Are you addicted to that “creamy crack”? Millions of African American women visit hair salons every month in search for a “fix” for their highly textured “nappy” natural hair. Ironically called a relaxer, this chemical remedy for a perceived problem of tense, tightly curled coils that occur naturally among African Americans; implies that African hair is wild & excited and needs to calm down. Some have lye, others have no – lye; however the overall truth is many Africans in America use these temporary fixes; coincidentally called permanents, as a response to a deeply rooted condition of self-negation and hard-wired inferiority complexes – both results of slavery & colonization that can be tracked and identified globally; manifesting in a myriad of ways as people of indigenous descent attempt to conform to and assimilate into Western culture and standards of beauty.
 
Who has good hair? Pose that question to a room filled with African American women and the answer will predominately point to someone with straight or wavy hair. At Happily Natural Day; the hair that one was born with naturally is the best hair one can have, no need to conform or assimilate in order to be accepted by another cultures standard of beauty is necessary. Civil rights psychologist Kenneth Clark’s Doll Study showed that black children had a higher affinity for white dolls versus black dolls in the early 1950′s. The same study has been done repeatedly since and it still shows the same results. How long will the black community allow this pathology to continue?
 
One hundred and fifty years have passed since the emancipation proclamation. Forty years have passed since the civil rights act. African American’s cannot feel comfortable with their natural hair, skin tone & lips – how can we truly say that we are free? Africans have been instilled with such a deep sense of inferiority that we perpetuate this behavior from generation to generation; turning pathology to tradition, psychosocial illness to ritual.
 
Happily Natural Day is grassroots festival dedicated to holistic health, cultural awareness and social change. The festival promotes pride in being of African descent because for over 400 years Africans all over the globe were taught by the western educational system that African people were savages. Happily Natural Day has now reached its 9th consecutive year in Richmond Virginia – the former capital of the confederacy and 3rd year in Atlanta GA – the last confederate state to reenter the Union. Join us Saturday August 27th through August 28th from 11am to 8pm; if in Richmond at Trinity Life Family Center- 3601 Dill Road and if in Atlanta, GA join us at Omenala Griot Museum 337 Dargan Pl SW for a full weekend of activities promoting holistic health and wellness, natural hair and social change for food, live music, an African vendor marketplace, workshops and children’s activities all dedicated to instilling pride in people of African descent.

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