It’s about the ways of the Western, by origin ” The White Way ” and maybe www should be called ” We white wash”: When you know the history of humanity, you understand the colour white comes at the end of its spectrum, not its origins, meaning if we follow rhe white, we’ll doom ourselves, as they’re still figuring their own existence in the world. Not out of ignorance, but out of denial. So they fight and make everyone else small, but their the last child in it all. Cute. It goes for all the blacks and in between, that follow its ways too.

This isn’t actually about hair.

But I want to give credit to uyiosael, whose post Whitewashed (Afro-Soul) sparked this thought for me, because the point they made about African hair goes far beyond hair.

It is about what happens when you forget yourself.

When you forget your roots.

When you stop looking at yourself through your own eyes and start looking at yourself through a Westernised lens.

Because that is where you can slowly lose yourself without even realising that you are doing it.

You start looking at what you naturally are and seeing a problem.

You start looking at what you naturally have and thinking it needs to be corrected.

You start looking at what you naturally do and asking whether it is glamorous enough, professional enough, sophisticated enough, acceptable enough.

And eventually you are not protecting yourself anymore.

You are protecting yourself from yourself.

And that distinction is fucking huge.

Take hair.

People say:

“I just want to protect my hair.”

Okay.

Then braids do the job.

But a weave is not protection.

A weave is a statement.

It is a choice of appearance.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing it.

Wear the weave.

Wear the wig.

Wear your natural hair.

Wear braids.

Wear whatever the fuck you want.

But let’s stop confusing choice with necessity.

Because the moment you believe that the natural version of yourself needs to be hidden, corrected or replaced in order for you to be beautiful, you are no longer simply making an aesthetic decision.

You are responding to a standard.

And this happens everywhere.

Not just hair.

Work.

How you speak at work.

How you dress at work.

How you behave.

What personality you’re allowed to show.

How ambitious you’re supposed to look.

How polished you’re supposed to be.

How much of yourself you’re supposed to remove before somebody else can consider you “professional.”

Relationships.

How you’re supposed to love.

How you’re supposed to communicate.

What kind of person you’re supposed to choose.

What kind of relationship looks successful.

What kind of couple society finds acceptable.

What parts of yourself you are expected to soften, hide or abandon.

Clothing.

What makes you look expensive.

What makes you look successful.

What makes you look respectable.

What makes you look like you “belong.”

Behaviour.

How loud you’re allowed to be.

How emotional you’re allowed to be.

How direct you’re allowed to be.

How much individuality is acceptable before it becomes “too much.”

And then immigration.

This one fucking gets me.

Because look at the mentality that some immigrant families carry when they move into another country.

“We’re immigrants.”

“You have to do better than them.”

“You can’t make that mistake.”

“You can’t behave like that.”

“You have to prove yourself.”

“We’re different.”

“We’re not the same.”

And I understand where that mentality comes from.

Survival.

Fear.

Wanting your children to have opportunities.

Wanting them to avoid the discrimination or hardship that you experienced.

But somewhere along the way, that survival mentality can become another form of separation.

Because if you actually look at yourself through humanity, what exactly are you?

You’re a human being who moved from one place to another.

That’s it.

You are still yourself.

You didn’t stop being human at the border.

You didn’t become less yourself because the language changed.

You didn’t become somebody else because the culture changed.

You didn’t suddenly need a completely different character.

You are the same consciousness moving through a different environment.

And your character should remain yours.

That doesn’t mean you refuse to adapt.

Of course you adapt.

You learn.

You communicate.

You understand the culture you’re entering.

You respect where you are.

But there is a difference between adaptation and disappearance.

And that difference matters.

Because there is a word for something that happens when people start changing the way they speak, behave or present themselves depending on the social environment they’re entering:

code-switching.

And code-switching itself isn’t automatically bad.

Sometimes it is practical.

Sometimes it is cultural.

Sometimes it is simply learning how to communicate with different people.

But when you reach the point where you don’t even know which version of yourself is actually you anymore, then something has gone wrong.

Because adapting your communication isn’t the same thing as abandoning your identity.

You shouldn’t have to become somebody else to be accepted.

You shouldn’t have to erase your roots to become successful.

You shouldn’t have to look more Westernised to become more beautiful.

You shouldn’t have to sound less like yourself to become more intelligent.

You shouldn’t have to suppress your culture to become more professional.

You shouldn’t have to become less human to become more acceptable.

And this is where I think the Westernised lens becomes so powerful.

Because it doesn’t always tell you:

“Stop being yourself.”

Sometimes it says:

“You can still be yourself… just make a few improvements.”

Change your hair.

Change your clothes.

Change your voice.

Change your accent.

Change your behaviour.

Change your standards.

Change what you consider beautiful.

Change what you consider successful.

Change what you consider respectable.

Change what you consider normal.

And eventually you wake up and realise:

Fuck.

I’ve spent my entire life improving myself into somebody I don’t recognise.

That’s the trap.

And having yourself is not worth losing yourself for.

Because what exactly are you gaining?

Approval?

Acceptance?

A salary?

A relationship?

A title?

A reputation?

A version of beauty that somebody else invented?

At what point does the price become too high?

Because I don’t want to win a game where the prize is losing myself.

And that’s why this applies to everything.

The system wants things it can recognise.

Things it can categorise.

Things it can standardise.

Things that look familiar.

Things that behave predictably.

Things that fit into the same boxes.

Because when everybody is made to look and behave similarly, the system doesn’t have to question its own framework.

It can simply keep reproducing itself.

But humanity isn’t supposed to be one thing.

We are supposed to be fucking different.

Different cultures.

Different faces.

Different languages.

Different bodies.

Different hair.

Different beliefs.

Different talents.

Different ways of thinking.

Different ways of creating.

Different ways of loving.

Different ways of living.

And none of those differences need to disappear for humanity to be one.

That’s the irony.

Humanity is one because we are different, not because we are identical.

So I don’t want to become more acceptable.

I want to become more myself.

I don’t want to polish away everything that makes me recognisable to myself.

I don’t want to become a version of myself that makes sense to the system.

I want to remain the same person wherever I go.

Because if I can only be myself in one environment, then I wasn’t actually free in that environment either.

I was simply comfortable.

And there is a difference.

Never forget yourself trying to become acceptable to a world that forgot itself first.

…

Wrie a post abojt what happens when you forget yourself, your toots and look at life through the lenses of the westernalised lens. You lose yourself in it, thinking you’re glamouros and protecting your hair. If protection was the excuse braids do the job, a weave is a statement not protectiom.

This Happens in so many things. This is not about hair whatsoever, but we still want to give the credit to the creator that posted this post. So do mention it. But this happens in so many different areas of life: work, how we go about our relationship, how we dress, how we behave, all of it. Even the idea that, even the mentality of immigrants when they move to another country and the parents are like, Oh, we’re immigrants. You need to do better than the others, or you can’t make this mistake, or you can’t make that mistake, and you can’t, you know, we’re different, we’re not the same. All of that shit. It’s bullshit, because if you really look at yourself and you only see humanity in yourself, you don’t see yourself as different from whichever you move into. You see yourself as the same that moves from one area to the other. But your character should stay the same. You shouldn’t be free to be one in one place and then merge and, what’s it called, I think there’s a specific word for it, like lingo code, switch code, something like that. Because that’s the moment when you start losing yourself, and having yourself is not worth losing yourself. Though the Westernized lens wants the common individual to be all the same, because that’s the only way that it knows how to justify its own existence.