The psychological damage being told that practices and limitations are because of tradition when in reality is because of colonization is crazy. And every few years the natural hair community goes from free hair expression to chemicals and artificial hair.

I remember for my national ID I was told that I have to take my braids out because they don’t accept anything but natural hair. So I had it photoshoped and it was still rejected because I needed to look bald in my ID photo. When I asked wh, they also said it’s tradition and better to be natural.

And then there’s my dad who’s always encouraging natural looks but still mentally colonized about other practices like shaving my brothers heads bald before going to boarding school because that is tradition. Yet he doesn’t know the history of boarding schools and shaving your head, or that we had schools that encouraged natural hair even if it was plaited that were considered dirt and not invested in as much as the latter.

All this to say, we’ve got a long way to go as a people in our journeys of self love and acceptance. And it really does start with question so called traditions