Africans , Please STOP Shaving Your Hair!
#black_hair #hair #hairstyles #dreadlocks
Hello, welcome to Afroartista Films. I have observed with a lot of concern that black people are the only race where an overwhelming proportion of the population, more so men, sport short hair. Their hair is subjected to a very strict shaving regimen that you would think is a ritual. Here is an important question: how and who taught Africans to hate their hair?
Of course, in some African cultures, particularly among Kikuyu women, shaving the head was the norm. Not so for the men, though. In general, the vast majority of Africans were opposed to having their hair cut. For some, like Somali men, long hair was regarded highly. Today, however, long hair is frowned upon and, even worse, a man sporting long hair is regarded as a wayward criminal or drug-crazed deviant. Unless, of course, you are a well-known musician.
When the British landed on our shores and introduced formal education, school-attending children, more so those in boarding schools, were encouraged and sometimes even forcefully compelled to keep their hair short in order to "save time" when preparing themselves in the morning and to make it "more manageable" and easy to maintain. The reason is that kinky hair is inherently difficult to style. It was insinuated
From this, they were conditioned to believe that their wooly kinky hair was an obstacle, an inconvenience whose solution was to trim it away whenever it got "too big." Hence was born an acquired dislike for their hair that still carries on to this day. African women would rather cover it with imported horse or human weaves. And men would rather flock to kinyozis every weekend to get rid of "the inconvenience."
This narrative needs to change. I am pleased to see many secondary schools allowing long hair, albeit mostly girl's schools for now, and I hope for the day when afros will be the norm for boys, rather than the exception. I dream of that day when a dreadlocked male teacher or president will not raise a
