Call it nappy, call it kinky or whatever it may suit you but I call it our source of strength and a symbol of creativity. Our hair is our crown and the African hair is beautiful. Black hair has been a subject to ridicule and discrimination ever since the westerners arrived in the continent Africa.
Gone are the days where girls or women were made to straighten or subject it to harsh chemicals, cover it with a scarf or shave it to the scalp just because it wasn’t up to the standards of society therefore was “inferior”. This mentality gradually crept into our brains colonizing our thoughts and self- esteem. Yet we claimed we were free
The irony of it all is that before we saw that of the white man’s hair, African hair through hairstyles were used to indicate a person’s marital status, age, religion, ethnic identity and rank in the community. In fact a person’s surname could be ascertained simply by examining the hair due to the uniqueness of the hairstyles of each clan. It was our pride till we were told otherwise
But with the re-emergence of the various hairstyles in recent years, hair trends such as the bantu knots, fulani braids, cornrows, dreadlocks and many others have been accepted and it’s been shamelessly rocked by Africans and even by other races. It’s part of the top to-do hairstyles globally. One can say the stone which the builders rejected has become the corner stone.
We have gradually moved past forcefully straightening our hair to fit in and now embracing tags like;”my natural hair journey” and “how to style your afro hair” which now floods all social media platforms .The various hairstyles have been remodernized into sophisticated ones which we all love and wear on a daily basis. This generation has brought about a new black awareness phenomenon where people are more than obsessed with their true identity
And what better person can one be than to be true to one’s self and culture? . Yes it can be voluminous, yes it is kinky but it is my crown and I LOVE it.
– Catherine Essel Otabil
Model: @christel.kattenstroth
Photographer: @carlosidun