Black Hair Issue

  There is definately an issue here happening in this country! We as African-Americans in this country have been keeping our culture and our heritage alive all different ways that associate us to our ancestry in Africa. Our hair, which is one of the ways we have expressed our gifts of art & during slavery, used our hair to send messages. In Africa, we have & still do express our life of social status & royalty through our hair. Whether its through braids, corn rolls, or by twists. This is our heritage, our roots in history, our voice in protests. We now are back in the 1960's, when we now have to use our hair as a voice again in protest to keep our heritage, our hair in schools & in the workforce, & this is 2020!!! They say history repeats itself & boy are they right! Not only are we having our identity as African-Americans taken from us from Whites & Mexicans that are wearing our hair styles, but now we have to fight to keep them. I just saw on my local news that a young African-American teenage boy had to get a hair cut because he had braids that were too long for sports. This is a huge problem because as we are striving to keep our hair styles, no one is saying anything to the White & Mexican kids in school for wearing our hair styles too long or telling them that they can't wear it because its too cultural or what they say its "too ethnic"! They are not saying anything to the adult White & Mexican people that wear our hair styles to work. I see celebrities that are not African-American wearing our hair styles & yet nothing is being said about them or to them for wearing it. I took African Studies in college, so I know about our culture & history. Non-African Americans do not & do not want to know about it, just take. When I see people that are not African-American wearing our hair styles, including now the "smoothing down the baby hair", I say that they are experiencing a heavy, terrible identity crisis!! They don't know who they want to be! They say they are proud to be their race, but really they're not. I wouldn't look right walking & talking like a Mexican, so why act like us? You don't look or sound right imitating us. Next time you want to put braids or corn rolls in your head, ask yourself this, "am I really proud of who I am?" Most likely the answer will be NO. My fellow African-Americans, keep fighting for our identity & our culture. God Bless.