As I am preparing to launch The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love, I am talking more these days in interviews and on stages about what it means to love yourself. Here’s one indicator: People who are self-loving do not feel the need to judge the choices of others who are living happy and healthy lives.
Recently, a petition has popped up on Change.org of all places concerning the hair of Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of Beyonce Knowles and Shawn Jay-Z Carter. Really? With everything else going on in the world, this is what people are concerned about? A child’s natural God-given hair doing its natural goddess-given thing?!
Blogger Coye LeRocke is here to discuss how this child’s hair is rocking some people’s sense of self. The sooner that we learn that what other people do with their bodies, their hair, and their lives is has nothing to do with anyone else, the better!
Coye’s Commentary
Blue Ivy Carter has long been a media mainstay from the day she entered this world, whether it was about her name or what she was wearing. Who am I kidding? She was met with controversy before she was born. Unfortunately, when one is the offspring of two of the biggest stars in the world, along with the fortune, fast cars and fame, there’s a deplorable and unforgiving downside.
Who would think that a two-year old whose probably favorite past-time is playing peekaboo with her mommy, Beyonce’, would be on the receiving end of not so favorable publicity?
Sadly, that’s the case and it’s about *drum roll please* her hair.
Her hair?
Yes, her hair.
Something so precious, so cute and a situation she has no control over.
When news circulated across Twitter and other social media platforms that an actual petition was initiated and had went viral about the princess of the Knowles-Carter kingdom, Blue Ivy and her natural hair, I didn’t know whether to gasp in disbelief, be ticked off or shake my head in embarrassment.
By the time I finished reading the proposed plea on Change.org, I had managed to do all three. The petition curator, Jasmine Toliver has since said it was all a joke but no one is laughing. [Editor’s Note: As someone who was bullied as a child for being “foreign” I am certainly not laughing.] As of reported time, her comedic attempt has garnered over 4,300 online signatures, less than 650 away from its target.
I don’t know which one is more ridiculous: a petition about a child’s hair maintenance or last year’s request to the White House to construct a Star Wars-influenced Death Star funded by taxpayers’ money?
Not only are Beyonce’s fans in an uproar about what some are calling relentless bullying of an innocent child but earlier this week, songbirds/reality stars Syleena Johnson, Keke Wyatt, and Tamar Braxton-Herbert felt more than a sting but more like a social media beatdown from the passionate “Beyhive” over comments about the pop royal’s heiress.
Not one to judge children (and I won’t start now), it’s easy to see that her parents who are beyond wealthy enough to afford whatever need or want for their child, prefer her hair to be au naturel instead of gooping it up with all sorts of harmful chemicals that would strip it of its God-given beauty and texture.
Also, I’m fairly certain Blue Ivy’s grandmother and former hair stylist, Tina Knowles, wouldn’t let her granddaughter’s hair go unmaintainable and would do whatever she needed to do to keep it as beautiful and as healthy as the little girl herself.
But down to the bare bones of the matter, is this really about a two-year old’s hair?
What’s below the surface? Is it actual concern or something more? Arguably, this could boil down to black women and our overall tumultuous relationship with our own hair. It’s the old familiar and sometimes painful battle of what is seen and revered as “good hair.”
According to statistics from consumer trends firm, Mintel, the number of women who are taking the leap to free themselves of the “creamy crack” is soaring and they’re finally coming to the realization that obtaining healthy hair is far more important than embracing what society views as the beauty benchmark.
In agreement with others who spoke out against the online petition and its bullying nature, aren’t there more pressing issues in the world that require our undivided attention?
How about the rapidly declining value over human life, the missing Malaysian airplane that has also suddenly disappeared from the news, or whether or not Shonda Rhimes’ upcoming show, “How To Get Away With Murder” will be as spellbinding as her prior work like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal?”
Yeah, you know. The important stuff.
