*pic from: http://www.hji.co.uk/hjimages/images/qhs1623/hji/medium/2002-afro-ponytail.jpg
There has been a horrible myth going around the black community for years now. This myth is that "black hair" can't grow long. Our hair is too "nappy" for that. We have "bad" hair. A girl that has hair past her shoulders must be mixed with something to have hair of that length. And, OMG, not only are you black, but African too?? You have the most undiluted form of nappy, bad, unable to get past shoulder length, hair. Slap a perm on them naps and keep in moving.
Bullcrap.
Your hair is not "too nappy". Your hair is not "bad". And your hair definitely can grow longer than your shoulders. The problem that exists in our communities is that we are so stuck in this defeatist mindset. We have convinced ourselves of these myths and won't make any attempts to even believe otherwise. We continue to dabble in unhealthy hair care practices as a community, thus failing to grow our hair, and perpetuating this image that black women can't have long hair. We look at our kinky hair as an unfortunate mistake that God made and discourage decisions to go natural. This negativity is getting passed on to our children from generation to generation, so much that little girls with kinky natural hair, are getting made fun of in school, while the girl with loosely textured or straight hair is praised for having pretty hair. Many black men are also led to believe these myths. At what point will we stop doing this and making our hair the black sheep compared to all other hair types?
People seem to believe that there is a gene that prevents black hair from growing long. Let me explain something to you about how hair growth works ( I touched on this in the Breakage vs Shed Hair post; refer to it for pictures and more details about each phase). Everyone's hair goes through a cycle of anagen, catagen, and telogen phase. Anagen is the growth phase, catagen is the deterioration phase, and telogen is the resting phase during which hair sheds. Most of your hair, at a given time is in the anagen phase. HOWEVER, this is not a synchronized thing. It's not like every single strand of your hair enters each phase of the cycle at the same time. They are all in different phases of the growth cycle. So, no, your hair isn't genetically programmed to say "I'm at neck length now. Gotta stop growing right here." That's not how it works. That's why every strand of your hair isn't the same length. One may have started it's growth cycle today, while another one may have started it's cycle a year ago.
But you say, "Bee! I know that my hair isn't growing! It's been the same length forever." Something I always ask people to consider, when they say that their hair doesn't grow, is: If your hair doesn't grow, then what are you relaxing? When you get a perm , you are relaxing new growth! If your hair wasn't growing, you would never have any new growth to relax. But yet, you clearly have hair that is growing, but your hair doesn't seem to get longer. It's harder for naturals to see this, because of the coily nature of your hair, but it's the same thing. Hair growth is not a stagnant process. Remember 80-90% of your hair is in the anagen growth phase.
Where genetics DOES come into play in determining length is determining the length of your anagen phase. Depending on your genes, your anagen phase can be between three to seven years. Now, recall that the average person grows about .5inches per month and thus, 6 inches a year. So what I am telling you is that, assuming that you have the shortest anagen phase of 3 years, YOU ARE CAPABLE OF GROWING AT LEAST 18 INCHES OF HAIR!!! So, you take a ruler and put that to your head and down you back. Or better yet, take that 18 inch weave and put it against your head. Your hair is capable of growing to the middle of your back!!
So ladies, STOP saying that your hair does not grow or it doesn't grow past your shoulders or everyone in your family has short hair, so you have short hair, or how you're 100% black or 100% African so it's impossible, or whatever other craziness we've used rationalize our hair woes.
Now that you know, what's your excuse? If you want it, you can have it. The question is, are you willing to let go of the bad hair care practices and properly take care of your hair to get what you want?
In the mean time, for those who are still skeptical (and even those who will still find a rational as to why these people have long hair), check out some of these ladies reaching wonderful lengths, for inspiration:
Sera2544-from Sierra Leone; waist length hair natural hair. She's longer now, but she shows her length at 3:50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2u0T8CimZ0&feature=related
Rustic Beauty-Nigerian, waist length natural hair. Also longer now. Good message in the video for the naysayers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDoSS_q9yy8&feature=related
Sylver2-African american, waist length relaxed. Great example of stretching relaxers. Also longer now. Doesn't show length but you can get an idea or maybe in other videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VviHw8FEB2Y&feature=related
Kami11213-African american; waist length relaxed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA87aFndkw4
Happy Hair Growing!
Bee
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