recently a visitor posted a reply to 9 Curly Hair Tips that I obviously didn’t like otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging about it.

This article was contradictory in some points. I will never take "curly hair" advice from someone who locked.

what never ceases to amaze me is the size of the teets on some African-American women and folk with ethnic hair.

Question: as a woman, would you go to a male gynecologist? Given that the medical field is dominated by men, the chances of getting a male doctor is much higher and for most women, the person on the other side of the gurney with the rubber gloves and cold hands is usually our evolutionary opposite…a man. in such situations do you have the audacity to demand that you be treated by a woman?

Question: how many of you, male or female, would allow a female to work on your car, lay your tile, fix your plumbing? these aren’t things that women are typically knowledgeable of…right? in such situations do you have the audacity to demand that your handy”man” be male?

Question: would you go to a White hair stylist to care for your Afri-ethnic hair (natural or chemically treated) if it were her expertise? flip it…would you go to a Black hair stylist to care for your naturally straight or curly hair if it were her expertise?

sometimes in our own nappy/curly bias we are blatantly ignorant and attempt to degrade those with far more knowledge and expertise than we ourselves possess. in the end, we make ourselves look foolish and in some cases our ignorance pushes away that which is reputable for someone/something that fits our preconceived notions which in the end may be substandard than who/what was first presented to us.

in short, who cares if the doctor is male if in his 8 years of study, 2 years of residency and God knows how many years of practice that he knows more about what ails a vagina than most laywomen ever will?

or who cares that your handyman is a handywoman if her studies, her work has enabled her to know more about sockets, bolts and routers than most laypeople ever will?

at what point does a person’s acquired knowledge surpass baseless exterior judgments?

curly dreadlocks

where i think the visitor’s comments are woefully ignorant, i do understand her point. the difference is, she obviously failed to absorb the start of the article in which i stated that my hair had been naturally curly for years prior to growing dreadlocks. and that just because my hair is in dreadlocks doesn’t change the fact that my hair is curly. in fact, my particular curly texture has resulted in some issues with growing dreadlocks but i digress…

i am also a natural hair stylist who has cared for both natural hair and dreadlocks so i base all knowledge imparted on this site, on naani and on the web in general on over a decade of personal and professional experience. but none of that matters because my hair is currently in dreadlocks? ok…WOW!

with all this having been said, there are circumstances under which one should not take advice from a person who does not have your particular hair type/texture. Do not take the person’s advice if…

1. they do not have your hair type/texture and

2. they are not a professional stylist who has sufficient expertise regarding the care of your hair type/texture.

the point is this, what if I decided after growing dreadlocks since 2001 that i wanted to relax my hair? what then if someone who’s interested in dreadlocks walks in a year later and has the audacity to tell me that they would never take advice from someone with relaxed hair regarding dreadlocks? as a professional i’d say one thing but in my mind…

borrowing a line from Justice’s email signature…”You Bitch!”