However, I was all natural, a throwback to the ancestors whose blood had laid dormant in my parents and burst through my hair follicles.
Chemically straightening my hair with the help of a perm or a relaxer was a pain, and in many ways, torture.

I wiped away tears as sodium hydroxide burned my scalp. The same ingredient can disintegrate an aluminum can in four hours. Because of the thickness of my hair, my perms were massaged into my hair for about 20 to 30 minutes to transform the tight curls into silky straight tresses.

My hair was beautiful after a perm; it laid flat, held bouncy curls and blew in the wind when I walked, but my scalp was another story. Covered with petroleum jelly to ease the burn of the perm, my scalp still managed to burn, leaving behind sores that would scab over.

That should have been enough to leave the perm alone, but I couldn’t give it up, not even after I was forced to cut all my hair off from the stress and damage the perm had caused. My chin-length bob was cut into a super-short pixie cut to save my remaining hair from falling out.

A critical-thinking person might have come to the conclusion that because perms hurt my head, my hair and my scalp, perhaps I should stop getting them. However, I couldn’t. Relaxing my hair made me feel pretty, it made me look like all the other little girls that I had grown up with, who I saw in class and passed on the street.

The majority of African-American women that I worked with, admired and saw in a professional atmosphere wore a relaxed hairstyle and not their natural curls.

I had been relaxing my hair for the majority of my life, so much so that I didn’t even remember what my true hair texture was because every six to eight weeks it was time to get rid of the new growth.

I decided to make a change after a conversation with a friend who told me I was “conditioned.”

“Conditioned?” I asked. “Yes, conditioned. You’ve been conditioned to think that your natural hair was a mistake, that it isn’t good enough. So, you try to correct that mistake with a chemical, but it’s only temporary and your real texture returns, leaving you to start the process all over again. You think that straight hair is good hair, so you try to assimilate to those around you.”

For the next year, I challenged myself and wore my hair natural, trading in my flat-ironed straight hair for tightly wound curls that sprang when stretched.

That’s when I started getting the look, that sideways look that turns into a glaring stare. It follows you as you cross a room, raise your hand in class or walk out of a door.

People began talking to my hair and not my face. The worst part was that it was the people that looked just like me, black people, who judged me the most critically. I was confused; by wearing my hair naturally, I was objectified as homely, as unprofessional, as not as pretty as I used to be.

There was a time that wearing the natural texture of my hair was seen as a movement in the 1960s and 1970s, when the “Black is Beautiful” movement took hold and Afros were in full effect. It was a sense of personal style and appreciation for natural African beauty and aesthetics.
Natural hair was seen as a point of personal pride.

So, I apologize to all that might think my hair is improper for the collegiate atmosphere, the workplace and everyday life, but this is me.

This is the way I was made; assimilating for anyone else’s comfort but my own will no longer be tolerated.

Ashley Brown is the State News opinion writer. Reach her at brownas8@msu.edu.