Braiding Daughter's Hair a Labor of Love was a beautiful pictorial and in spite of what I'm about to say, I applaud the parents for adopting and raising what appears to be a loved, well-adjusted, beautiful child. I also want to commend them for taking into consideration the unique needs of African hair and doing their best to work with, rather than agin it. With that said, I'm a lil' miffed by some of the author's word choices and the tools by which they maintain their (adopted African) child's hair.

Having read the story, I'm unsure if the lack of understanding African hair is primarily on the part of the author, the parents or both. The caption for the photo on the left reads...

The couple believed that Miriam's hair was a strong link to her African roots, so they ultimately chose to neaten it the way they saw in many African-American families. Here, brother Nathaniel tries to get in on the braiding action.

"Neaten?" Ok, maybe I'm being picky but why the hell didn't the author just say, "They decided to stop letting her go around looking like a wild child with unkempt hair and began styling it?" In addition as the article indicated, the parents are correct in believing that the appearance of their daughter's hair is a litmus test of their parenting but I don't think that's a color specific issue. If I saw a child, black, white, yellow or brown on the street, in a store, at school whose clothes were tattered and torn, whose hair was a hot mess and whose face was dirty, I'd immediately, think "poor child...where are his/her parents?"  The reality is we expect children to be clean and tidy and that includes their hair.

Children of African descent (and their hair) are no exception to the clean kid rule. So the litmus test for any and all parents is to insure that their children look well cared for and if that means it takes longer to do African hair than it does other hair types, clear the calendar! And the Green family has. The Greens should feel a sense of relaxation and pride not only in their dedication to insure their daughter remains true to her heritage, but also in the realization that their initial confusion had little to do with being white. The reality is, the burden of doing black hair is shared by people of African descent worldwide.

Hot-combs, Jheri Curls, Kiddie Relaxers, No-lye Relaxers, S-curls and Texturizers weren't invented to celebrate African hair. Long before American manufacturers figured out how to make a buck off our self-loathing, slaves and freedmen alike were conking their hair. Whether it was smoothing it with lard or applying lye directly to our hair, we have fought for ways to "fix" and "neaten" black hair. The "burden" therefore is not in the hair itself. The burden of African hair is in the determination to celebrate it naturally in spite of the time commitment, the confusing types and textures, the lack products or the overwhelming presence of them. It may be hard natural hair and dreadlocks folk to accept but for many of us, before we became comfortable and accepting of our hair, we too had to go on a journey of understanding and acceptance. Like this white dude with a fork, we had a whole lot of learnin' to do.

What's funny is that as downright humorous and wrong it is for this man to be using a fork and Vaseline to style this poor child's hair (imagine how greasy she must be on a Hotlanta day), Black folks engage in the same types of asinine maintenance. You may not use a fork but have you...

• ever used Vaseline on your hair?
• refrained from washing your hair for 2 or more weeks?
• ever experienced damage or breakage due to braids or cornrows and got another set of braids or cornrows soon thereafter?
• ever believed that people with dreadlocks don't wash their hair?
• ever used terms like good hair/bad hair?
• wore a scarf or braids so tight that it gave you headache?
• used a toothbrush to create "baby hair?"
• used body lotion on your hair because it seemed like a good idea at the time?
• bought a hair product because it sounded natural (i.e. horse hair shampoo bka mane and tail, placenta products, anything with "African" in the title but made by White folks in a lab)?

I could go on and on and I encourage you to comment and share your "have you ever..." but that's not the point of this article. It's that White or Black, we struggle to understand and accept African hair. As a whole we have so much learning to do and the sad part is, there are far too many of us who operate day-to-day assuming we're in the right. We get on blogs, forums and yahoo groups to espouse our self-righteous views of what it truly means to have natural hair, good hair, beautiful, long black hair when in reality, we're making fools of ourselves.

It took years for me to get to the point of not putting so much power into my hair while attempting to recognize the power of it. For a while there, I came to hate it...black hair and everything related to it because it seemed to me that everywhere I turned, there were black women with forks and Vaseline. Not literally of course but God, the newly natural are some of the most wonderfully energetic and woefully ignorant folk in the world. You cain't tell them nothing! I mean think about the photographer who snapped the photo of dad combing baby girl's hair with a fork. Did someone not have the sense to say, ya know, maybe for the purposes of this photo, I should use a comb?

The newly natural and the newly lock'd have the same 'tude. I mean try telling someone with dreadlocks who ignorantly believes that water is their nemesis that they should wash their hair every 7-14 days. You'd think they'd jump for joy at the realization that they can wear dreadlocks and be clean too. Most however, continue a regimen of filth. Or what about the chick with natural Black hair who goes on and on about how more unique her hair is or about how she just uses juices and berries or how strong and beautiful and GOD GIVE IT A REST ALL READY proclamations of love. Shakespeare said thou dost protest too much and I say, you smellin yourself and it's not a sweet as you think.

Self-assured people don't talk about how self-assured they are...insecure folk do. In other words, if you were as confident as you proclaim, you wouldn't be talking so damn much. I hope the day comes were we all able to put down our figurative forks and tubs of Vaseline and learn to move beyond the lunacy, the burden and undeniable beauty that is African hair.

Gallery Reprinted from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/living/braids/1.html