This beautiful baby girl with hair that looked to us to be unkempt by Eurocentric standards of beauty, had us up in arms and ready to fight. As far as I can tell, whether or not we were ready to fight the folks at H&M for being seemingly disrespectful or ready to fight other Black folk for seeming to admonish this girl, it all seemed a trauma response to me. 

I feel like I have been talking and attempting to write about the Netflix movie Nappily Ever After a lot lately. In the Sex Talk After Dark, Shayla Tumbling and I discussed the movie and the impact of hair on sexuality. I am glad to have had the discussion, but I have also been wondering why this movie is so hard to write about. For those who have seen it, feel free to proceed. For those who haven’t and are okay with spoilers, you do the same. IF you are NOT into spoilers in anyway, it might be time to hit the “x” in the upper left hand corner because spoilers are definitely ahead!

Often when we think of self-esteem, we think it happens on an personal level and that nothing interferes with it. Believe it or not, self-esteem is a concept that must be taught and is taught unintentionally and intentionally. The unintentional teaching of self-esteem usually teaches us how to have the lowest self-esteem possible. As a teen, this is happening on a variety of levels in every environment they enter.