B**ch you need a perm!

[Nightingale]

I was listening to the radio on itunes and a song entitled "Ban 2/Girl you need a perm", by Miss B (whoever that is ) came on. The whole song is about telling naturals to get a perm. I was actually insulted listening to it. The chorus repeated "Straighten that ish...you need a perm, you're not Indian..." and then gave the instructions on how to apply a relaxer.

If you get a minute, you should look this song up. I was too through!

 

[Divine Inspiration]

Wow...I haven't heard it, but that concept is offensive. Some people have such small minds...

 

[MizAvalon]

Damn that is crazy! But as offensive as most of these songs are nowadays, I guess nothing is impossible.

 

[WomanlyCharm]

WTH???

Someone needs to do a followup song: B****, you need a BRAIN.

 

[caligirl]

This brings back BAD memories from high school. I don't think I can bare to listen to that song.

 

[napgurl]

Is this the same classy Miss B who made the infamous song "Hit that B$$ch With A Bottle"?

 

[Nita81]

Well alrighty......anyone can make a song about anything......*sighs* I really wish songs had more meaning these days.....

 

[Southernbella.]

That's disgusting. The level of ignorance just astounds me.

 

[BobbieDoll]

WTH???

Someone needs to do a followup song: B****, you need a BRAIN.

ITA. How ignorant can one person be?

 

[Lady_Lioness]

Pure ignorance nuff said...Miss B?

 

[Lady_Lioness]

Wow...I haven't heard it, but that concept is offensive. Some people have such small minds...

OT: Miss Divine...your hair looks great girl...I'm lovin' it

 

[shiningstar84]

Help! I cant find the song. i checked itunes music store and i didnt see it. where's the radio link?

ETA: oh nevamind i see it now. do you remember which station were you listening to?

 

[atrinibeauty]

WTH???

Someone needs to do a followup song: B****, you need a BRAIN.

HTTN!! ROFLMAO

 

[neonbright]

Ok.... Now we know what the "B" in Miss B means... Natural, relax, semi, long, short, medium, no matter what we all look good...

 

[*ElleB]

WTH???

Someone needs to do a followup song: B****, you need a BRAIN.

OKAY!!!
I can't believe some small minded, ignorant person would have the nerve!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just answered my own question: SMALL MINDED, IGNORANT...

That song is an HOMAGE TO SELF-HATE!

 

[Nightingale]

Help! I cant find the song. i checked itunes music store and i didnt see it. where's the radio link?

ETA: oh nevamind i see it now. do you remember which station were you listening to?

I was listening to 1.FM Jamz,under Urban. It was suppose to be an exclusive.

 

[Lucia]

I found a great article to combat this kind of attitude.

http://www.youthcomm.org/NYC Features/JanFeb2003/NYC-2002-01-06.htm

When Nappy Didn’t Make Me Happy


By Keshia Harrell

It was November of 5th grade, and my mother and I were in the hair supply store. As we walked up the hair-straightening aisle, I figured this was as good a time as any.

“Mom, can I get a perm?”

“Perm? What you want a perm for?”

“To make my hair straight.”

“Girl, you don’t need no perm. Your hair is fine.”

“But all the other girls in my class have perms and I don’t want to be the only one with kinky hair.”

“Your hair isn’t kinky. It’s curly and it’s natural.”

I wasn’t going to win this argument.

Felt Like Only Girl Without Straight Hair

“OK,” I sulked.

I felt like the only girl in the 5th grade without straight hair.

Mom usually did my hair in ponytails. She sometimes braided my puffy ends and left a swoop of remaining hair falling on my right cheek and three little braids in the front covering my big forehead. Other times she’d box braid my hair all over.

But I went to a school where the majority of students were White or Hispanic, most with long hair. Some had naturally straight hair. But even the Caucasian and Hispanic girls who had curly hair straightened their hair.

They made me feel like I wasn’t as pretty as they were because my hair wasn’t as long or as straight. They made comments about my “short and kinky” hair. Some girls asked me, “Why is it like that?” Like it was abnormal. I told myself that they didn’t know what they were talking about. But in 5th grade, the few girls in my school with kinky hair got perms to straighten their hair. Some wore it with a part in the middle and curled under at the ends. Others wore it half up, with the back out and drop-curls at the ends.

‘Why Don’t You Get a Perm?’

“Why don’t you get a perm?” some girls occasionally asked me. I felt left out.

On top of that, every magazine I saw for Black females made me feel like I had to have straight hair too.

I resembled the sad girl in some ads’ “before” pictures. And even though my mom said my hair looked fine natural, the smiling girl with her new and improved permed hair in the “after” picture succeeded in making me feel like my kind of hair wasn’t acceptable.

Mom or Grandma would press my hair to make it straight on special occasions, like picture day at school or friends’ birthday parties.

Grandma would stand over the stove, heating up the black metal hot comb over the fire.

After testing how hot the comb was so it wouldn’t burn my hair, she’d pull it through a section of my hair with a clear hair grease. My hair was soon straight and slick.

Hair Pressure Increased

The following year, the pressure increased. When I began 6th grade in my new junior high, my classmates teased me about my wild hair.

“Yo, Keshia, you’d be pretty if you did something with your hair,” one of the boys in my class told me.

“You look like an African!” said Mareena, one of my classmates. “It’s so kinky.”

“I am African,” I told her. “African-American.”

“No, you look like you’re straight from Africa.”

“OK,” I thought. Was I supposed to take that as an insult? Africa is where my ancestors are from.

Nearly Came to Tears

Despite her ignorance, though, Mareena’s comment hurt. I felt like an ugly outcast. That night, I nearly came to tears as I thought about what she’d said. But I told myself, “Don’t cry. Only the weak cry. Their words or thoughts don’t affect me.”

I was hurt that I was being judged by something so trivial, but I wanted to be accepted. So I tried again to convince my mother and grandmother to let me get a perm or relaxer.

“No, Keshia, you don’t need a perm. Do you want your hair to fall out? Then you won’t have to worry about getting a perm,” Grandma said.

“OK,” I pouted. But I still wanted straight, flowing hair like Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played Rudy, one of the daughters, on The Cosby Show.

Then a couple of months later, my aunt asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. [See sidebar.] At the wedding, all my female cousins and aunts were talking about how much easier it was to have a perm. I guess that influenced my grandma and mother, because before we went back to New York, I got my hair permed.

I was so happy to be sitting in that big black leather salon chair. “When this is all over, I’ll be ‘pretty,’” I thought. “No one will make fun of me.”

I closed my eyes as the beautician matted the chemical-smelling white cream into my hair. After a couple of minutes, though, I felt a burning sensation on my scalp. “It’s burning!” I screamed. It felt as if the perm was eating my hair out from the roots. The beautician hurried over and started to rinse the cream out.

I saw a few patches of hair in the sink. A little more came out as she combed. But it was all worth it to me. My hair was straight.

The beautician pulled my hair into a bun, stuffing it to make it look big. I was happy. I went back to school thinking, “Finally. I’m going to fit in with the rest of the girls.”

Straight Hair Not So Glorious

“Keshia, you finally got your hair permed,” they said. I was ecstatic about not being teased anymore. Even the boys noticed.

“It’s about time you did something with your hair,” some said. “Shut up!” I yelled back. Why couldn’t they just keep their comments to themselves?

After two weeks of straight hair, I realized that my perm wasn’t as glorious as I thought it would be. I felt a little worse about myself because I’d changed to be accepted by others. Plus, after I took my bun out, my hair was straight at the roots and puffed out and frizzy at the ends. I wanted to scream. My hair still wasn’t straight.

Suffered Through Hot Comb

“What happened to your ends?” my classmates asked. “Whoever permed your hair didn’t leave it in long enough.”

“Shut up!” I wanted to scream.

No matter how much I conditioned or put a flat iron through my hair, it still frizzed up. And my mother and grandmother decided against letting me keep my hair permed because of hair breakage and the burns.

But I still wanted my hair to be straight. So when my perm grew out, I learned how to use the hot comb on my own.

I lost a lot of hair during my time of learning. I had a habit of leaving the hot comb on the stove for too long and not testing it. I’d put the comb to my hair and hear a “sizzzzzling” sound followed by the pungent smell of burnt hair. I looked in the mirror and wanted to cry.

Once, I singed my hair so badly that I ended up losing a big chunk of hair from the middle of my head. That was enough of hot combs for me.

Turned to Braids

So I taught myself to braid. At first, my braids came out crooked and bushy at the ends, but I got better since I also used my little sister’s hair to practice. (She didn’t mind.)

People still made comments about my hair. “I like your hair,” some said.

“You didn’t braid it tight enough,” others said.

For a while, the positive comments made me feel good. And the negative comments didn’t hurt as much as they did before. I was becoming a little more confident in myself, so their opinions didn’t matter as much.

Still, on my first day of high school, it felt like all the girls had just walked out of a beauty parlor. They had wraps, weaves, braids and curls. My hair was in a semi-straight, semi-frizzy ponytail on top of my head.

I felt like an outcast once again.

Got Sick of It All

So, for most of my freshman and sophomore year, I suffered through hot comb and curlers.

At the beginning of my junior year, I was looking in the mirror thinking of how I was going to do my hair for the first day of school. Suddenly, I got sick. Sick of burning myself. Sick of having to get up in the morning to do it. Sick of my hair frizzing up when it was rainy or humid. Sick of worrying about what people would think of it. Sick of conforming to make other people happy.

So I started to braid it again. Accept-ing my puffs was hard. I’d get up in the morning and look in the mirror and worry about what people would think. Even now I have to repeatedly remind myself that I shouldn’t worry about what others think and that if I like my hairstyle, then that’s all that matters.

My Mood Determines My Hairstyle

Now I’m a senior, and people still stare at me because of my hair and ask, “Why don’t you do something with it?” I do my hair depending on my mood. If I’m tired and I don’t care, I leave my Afro-puff in a ponytail on top of my head. (People have compared it to a bird’s nest, but I’ve grown to love it.) Other times I braid it.

And sometimes when I get bored with my puffs and braids, I press my hair, just for a different look.

After years of looking in the mirror and getting upset about my reflection, I realized that it wasn’t me who didn’t like my hair. It was the people who teased me, the sitcom actress, the girl on the magazine cover.

Now I know that I don’t have to be beautiful in the societal sense; I can be beautiful in the me sense. I don’t look like every other girl in my school, and I like it that way.

Sometimes, though, I still feel “ugly” because of my hair, like when I read an Ebony or Cosmo Girl magazine. But then I think, “Whose standards of beauty say you have to have straight hair to be beautiful?” Not mine. That makes me feel better.

I no longer have daydreams of looking like Keshia Knight Pulliam; I’d rather look like Keshia LaToria Harrell. Myself.

 

[delp]

This brings back BAD memories from high school. I don't think I can bare to listen to that song.

Me too. I actually had a girl to walk up to me (in Highschool) and give me her stylist number. I still hate to work in certain types of environments. Where your hair style and style is soo important to others. That is the main reason I went back to college to finish my degree.

 

[Divine Inspiration]

OT: Miss Divine...your hair looks great girl...I'm lovin' it

Thank you chica!

 

[hopeful]

Thanks Lucia, wonderful post. I almost cried thinking about that girl burning her hair to fit in and begging for a relaxer, heartbreaking.

 

[cocowhite]

she's ignorant and radio stations getting more and more desperate to some BS...

 

[WomanlyCharm]

Lucia, that post nearly bought me to tears.
Thanks for posting it, that piece says it all.

 

[facets]

I was listening to the radio on itunes and a song entitled "Ban 2/Girl you need a perm", by Miss B (whoever that is ) came on. The whole song is about telling naturals to get a perm. I was actually insulted listening to it. The chorus repeated "Straighten that ish...you need a perm, you're not Indian..." and then gave the instructions on how to apply a relaxer.

If you get a minute, you should look this song up. I was too through!

that's a cryin' shame...will we *ever* stop shankin' each other w/ Massa's Ol' rusty knives?

extra lame. and what sick moron wasted electricity recording that trash?

*sigh*. it's really time to go to bed.

 

[sareca]

WTH?! That is deeply distrubing...

 

[NewYorkgyrl]

Lucia your post brought tears to my eyes.

 

[Starian]

Is this the same classy Miss B who made the infamous song "Hit that B$$ch With A Bottle"?

The very one.

 

[Tene]

She is truly ignorant and that other song she made is ridiculous to.

 

[KiniKakes]

That piece by Keisha Harrel was VERY good. Thank you for posting that, Lucia.

 

[blazingthru]

THank you Lucia,

I guess a lot of us went through that. I didn't have any problems at first with the perm but after a while I notice my hair didn't grow as much and I was all about my hair and how it looked more then I was about anything else. It took six months of being on this site to learn to love my natural hair. I got it cut down to a 1/4 inch it might be shorter then that I can't really grab anything. I found out that i had curly hair and so I applied leave in conditioner and aloe vera gel and went out the door and I love it. I got a lot of looks since I am completely bald now but I have since learned to love my natural hair. I like that I don't have to worry about it and how it looks I just wash and go and I am so glad I finally did it. At work its so funny, they just don't know what to say to me they just pause at my desk and then keep on going its way way short. Its all me and I love it

 

[Country gal]

I love being natural. I wear it very well. I don't trip when folks make ignorant comments anymore. I bet Miss B probably sports a weave.