Were you a young child that never wanted to get your hair done? You never wanted to put a comb or a brush through it. You were more than happy with your hair being wild, free, in its natural state. Well, this was me. I hated, I mean hated, getting my hair done. And every other Saturday, I would have to go get my hair done.

  Some days I would get twists（扭弯）, some days I would get braids. But for the most part, I got my hair straightened（整顿）. The results were always beautiful, but the process was quite traumatic（外伤的）. Because my hair was so thick, I would go through hours of boredom and even sometimes pain. At first, it was my mother dragging（拖） me to these gruesome（可怕的） appointments. But over time, I started to crave（恳求） these hairstyles for myself and it became a part of my routine.

  Why did I go through this over and over again? It's just hair, right? Well, how many of you guys have went to a hairstylist and they cut off way（大大地） too much of your hair? Or how many of you guys have even been embarrassed just by a bad hair day? The truth is, it isn't just hair. We all put extra time and effort into our hair because it means something to us.

  And as a young African-American woman, I've been taught the art of manipulation（操纵）. Growing up, I've not only put a generous amount of money, but time and energy into changing my hair. I've had an abundance（丰富） of hairstyles, but my go-to was the relaxer. For those of you who do not know, the relaxer is a chemical treatment that permanently straightens curly, coily hair. Here are two pictures of me as a child. The one to the left, I was about five weeks old and the one to the right, I was about six or seven years old.

  The picture of me as a baby is one of the only pictures I have of my natural hair. The rest of my childhood pictures are of me with relaxed hair. With relaxed hair, my hair was more manageable（易管理的）, more presentable. Natural hair doesn't lay flat. It doesn't even grow downward, but instead outward like a tree. And because of this, my hair was inappropriate（ 不恰当的）, and I never questioned this fact.

  It was just something I knew to agree with. Now, I always knew how to maintain（维持） my hair and these hairstyles, but I was never taught how to love the hair that I was born（承担） with. And I believe that is the main problem. You have to love parts of yourself in order to love your whole self（自己）. Now, why aren't young black girls taught to love their hair? Well, there was a time where all black women were natural.

  They didn't have access to chemical treatments or tools to straighten it. There were kinks（结 v纠结）, curls（卷曲）, and coils（线圈） all throughout their hair, until someone told them that it wasn't beautiful. Not just someone, but multiple（多重的） people. As much as we hate to bring it up, slavery（奴隶制） created a Eurocentric standard of beauty. This means that only Eurocentric features were deemed（认为） beautiful, such as light skin, pointy noses, and last but not least, straight hair. Black women gave into this false（不真实的） pretense（ 妄称） and decided to create some solutions.

  Although previous methods were used, the hot comb became one of the most popular methods to be used, which is kind of comparable（可比较的） to a modern flat iron.