"A lie is speech, thought and/or action,
with the intention of promoting falsehood."

-- Neely Fuller, Jr., Author, "The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept: A Textbook/Workbook for Thought, Speech, and/or Action for Victims of Racism (White Supremacy)", p. 276

The Lie We Tell Ourselves

The lie is that we walk around with ARTIFICIALLY STRAIGHTENED HAIR!!!! when that is not the NATURAL texture of our HAIR!!!!

For most Black people, our "natural" texture is nappy, kinky, coily, curly HAIR!!!!

I may have chosen an offensive word [lie], but I hope that you understand my meaning.

Some of us are faking it.

I am very serious, when I say that I believe that I INVENTED the Boogaloo and Bell Bottom Hip-Hugger Pants and was the first girl in my neighborhood to wear Kool-Aid colored sheer and pastel colored fish-net  stockings. 

Whenever I wore my hair in a "straight" style, I always looked in the mirror thinking about how my hair COMPARED to white people's hair.  Until I started wearing NATURAL hairstyles, I always felt INFERIOR because of my NAPPY-KINKY hair. 

Until I started wearing my hair in its NATURAL state [not using chemicals or hot combs], I was always trying to IMITATE white women because they were the standard of beauty in my youth. 

Secretly, I sometimes wanted to BE a "white" girl.

I was a very clever young lady.  And when Vidal Sassoon invented the Page Boy hair style, I was right in step with him too.  This was the FIRST time that my mother agreed to let me cut my LONG HAIR!!!!

I spent so much time in the mirror, that sometimes I did not know who was real... me or the fantasy hanging on the wall.

Nobody could tell me that I didn't look as good as those white models, who I oogled over, in those fashion magazines.  I could feather, flip, swirl my HAIR!!!! like the pros.

My HAIR!!!! moved with the slightest breeze or gentle movement of my head.  I could part it on the left side; part it on the right side and part it down the middle for a different look.

I "played" with my HAIR!!!! everyday.

The only downfall, back then, was when your HAIR!!!! started "going back home". When it started getting frizzy, it was time for the ritual of wash / oil / section / braid / press / curl all over again, which only lasted for a couple of weeks.

I could not swim or exert too much energy exercising and I would run from the rain.  Just before each washing, I would have lots of dandruff and my HAIR!!!! would begin to smell funky.

When I couldn't find the time to wash / oil / section / braid / press / curl my HAIR!!!!, I would pull it back in a French Roll or jes wear a head scarf because it was embarrassing to go out in public, exposing the fact that my HAIR!!!! was not "naturally" STRAIGHT, that I was living "The Lie".

THE TRUTH:

We don't really have straight HAIR!!!!

We get relaxers, texturizers, curls and pretend that we have straight HAIR!!!!

It only "appears" that we may have straight HAIR!!!! because we use goop and exotic techniques to give the world that impression. 

But, if anyone were to hose us down with water, then our HAIR!!!! would "go back home" to it's NATURAL state which is NOT NATURALLY straight for most of us.

This is what I am calling Living The Lie.

Sadly, STRAIGHTENED HAIR!!!!, i.e. permed, relaxed, pressed, texturized HAIR!!!!, has become looked upon as the "natural" way for Black people to wear our HAIR!!!!, while our NATURAL kinky, nappy, coily HAIR!!!! is despised...

Who profits from The Lie?

It's been my experience that some white people don't know about the LIE. The lie has been acted out so well, that some of them don't EVEN know what to think about Black people's HAIR!!!! hen there are those white and Asian people who fully understand the lie that we quietly live and they make a LOT of money helping us to live it.

We are not fooling them at ALL!  

They capitalize on our low self-esteem and desire to be and look like them.

They will watch a Black product grow in sales and then buy-out the company and make a killing off of us. 

So, not only are we "living a lie".

We live a lie that OTHER people prey on.