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That style lasted for about a year or so until I decided to go finish school. I put the braids back into give myself a break and kept them there until it was time to graduation. What did I do? I was a business student, just accepted into a MBA program, so off I went to the salon for a perm. I kept it that way through my MBA program and first year in corporate America. Then one day, I just got tired. The perm had pretty much grown out and my hair was past my shoulders. I had moved to a new city and had a male barber who did a great wash and blow dry set for me, no perm, but again, it would take months and months for it to grow out. I went to him the day after Thanksgiving in 2000 and asked him to do something different. He suggested I go get in braided but being a corporate marketer, I didn't want that at this conservative Midwest company. I asked him to cut it.

I walked out liberated with my hair in a cropped, curly, do that felt so soft. I have had my hair natural every since. I went from the short, curly crown to two-strand twists and then six years later, curly dreads that reach just past my shoulders. I love the softness of my hair and I keep a pretty organic regimen to take care of it. I also have two daughters now and I celebrate their natural hair. The elder daughter has every bit of African hair and is a prime candidate for dread locks, she hates getting it combed. I constantly tell her how beautiful it is and how strong her hair is. We have books like "Nappy Hair" that affirm how unique black hair really is. My youngest daughter has more of the Creole hair of my mother. Her curly whisps can be finger combed and only need a touch of hair milk to get them going.

I love my hair, it liberated me. Black hair is not any one thing. There is no such phenomenon of good or bad hair. The epic scene in Spike Lee's School Daze between the good and bad hair girls reminds me of the self-hate we black women have endured in America. Black hair was determined to be "ugly" by the white society that celebrated white women's thin, long strands. In secret, white women envied the curly hair of black women that could emerge in styles like Afros, braids, and dreads. We have come a long way in 2008, but still have a long way to go because there are still Asian-dominated hair shops in urban neighborhoods hawking everything from silky-straight natural hair to synthetic versions of everything from kinky afros to straight bobs. This dominance has even entered the once all-black

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