new thread
Sup everyone? I am not sure if I should post on this site or not, but I didn't know where else to go. I am a brother in need of some long hair support and I just can't find it where I live. Being a 6 foot 5 black man living on Crenshaw you would think I would be accepted.... but my hair being over 3 feet long and straightened on a monthly basis just is not recieved well. When I play ball with the boys they pull on my ponytail and it just isn't fair. Due to my mothers heritage I cannot grow an afro and braids just don't express my style. Pleae give me some advice on how I can become more comfortable with my mane. Also, does anyone know where I can get a good crimping iron?
get used to the scorn while it was accepted in past decades to have long beautiful hair people today will constantly hate i myself am made fun of on a daily basis because i choose to keep my long hair the best thing you can do is keep on keeping on i am glad to have found my place here online after many many years
keep on keeping on my brother
paul s.
I would love to see that "3 foot mane"......................
36 inches of hair is quite a lot. You must have been growing it for a very long time considering that you're 6'5" and are a "Brother".......
Where is Crenshaw?
You ask for advise on how you can become more comfortable with your mane... Do you mean that you're not sure even within your own self whether or not you like having long hair? --- Or, are you simply just struggling with the lack of acceptance from your community?
Acceptance of your own longhair identity, to my way of thinking, is the first priority (that is, if you do indeed FEEL like being a longhair is your natural destiny). Once you totally accept yourself, those around you will notice a difference in your own confidence, --- and confidence leads to having a sense of humor about the fact that you stand out as, "different" from the rest of the boys you play ball with...
To illustrate what I mean by the above statements, here's my own example: I have long belonged to a C&W dance community in San Francisco. When I first grew my hair out in the '90s, I was pretty self-conscious about the fact that I used to "fit in" with the average shorthaired look that 99.9% of all the other regular dancers in that community all have, and that I no longer felt as "accepted" anymore... Then I cut my hair back to short in Y2K, --- which got me so mad at myself for having "caved in", that when I grew it back the 2nd time around, I no longer gave a damn about what enybody else thought, felt, or said about my hair... The interesting thing about this is that I then gained MORE friends, not less, --- because the people whose opinion used to matter so much to me in the '90s I had litterally dropped to the point of considering them and their opinions totally unimportant... unless they completely accepted me for who I am, that is ("a longhair in the midst of a sea of shorthairs" - lol)....
Nowadays when I'm dancing on a crowded floor, I often get a friendly pull on my ponytail from behind (a light little "yank-yank" that is their way of saying, "Hey, --- glad to see you here!" I love it, --- and wouldn't want to have it any other way!!
- Ken in San Francisco
did you happen to get that mane stuck in a garbage disposal lately? just a hunch...
Mate your 6 foot 5! you should be able to kick the sh*t out of most people that insult you because you have long hair. I know you may not neccessarilly like this idea but have you thought of getting dreads? Most blacks look cool with dreads and considering your a 6 foot 5 black guy. Beefy looking black guy with brutal look hair you know what Im saying
Embrace the fact that you're the one with with the ponytail. Rather than feel separated, feel unique. You may not be able to get the afro but they cannot get the long tail. Create an identity for yourself and stand up for your tail and eventually people will begin to see its value. As for it being pulled, you can always put it up into a bun or use a bandanna. Tail out of the game transforms into hair close to the head during the game.
You could always go for Dreadlocks mate, then you wouldnt have to straighten your hair all the time and it would still look good.
Welcome. This is just a board on the subject of men's long hair, and you're a man with long hair, so you're at the right place. If we don't get too many other brothers it may be because it's difficult to grow African type hair to great lengths, although it's not impossible, and many here aren't aiming at growing their hair that long anyway.
According to Wikipedia, the Crenshaw is a mostly middle class, mostly black, area of South Los Angeles, with the balance of the population mostly latino. I looked that up because we are scattered all over the world and most of us (like me) probably didn't know where it was.
Is your mother perhaps a latina? They can grow really great long hair. I figure your friends are just jealous of your hair. Maybe recognising that is the first step.
As for straightening irons, I think most of us see those as bad for our hair, but there are a few guys here who have done that. Generally, straightening is not recommended for really long hair , but I know that a lot more black people straighten their hair.
You may be in uncharted territory if your hair type is a mix of African hair with something else. I think the kinkiness of African hair is due to the strands being more flat then round, and that hair type is usually also coarse, which may be more able to take straightening, but we know you don't have completely African hair as such.
If your mother was latina, or even asian for the sake of argument, then we would know that you didn't have her hair type as it would be straight already, but it could be a mixture of hair types. OTOH, if she is white, you could very well have the same hair as her and still straighten it, as us white folks have all kinds of different hair types.
Genetics is something I have never understood. My daughter has my hair type (fine, thin, wavy) with the hair colour that my wife had as a child (blonde, which later turned red), and my son has my wife's hair type (thick, coarse, wavy) with mid brown hair (my natural hair colour is dark brown, almost black). It's like they each got the type of hair from one parent and the hair colour from the other one.
It would be helpful if we knew what your mother's heritage actually was, but what would be even better would be if you could post pictures of your hair.
hey i don't live in Crenshaw or even know were it is but i do under stand what your going through , i remember the first time i had my hair down and it was straightened i wore a hat at first and people thought i was wearing a wig , once i took it off well to say the least i got some looks, i live in norther n Virgina in a mostly white area people here wanted to touch it and ask question like did it hurt and wow it so nice , how did you do that , but when i went to Arlington just out side of DC were there are a larger population of blacks my reception was not as welcoming. i was with a group of friends in a star bucks and a rude black woman can up to me and said "boy why are wearing a
weave?" i think she was referring to a wig.. i took off my hat and to her dismay she was surprised that it was my hair , then she said " you must be mixed" in very derogatory manner. at this point people started to stare, i got my drink and headed back to the safety of my college.
just to let you know i not mixed, and theres nothing wrong with being mixed....
i think i must give most of the credit to my diet when it come to my hair. ... i am a very healthy vegetarian and a border line rawest ( people who do not eat cooked food )
i think people are just upset that your hair is nice theres is not.
There is no such thing as a healthy vegetarian, humans are omnivores not vegetarians sorry, your starving your body, and if you get any protein in your diet at all your not a true vegatarian.
Oh, jeez. Do you even think before you post a message? Honestly. For one, yes, humans are omnivores; however, not eating as an omnivore does not mean you're "starving" your body. Your body requires nutrients, which, if you look, can be found in a variety of sources. At any rate, an omnivore is a creature that can subsist on both plant and animal matter, not one that MUST subsist on both, so isn't it obvious that an omnivore, like, say, a human, can survive on just one?
Furthermore, please look at the definitions of a vegetarian on dictionary.com, which lists multiple sources.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vegetarian&r=66
None of them mention not taking in protein. You're assuming that protein comes only from meat and fish, which is incorrect.
Further still, all you need to do is find one healthy vegetarian somewhere through history to prove your statement wrong, and I'm sure there have been numerous such persons.
Peace
no such thing as a healthy vegetarian? then what am i? my doctor says i'm one of his healthiest patients ever, and i've been veg for nine years. what a sadly misinformed thing for your to say...
Enter the scientist (really, wanna see the credentials?). Okay, so here is problem with needing to eat food. The human body can produce "de novo" (or from base materials) about half of the amino acids (protein building blocks) needed to make body proteins; the rest of the amino acids are needed to be taken in by eating because the human body lacks the biochemical pathways to produce them. Fortunately, meat-eating humans can get these missing amino acids easily by eating meat (not sure if all meats have all the amino acids needed but pretty sure most have all). Non-meat-eating humans need to turn to vegetable and fruit and grain sources for their amino acids. I think a combination of rice and beans will provide the needed amino acids and there may be other good combinations as well. As for total protein matter, there are non-meat sources that are spectacular. And from a historical view, or rather anthropological view, there are many cultures who do not eat a lot of meat and manage to pass on genes for centuries and millenia. As a side note, cultures with historically less meat eaten (such as Japan--due to less domesticated food animals and a reliance on fish) sometimes do develop smaller body frames but there is no lack in health because of it.
Another local! I live in Maryland and work in DC.
A weave is where strands of fake hair are woven into your real hair to give you instant long hair. It's mostly black women who have that done, and it's pretty bad news for their own hair. Some methods use glue! You can imagine what you are left with if you have a weave taken out.
I think that woman was trying to say that a weave was inappropriate for a guy, which is pretty much on the same sort of level as someone saying that guys shouldn't have long hair, so it was a rude comment.
BTW, your hair looks good.
Hey. I know what you mean about a pressure to conform to certain hairstyles within the black community - I'm from the Caribbean, you see, where long hair is common, but is most accepted in dreadlocks, a ponytail, or braids/cornrows. Anything else, especially straightened or colored hair, is generally considered "white" and therefore bad. But I don't care, really, because I learnt that if the people you call your friends no longer accept you because you've changed your appearance, then their friendship with you isn't strong enough. Find other people to hang out with, regardless of race, if possible. It's easy to do this in somewhere like a college.
Now, I'm not sure why you straighten your hair every month if your hair isn't growing into an afro (meaning that your hair's growing downwards instead of upwards, like straight hair?). Is the straightening for style, or what? If it's just your style, fine, but if it's to make your hair manageable, you should stop it immediately - straightening damages your hair. The best solution is to just let your hair grow naturally; as someone mentioned, dreadlocks are a good solution. Get them done professionally if possible, and you'll have a hairstyle that people are't going to make fun of anymore.
But I'm curious as to what your hair looks like unstraightened. Is it anything like mine?
Oh, and if you're so tall, you should be able to stand up (literally) to anyone messing with you, lol.
By the way, hair irons of all kinds can damage your hair, so avoid them. Texturizing your hair, dying it, etc - these are all damaging processes that will ultimately leave your hair far worse than before.
You are on the right site, and it's nice to see some brothers here, 3 ft. long definitely makes you a longhair, and what you are going through is what many board members go through. Personally, I think the brothers look hot with dreadlocks, braids, or even tails, like you wear. I'm sure you will get lots of advice on building self-confidence and reacting to the nay-sayers. Stick around here, and I guarantee you will get lots of support from the guys, and from us few female admirers. You are not alone in not finding longhair support where you live, that's one of the reason this board exists; to encourage one another to stick it out and be proud of your mane.
Carol