WHY I WEAR MY HAIR NATURAL
By Andrea'

When I cut off all my permed hair nearly eight years ago, I was making a deliberate transition, hoping that by freeing my hair, I was signifying the broader freedom that I wanted in my life.

I cut my hair shortly after my aunt died in March 1999. I loved my Aunt Dorothy, my mother's only sister, very much. Aunt Dorothy had a good life, according to the standards by which the lives of southern black working-class women can be judged. But I sense that there was so much that she missed, so much that she might have put off, waiting for more money, more time, more opportunities. Her passing was a wake-up call for me-I could not afford to defer the decisions that mattered to me.

Allowing my hair to go natural was one of those decisions that I decided not to let linger, I had been wanting to go natural for a while. Seems tht some of the most beautiful women that I admired at Spelman, where I was attending college, had natural hair. Through reading and noticing their lifestyles, I realized that wearing one's hair natural can be part of a holistic lifestyle of Afro-centric, healthy thinking and being. For example, many of the dredlocked and afro-wearing sistahs I knew were also spiritually centered and vegetarian (I became a vegetarian in 2000).

So when my aunt passed, I decided that my decision could not wait. Black women had been waiting for too long to do the things, big and small, that mattered to them. A few days after my aunt's funeral, I cut off all my hair. The stylist that I had been used to perming my hair was hesitant to cut it. She reminded me of all of the supposed disadvantages and inconveniences of not having straight hair, but I persisted. I wanted to take a small risk , for my own sake and in honor of my aunt who hadn't been able to take so many risks in her life.

I have never regretted my decision. I absolutely love my hair now. I like to touch it and twirl it around my fingers now that it's grown out. I like it texture and the way that my first strands of gray (which I will never dye) are highlighting my otherwise pitch black nappiness. I wear twists and Bantu knots and cornrows without extensions. And I generally get several compliments about my hair from both women and men. One man I dated was particularly enamored by my natural hair. He said that when I wore cornrows, the parts and designs in my hair reminded him of the winding roots of a strong tree-the family tree that connects people of African descent to one another. I cherish that.

I'm encouraged to see black women wearing their hair natural. For some folks, it's simply a style and that's okay. But other sistahs have philosophical reasons for being natural, as I do. After all, I want for every part of me-beginning with my heart and manifesting in my hair-to be a reflection of my family tree, a tree that includes my Southern-born Aunt Dorothy. A tree that has its deepest roots in the Motherland.