Optimum Knowledge ( I am not my hair)

As I sit here in this coffee house in Harlem, I see such a plethora of beautiful women. These women run the gambit of white women with long straight hair to dark skin black women with amazing Afros. I can sit here and observe and appreciate the outer beauty in all these women. I try to see beauty in everyone .Unfortunately, Not many people can share my sentiments. How we define beauty in this county is largely based on what we see in the media. The lighter you are or the straighter your hair is the more desirable you are. This attitude often rolls over to our everyday life and often is a huge road block in women finding and defining their S.I.B (self inspired beauty). My friend Hemangi (a beautiful Indian women who finds her S.I.B in not only her education but in her innate ability to want to correct injustice)brought to my attention a article in Metro newspaper entitled " We've Got A lot In Our Hair" written by Marc Lamont Hill. In his article he discussed his visit to a African American private school. The principal of this school was planning on changing the school dress code to exclude natural hairstyles such as braids and dreads. The claim of this principal is that these hairstyles are not professional and they will not help in the "real world". What does this mean? As a country are we telling our young black people that what they were naturally born with is not professional or desirable? Are we telling them that the only way they can get a job is if they chemically straighten their hair to resemble their white counterparts? This issue also extends to other cultures. In the white community, often the women who has blond hair and blue eyes is conceived as being more attractive as oppose to a women with olive skin, dark brown eyes, and dark hair.Or in the Indian community were Aishwarya Rai ,a talented Bollywood actress with green eyes, is conceived as being the definition of Indian beauty. Or in the Asian community were " eye correction surgery" ( this is when a person of Asian descent gets surgery on their eyes to appear less Asian....MADNESS!!!) is becoming increasingly more popular. Why is this? There are obvious reasons, and not so obvious reasons, why beauty in this country is based solely on a white standard of beauty.This article is the first in a serious of articles that I will refer to as " I am not my hair". The serious will deal with the issues women of color face about how they define their beauty. What are you thoughts on this matter? How do you define your outer beauty? As always I have many opinions (My husband says I am very opinionated.....I wonder why?) Anyway, Until next time! Remember to ALWAYS be on the look out for you Self Inspired beauty!