The Rant Book

Black Girl Curls

Let's get ONE THING STRAIGHT. I am free to wear my hear however I want, whenever I want, and you're not allowed to touch it without my permission.

I guess let's ease into the topic of touching of a black girls hair.
Thank you, so much, for appreciating my hair, however it may be styled, but PLEASE don't just come up and touch my hair because it's "so interesting!" That's a lame excuse. The worst, though? Is when it's some RANDOM STRANGER  who thinks it's okay to touch your hair, especially without asking. I don't know you, I don't know you're life, I don't know what you touched before you touched my hair, so please, for the love of god, stop. It doesn't make you seem nice, it makes you look like a creep because you just walked up to some stranger and didn't say A WORD while touching her hair. That's weird, bud.

My friends do it pretty often too, and okay, thats cool, but I didn't tell them they could touch it either. Yeah, sure, maybe I took my braids down and wore my hair natural! Thank you for the compliment, but verbal compliments are much more appreciated than you groping my locks. It's a personal feeling of uncomfortableness, not just a stereotype.

What on Earth overcomes a person and makes them think, "Hey! Her hair is different! Let me grabs a fistfull of it in my claws for a second." STOP.

It's really only okay if you've been given clearance to do something ad important as touch my hair.

Some of y'all of there might be thinking... "Dang, why is she so against people touching her hair? Its a complimemt!" I understand that, and thank you! But skin contains oils and grease naturally, and I really don't want that in my hair, on top of the fact that it's incredibly uncomfortable for me to have some stranger grab my head with their grabby hands.

I didn't mention my fellas before, but it happens to black men, too! All the things I just stated still stand true, nevertheless.

I can remember one time specifically [i can remember several, but heres one example] where some stranger grabbed my sister's hair. My family [me, my sister, my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my mom's sister] were just leaving my little sisters band concert, and we were just talking, walking to our car, having a normal conversation like families do. Congratulating my sister on her performance. Then some RANDOM KIDS PARENT grabs my sister braids and doesn't say a word until we all stare her down. Then she recovers with the "Oh, your hair is so beautiful, I just had to touch it!" She didn't have to TOUCH ANYTHING!! My sister was only in about 4th grade at the time, and that was the most uncomfortable she'd ever felt. I can't even  imagine how uncomfortable it was for her, when she was that little.

Now, moving on to how I style my hair. I'll tell my friends "Oh, I'm straightening it tomorrow" and they'll say something that really makes me a bit upset. Like "Oh, I prefer it how you have it now." And?? Did I ask you? I'm going to do what I want with my hair, and if I didn't ask for your input, please don't give it to me. If I want to change my hair from braids to twist or straight to naturally curly, why do I need permission? Should I just... I don't know, be able to change my hair whenever I feel like it?

But you know, just a thought.

Now that I have that out of the way, *wipes sweat off of forehead from all of my passive aggressive ranting*

I think I'm going to just do a Q/A soon, like when I hit a certain amount of reads or what not! I wont be it doing too soon, but feel free to PM me with suggestions or comment them!

~Lots of Love, Juniper💋