“Why do you wear someone else’s hair? Just go natural.”

“You talk white.”

“If you don’t listen to trap music you’re not black.”

The way I style my hair, how I speak and the music I listen to do not define how much of my race I am.

Society will have people thinking that if a black girl doesn’t have natural hair and doesn’t wear any makeup, she’s not connected with her culture.

It takes more than outer appearance to define who an African-American is and where they’ve come from.

There is no level to how black a person is based off of the characteristics they hold.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone will say I talk “white” because I don’t speak in texting form in a normal conversation.

It’s degrading to think that people only see me as talking “black” if I use improper grammar.

Being educated is not subjected to one race and should not be seen as something that makes the person any less black or straying away from the culture they were born with.

Also, for the African-American girls who choose to style their hair with weave, that is not something that should be negatively or positively compared to someone who prefers a natural style.

Both of these choices are just personal preferences and not a way to rebel the black culture.

Someone who embraces their natural hair and is able to manage it each night is worth being proud of because it is a lot of work to maintain a cute, natural style with your hair tangling and conditioner running out.

It’s also very time consuming to sit in a chair for hours while the hairdresser puts weave in, especially when they want to watch their favorite show and eat at the same time.

Either one takes forever and gives good results, so why belittle one or the other as if it takes away from their heritage?

I don’t know who indirectly started making a point system to sum up how black an African-American is, but it honestly just doesn’t make sense.

I’ve heard both African-American and Caucasian people listen to “trap” music and it doesn’t magically make an African-American more black or a Caucasian black.

I personally am not a huge fan of rap and I don’t find myself lower on the “point scale” for how black I am.

At times I may want weave because I just don’t want to deal with my natural hair and the way people speak is something they have grown into not used to be distant from who they are.