The following is a story my friend Jamie recalled a couple of weeks ago: Jamie was at Dollar Tree, buying materials for a project when a lady came up to her saying, “Ooh I like your hat, where did you get it from?”. This is the first of many facepalm moments.
After telling her that she bought it from a natural hair company, the lady replied. “Haha it’s so pretty, I guess I can just walk out with my shower cap on.”
First off, the fact that some people still cannot tell the difference between a bonnet and a shower cap is outrageous. Clearly, a shower cap is a covering made from some sort of plastic material. A bonnet is usually made from cloth and may have a velvet or silk texture that a shower cap simply is not created to have.
I have seen Black and white individuals attack Black girls for this head covering, and I am sick of it. The Black girl’s bonnet is the equivalent of the white girl’s messy bun. A white girl can wake up, throw her bedhead in a bun and call it a day, and according to society, this looks good.
Haters love to call Black girls ugly, messy, and judge them for their hair but don’t realize that not all girls have it so easy. It takes more product and time for Black girls to comb their hair according to a socially acceptable standard than any other race.
To make myself clear, I do not believe bonnets should be worn everywhere and automatically chosen as opposed to a hairstyle. There’s a time and place for everything, and discretion should be made between wearing a bonnet to Target and wearing one to the workplace.
I’m also not saying to always run to your bonnet as a first choice. There are many times where I would have loved to simply throw on my bonnet or turban–which is viewed as more socially acceptable for anyone looking for an alternative–but knew that this was not a habit I wanted to form.
While wearing a bonnet has been incorrectly connotated with being lazy, some of the most hard-working, “care about their look” type Black women I know wear bonnets when running errands.
Additionally, this judgment is given with no context of the individual. Right after I had my brain surgery, I wore a bonnet to many places. Looking at me, you wouldn’t know that I just did an intense operation and now had a huge scar on my head, and that’s exactly the issue- you know nothing by looking at someone.
All in all, my message is this: let Black girls wear their bonnets. It does not harm others or make you lazy. We look cute rocking this Black staple if I do say so myself.