"Don't remove the kinks from your HAIR. Remove them from your BRAIN"

the title is a quote from Marcus Garvey. recently, I started dreading my hair. Thus has grown my curiosity in Black Beauty, Black hair, and how We define ourselves as people? Look at what I found:

"The Black Man in America has been colonized mentally, his mind has been destroyed. And today, even though he goes to college, he comes out and still doesn't even know he is a Black Man; he is ashamed of what he is because his culture has been destroyed; he has been made to hate his skin; he has been made to hate the texture of his hair, he has been made to hate the features that God gave him."

"Malcolm and James Farmer Separation & Integration Dialogue", May 1962

"And what was the result? They ended up with 22 million Black people here in America who hated everything about us that was African...We hated the African characteristics.We hated our hair...We hated our nose, the shape of our nose, and the shape of our lips, the color of our skin. Yes we did. And it was you who taught us to hate ourselves simply by shrewdly maneuvering us into hating the land of our forefathers and the people on that continent. When you teach a man to hate his lips, the lips that God gave him, the shape of the nose that God gave him, the texture of the hair that God gave him, the color of the skin that God gave him, you've committed the worst crime that a race of people can commit. And this is the crime that you've committed. Our color became a chain, a psychological chain. Our blood -- African blood -- became a psychological chain, a prison, because we were ashamed of it. We believe -- they would tell it to your face, and say they weren't; they were! We felt trapped because our skin was black. We felt trapped because we had African blood in our veins. This is how you imprisoned us. Not just bringing us over here and making us slaves. But the image that you created of our motherland and the image that you created of our people on that continent was a trap, was a prison, was a chain, was the worst form of slavery that has ever been invented by a so-called civilized race and a civilized nation since the beginning of the world. You still see the result of it among our people in this country today. Because we hated our African blood, we felt inadequate, we felt inferior, we felt helpless. And in our state of helplessness, we wouldn't work for ourselves. We turned to you for help, and then you wouldn't help us. We didn't feel adequate. We turned to your for advice and you gave us the wrong advice. Turned to you for direction and you kept us going in circles."

..:::MESSAGE:::..

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honestly, this discussion has been made several times, however i felt the need to remind others that self-hatred still exits within communities of color. We have to continually remember that America taught us to hate ourselves and it is only through loving where we came from, that we can truly love US!

*just because u weren't born in Africa or have never been, does not mean you are not connected spiritually and/or mentally.

What's the reality? ....wake up?