Is Natural the "New Black"

Many African American women are opting out of the straight and silky look, and the question becomes is Kinky in? Well an astounding number of black women in the US are saying yes to a natural and no to THE PERM. For those who aren't aware, the word perm is short for permanent which refers the permanent straightening of the natural texture of African American hair, not the same as curly perms in other communities. This process for women of color can be expensive, painful and sometimes dangerous, but"pain is beauty." The phrase we have always heard chanted over and over again to us since the time we received our first process. Seeing the long luxurious locks that came to be after the process was over was well worth it or was it? Personally i have been natural from chemicals for four years and from weaves or non-natural textured extensions for about two years. And may i say that this experience has been interesting to say the least but over all an exhilarating and liberating one that has allowed me to not only restore the health of my hair but gain knowledge and an understanding of myself that i would have gained had i remained enslaved to the perm.

The biggest worry for most black women is acceptance. Will a culture that has exonerated fine textures of hair accept my kinks and curls? Will this look be accepted as professional and or attractive? The answer to all these questions is ever changing and advancing in todays world. Although it is true you may hear primitive cases of a companies refusing to hire African American women and men with natural hair styles, the number of individuals with these doos are increasing and becoming more visible in the work place. And from my personal experience men and women alike from all cultures and backgrounds seem to love, accept and sometimes even go so far as to compliment me on my natural hair. Could this mean that it is becoming more culturally accepted for us as black women to wear our hair the way it grows out of our head? Well we all are well aware that the trends for hair and style in our society has always been set by two industries fashion and entertainment. So by their reflection we create our conception of beauty, but like the times this concept of beauty is rapidly changing and we are beginning to see more and more sisters rock their naturals in the spot light. Here are a list of natural women in the entertainment business.
Janelle monae
Erykah Badu
India Aire
Solange Knowles

Chrisette Michele
Lisa Bonet
Lauryn Hill
Les Nubians and countless others who are showing us sisters it's okay for us to be natural and even more than that it is beautiful. In the fashion industry representing natural beauty we have...
Alek Wek
Nerissa Irving
Sandria Washington
Ty States
Andy Allo
and many more...
Could it be we are on the brink of a new hair revolution? Will it become as hard to find a sister with a perm as it used to be to find a sister with her natural? I wouldn't go so far as to implicate such things. Although I would go so far as to say that the number women of color with natural hair is steadily increasing and that many of us are fed up with the fuss of the perms wigs and weaves and the damage that it does to our hair. We are also tired of the a culture that has perpetually told us that our hair, our features, and our bodies are not considered to be beautiful. And many hair companies and salons are changing and adapting to fit this new trend. In this post Obama world it should no longer be an issue for us to embrace and display proudly who we are just the way god made us. Natural hair just maybe the "new black."

Honey Don't Bother Me 'The Game' Is On

"Honey don't bother me 'the game' is on", a popular phrase often uttered by men across the nation, but about five years ago this phrase took on a whole new meaning. The premier of yet another African American based comedy on CW formerly UPN, may not exactly have been what you had in mind when this you first glanced at the title of this blog. Never the less it is exactly what everyone has been buzzing about. With The Game's most recent season four premier, after a two year hiatus and a network move, had been well overdue in the minds of the shows fans. So you can imagine the excitement when they heard that B.E.T. would be taking on the production of this well loved and ill-canceled show, and that it would be premiering on January 11th, 2011.

So every Tuesday night at 10:00pm you can catch the show which is a comedy-drama with a storyline following Melanie Barnett now Davis (Tia Mowry Hardrict), Derwin Davis (Pooch Hall), Jason Pitts(Coby Bell), Kelly Pitts (Brittany Daniel), Malik Wright (Hosae Chanchez) and the famous Latasha 'Tasha' Mack (Wendy Raquel Robinson.) Each character lends there own flavor of drama to the ru of the show which makes it for a pretty interesting watch week to week. Now even though this show is about Famous foot ball athletes of the fictional NFL team the San Diego sabers with all the plot twists and extreme focus on the athletes female counterparts; mothers, wives, and girlfriends, and it being a spin off of the infamous "black sex and the city" Girlfriends, you wouldn't think that this show would be such a rave amongst men. Never the less, it has become just that.

At first I was surprised even a little disturbed at the fact that so many of my guy friends even knew what this show was, let alone the fact that they seemed to watch it religiously. Now I guess the correlation between the male casts drama and their own lives could pull them into the storyline but I feel that the glamorous life styles of these athletes is a far cry from the everyday of the average man. Maybe it's a way for some of them to live through the male cast members in some sort of fantasy being played out for them on the silver screen. But these aren't the metro-sexual high maintenance pretty boys you would expect to watch this show. I'm talking about highly masculine manly men who are immersing themselves in this melodramatic cinema. Am I wrong for being weird-ed out by this occurrence? or even feeling as if something I held to be a girl thang, is being invaded by the boys? I'm not sure but what ever it is it's got these men hooked and coming back for more week after week and I'm finding it more common that my guy friends are ditching me to watch "The Game."