If you follow Oprah on any of the social media platform’s this week, you would have noticed that she posted a picture of epic proportion, namely a ‘larger than life’, ‘cant tell me nothing ‘ Afro while wearing a stunning Orange dress. This is the coolest thing ever in my opinion because I have always said if Oprah ever wore and Afro to work it would help change the game even more than it already has. I must confess I do not always buy O-magazine but I almost always grab the latest issue and flip through it while waiting on the long lines that seem to plague every Wal-Mart in the country. This is the first time she has put ‘hair’ out there like that, and not just any hair, did you see the size of that thing!?
Us Weekly reported:
‘Talk about a hair-raising look! Oprah Winfrey models a giant afro wig on the September 2013 cover of O, The Oprah Magazine — and the TV titan’s hefty headpiece weighed a whopping 3.5 pounds! “I wish I could say it was all mine. In fact, though, it’s borrowed. And it feels like carrying around an extra head,” Winfrey reveals. “My own hair is shorter, not quite so spherical, and a lot lighter. But that doesn’t mean it never gives me grief. When it comes to hair, I’m in the same boat as most every other woman.”
According to the Mississippi native, “The way we feel about our hair is universal: We love it when it looks great, we can’t stand it when it looks not so great, and we all want it to tell the world something about us.”
I have been reading the comments from women all over the world when Oprah posted the picture and they were all great, some singing praises to Oprah for showing the beauty of the afro in such dramatic fashion, others questioning if the hair was all hers, and most of them just telling her to ‘werk’. One comment stood out the most however, a young lady stated that what she loved the most was that the natural hair movement started at the grass roots level, no celebrity endorsement in the beginning, and now they (the celebs) are just catching on. Natural Girls Rock!
For me Oprah wearing an Afro on the cover of her magazine, is just Oprah wearing an Afro on the cover of her magazine, but it means more to me as well, just like one of her comments mentioned, it shows the power of your own voice, whether it is on a blog, on video or just word of mouth. Everyone knows that if you are in business and you have a product that becomes ‘Oprah’s Favorite thing” You are guaranteed maximum profits for that year and years to come if you know how to surf a wave. In this case I am hoping that if she sheds light on black hair then the level of acceptance will shoot even higher than it has in the last couple of years. Wearing an afro at work still sparks heated debates and in our own homes, you might have a husband looking at a wife asking her to change her hair because ‘he doesn’t like it’. My hope is that we can wear our hair proudly in a professional environment and not have to depend on a bun just in case the person on the other side of the interview table ‘doesn’t get it!’
The game is changing ya’ll and if we can all feel comfortable to make natural hair a viable choice in our lifestyle then things will be a little easier for our young girls who have a thwarted view of what beauty is. Girls will not feel that they ‘have’ to get a relaxer to hide there beautiful tresses but that they can choose to get one if they want to. Beauty is no longer focused in one direction -West! we have to keep blogging and styling and showing our beautiful faces and hair because you might not know it but everyone is looking, especially our children.
On a lighter note I don’t think I could rock three pounds of hair though, but I appreciate what Oprah is doing, I am with them when they say
“Girl you betta werk!”
