Michael Jackson Hair and his Former Kinky Curly Afro

I have been way too busy with lots of assignments at university and February has been a real terrible month when it has come to keeping up with my online blogging and hobbies of mine LOL finally I have arranged some time to be posting and I sure do want to take a break (hopefully when Easter holidays come along!)

Today I would like to blog about Michael Jackson. I have always been a fan of Michael Jackson. Even in his later years and I never believed a word of the lies of the media concerning the horrible crimes he was being blamed for without any real proof for that. I guess I am too young to have really experienced the physical degradation of Michael Jackson and I have always remembered Michael as the black kid with a huge afro (which I admire so much!) as well as some great moves, voice and pitch he really had!

When Michael Jackson was a kid, his afro was notoriously big as were the afro hairstyles at the time (we are talking mid to late seventies). Then, MJ retained his African features and his African hair. But slowly Michael Jackson let the jheri curl and texturizer take ahold of him and Michael Jackson's natural kinky curly hair started to become less and less kinky until well, you all know how that went.

It is sad seen a brother of the African diaspora end up like this. I do believe that MJ suffered from vitiligo which caused his skin to fade in colour, but all his surgeries and straight haired wigs looked like an act to blend in with the western crowd and to run away from his African heritage. I would have loved to see Michael Jackson with cornrows or twists hairstyles but after he had the S curls and relaxers, Michael settled with a wig made of long straight hair.

Not that there is anything wrong with all of the above on a personal level but I cannot help but to wonder about the example he set to fellow young black brothers and sisters. Not only in the United States but also in the Caribbean and Africa where skin bleaching is a plague (and I know this from m family in Jamaica). Sure, he very likely suffered from vitiligo but the rest of his physique altering really didn't help to have our brothers and sisters embrace their African roots.

RIP Michael, you will always be loved! :-)

I love my natural hair, do you?

I love my natural hair, do you?

I say and ask the above because I think our hair, and by 'our' I mean African kinky hair, has been submitted and ridiculed for centuries in the western world even though it was an attribute worthy of admiration back in our African homeland. It wasn't until the 1970s that women and men of colour started liberating themselves with their Afros and showcasing to the western world their newfound self-love and love to their African peers.

I love my hair without the narcissist traits. I am not talking of obsession or of putting my hair above anything else. What I'm talking about is appreciating that my hair is what it is because of my ancestry. I am proud to be a black male living in a western country and I respect all races and creeds. However, I cannot help but feel a special affiliation and brotherly love to those of us who belong to the African diaspora and who share a very distant family tree as well as unfortunate distant sufferings that only make us stronger in this day and age.

Brother, sister, love yourself and love your hair!

Hendrick