We must make a change!

So, if you listened to yesterdays radio show, you will know that we had a wonderful guy "Orlando" call in to get in on the days topic "Who taught us to hate us". He proceeded to tell us how he is not attracted to "natural" women, and how he prefers long strait hair, preferably blond. And that taking someone who was natural would be a 3, 4th or 5th option! Now, my goal is not to beat up on Orlando, but he is the perfect example of where we are as a people. As embarrassing as it is to say, he is the majority, not the minority!

The purpose of the show was to expose the problems within our community, and find a solution to them, but I'm sad to say that I don't know if that was accomplished! We highlighted all the problems, how it started and where our mind set is currently as a people. But even in the end, we couldn't find a solution to the "Orlando's".

I challenge all of you to take some time and think about what we can do to change the path that we are going as a people, to help our little boys and girls know that they are beautiful the way that they were created, and for the adults who have gone astray to come back to the pasture.

We came up with two main key points. The media is to blame and so is the family unit. We have no people of color who are "natural" on our television or movie screens, no one for our little kids to look up to and say "I want to be like them"! Orlando admitted that the media shaped him as a person. Living in Minnesota, he rarely see natural women of color and absolutely never sees them on the television screen. He admits that the image of beauty that we are given by the media, is the image that he has grown to accept and is the norm in his world.

I remember being a little girl, sitting in front of the stove getting my hair pressed. I never heard my mom say, "Oh your hair is so Nappy" but just the fact that I got my hair pressed every Sunday night, told me that "something" was wrong with the hair that I had. If simply the fact of getting my hair pressed had a long term effect on me, think of those kids who are told on a regular basis that they don't have "good" hair! The opposite of good is bad so they figure their hair must be "bad". Things that seem so small truly shapes us as we grow into adult hood.

My whole purpose in Queen Natural Beauty is to educate. If I hear one more time that natural hair is not manageable, I am going to scream!!!!!! Natural hair is very manageable, as a matter of fact, I think more manageable!!! I don't know many women with relaxers who don't go to the salon at least once every couple of weeks, all the while, all the women I know who are natural have not seen the salon in FOREVER!

Anyway, I'm all over the place with this! I am challenging you all to come up with ways to make a change in our society, and do it!!! Journal your efforts, video, or vblog your efforts! Lets stop sitting back waiting on someone else to do, what we can do!!!