I am not my hair.

I watched a clip of a conversation on the View about black women and their hair. They hit on a lot of the typical questions about the how’s and why’s of Black women hairstyles but the one I was currently interested in was the concept of role models and hair styles. They hit on the fact that if we as black women had more black role models we would wear our hair in more authentically black hair styles (like an afro or something). I think this is a wrong belief due to a popular societal mental evaluation.

In class we are reading Larry Crabb’s book Effective Biblical Counseling and in it Crabb talks about mental evaluations and how they can cause wrong beliefs. Crabb says that whether we realize it or not we all mentally evaluate external events. That means we have an inner dialogue about the things we externally experience.

I think that the whole concept of black women needing to wear more authentically black hair styles is a wrong belief due to a popular societal mental evaluation. I believe that the societal mental evaluation of a black woman that is not wearing her hair in authentically black hair style has lower self-concept then one who does. This mental evaluation then leads to the wrong belief that we need more black role models. My question to them is why can’t my role model be white or any other race I choose? Personally, I have chosen to do my hair in rock star/ skater styles because of my favorite rock stars the Barlow Girls and SuperChicks. I picked my favorites based on their stand for purity and Christianity not because of their race. I feel that telling me that I am wrong for not picking a black woman that stands for the same things is racism. Racism - a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement.