton says “Time Love and tenderness”.  Someone who loves you is there probably looking for you right now and will love and cherish you the way you want to be loved.

18.Love. A broken heart once mended is stronger and capable of loving even more deeply.

19. Have no regrets.  If the relationship was good, then it was good but its over and no point in crying over spilt milk, you will have good times again.

20. Cee Lo Green it!  Sing it with me now… “Although there’s pain in my chest I still wish you the best with a FORGET YOU”. (or whichever version you prefer)

I am sure there are millions of other suggestions but due to time constraints and the fact that I am late for my telenovela “India… A love story” I have to love you and leave you folks.  This article is long but I really had to do this for all the people dealing with BHS at this point in time and most of all for myself.. because I give the best advice in town and sometimes I have to give myself some.

Although my heart is like fish paste right now, I still have an opinion!!

Down but never out

Fadzayi Mwana Wekwa Chambati!

Expert Ezine @rticles Author

Hair to stay.

Whilst trying to avoid any moisture getting onto my afro the other day, I thought of how I envied the European, Asian etc women with their silky long locks swimming showering from head to toe without a care in the world. I realized then that black women have for generations suffered from white people’s hair envy. From the moment we laid our eyes on that hair we were captivated, mesmerized and envious we were hooked like a junky on crack and we had to have it.

I decided to go Natural, after years of damage from relaxers, bad hair care and weaves. I didn’t think twice about my decision and am still waiting for the regret to set in… its been over a year. This however does not stop me from hating my African roots for giving me this kinky unmanageable slow growing fuzz I call hair. It’s going to be like forever before I have the kind of luscious afro worn by people like Erykah Badu, I am however patient and I will wait it out.

But, is it wrong for black sisters to put weaves on their hair and wigs and all things long and flowing? I don’t really think it is. I am of the strong opinion that my hair does not have any effect on my personality, like India Arie famously said.. “I am not my hair”. There are many assumptions made about women according to the different hair they have such as:

1. Natural Hair – African, in touch with her Africanness, natural, real but also unattractive, untidy not professional, rural.

2. Afro – Rebellious, Radical, Black pride.

3. Weaves and braids – Sophisticated, beautiful, well groomed but also high maintenance, cheap, trashy and fake.

4. Dread Locks – Natural, in touch with Africanness, Rastafarian, but also unprofessional and untidy.

Most of these assumptions stem from one person’s analysis of a small group of people resulting in incorrect judgment. In an average black woman’s life she will wear all of the above hairstyles and more, if who we are changes with every hairstyle we would all be in mental institutions for Schizophrenia! Hair is an accessory which you can choose to wear any which way you want to, like clothes, it depends on your personal style and what looks good on you. It’s not a political statement or a status symbol, It doesn’t reflect on your professionalism or capabilities, it’s just hair. I’m amazed at how passionate some groups are about their choice of style, the Naturals swear it’s the right thing to do and the way to go but the multi million dollar hair care industry I’m sure will have a different opinion.

Since Madame CJ Walker came on the scene and invented the first hair relaxer black women have never been the same! Always accused of trying to alter our appearance to imitate white women we have ignored the ridicule and the snide remarks and gone onto develop hair technologies that make fake hair look as natural as if we were born with it, we change our hairstyle as often as we please and can go from a short cropped bob to a waist length wavy do in a matter of hours. Sure some hairstyles take 20 hours to put in and can give you sleepless nights afterwards from the pain that may lead to permanent hair loss! And sure some women wash their hair every 3 months for fear of ruining their hair not forgetting the cost of some of the hair pieces could feed a small village for a month! But at the end of the day we have a choice and we use it to do what we want with our hair. Be it real or fake just remember, if you paid for it…. its yours!!!

That’s my hair raising opinion!

Changing Faces

Growing up I was always known as the dark one. Like some evil lord rising out of the west I was labeled.  As a child I knew I was the least attractive one in a home with lighter skinned people and a sister who was much older and much lighter than I was.  I didn’t so much develop a complex about my complexion but rather slowly brewed and matured it! I was defenseless with no way of changing what essentially was part of who and what I was… A dark skinned girl.

Funny how complexion plays such a big role in defining whether a woman is attractive or not.  Lighter skinned women are immediately viewed as more attractive when compared to dark skinned women who are often made to feel less attractive. Someone gave me an example many years ago of how men choose women and said “lets say 4 girls are sitting together and men are asked to pick a girl, the first girl to go is the short light girl, followed by the tall light girl, followed by the short dark girl and tall dark girl leaves with the bar tender!” “But” I said “that tall dark girl is me”!

Later in my life I discovered women like Naomi Campbell, Iman, Kubi Indi and realized they didn’t have caramel skins but were in fact luscious chocolate coloured beauties that the world looked at and rated as being amongst the most beautiful women in the world!  Could it be that the view of what was beautiful was changing?  Then I read about people of Indian descent who were bleaching their skins as dark skin was unacceptable and that bleaching creams had the biggest market in India!  Clearly I was wrong on many levels, it’s not just black people that have a problem with a little chocolate it’s the world and society in general.

I have seen the fallen countenance of mothers as they are handed their new born dark skinned babies and thought to myself “its just a darker shade but your baby is beautiful regardless” yet assuring them that “babies change and she will get lighter!”  I know women that dream of having a little mixed race baby so they have the right complexion and that gourgeous head of curly hair.  Its insanity I tell you these people are crazy!

When I look at a fellow dark skinned woman I see past the chocolate and I see their beautiful eyes and elegant nose, soft lips and proud chin. I see a woman, and not a shade of brown.  I find it ironic how a race of people discriminated against because of their colour have no problem turning around and discriminating against someone because they are a few shades “too dark”! Look what that did to Micheal!! Brother done turned himself white good Lord!

From my point of view a lot goes into making a beautiful person and as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and thought to myself “Damn girl, you fine!”  I am beautiful because I look like my mother who is beautiful even though we have different shades.  I took my appreciation of myself and my blackness to the next level when I cut my relaxed hair off and started growing a funky afro, sure I’m a dark skinned girl with natural hair but that doesn’t change the fact that I am an intelligent successful woman who has great friends and family of all shapes, sizes and colours and I wouldn’t change that for the world… So ladies, put down the bleaching cream promised to give you skin 7 shades lighter in 6 weeks, you don’t need that!  Say it with me “DARK GIRLS ARE BEAUTIFUL”

Looking in the mirror …. that’s how I see it!