They don't!
Well...at least in my pre-pubescent mind they didn't. So what the hell was I doing letting a bunch of white girls at nerd camp in Connecticut convince me that I needed to shave off the non-existent hair on my legs? Naturally, I called my mother to consult.
Mommy, do black girls shave their legs? I mean, is it something that WE DO? Cause you don't do it. Does that mean I don't? I mean, I don't have hair on my legs but these girls are doing it and it seems very necessary. Can I shave my legs? SHOULD I shave my legs? Do black girls shave their legs?
To Be Continued...
i had a similar experience in the 8th grade. all of the pre-pubescent white girls, who clearly have fine, light hair on their legs, were shaving their legs. they asked if i shaved and when it was confirmed that i definitely had not even pondered this, it was decided that i should try. i shaved a strip on my leg - it burned.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing, Renee. Black girls everywhere are feeling the sting of that razor they call assimilation right now.
ReplyDeletei think black girls shave their legs, its older jamaican women that dont. i used to be embarrassed by my mother's hairy legs when she wore skirts in public...until i saw that my aunties, godmother, grandma, and my jamaican friends mothers dont shave their legs either. Black girls please continue to shave your legs until you become older jamaican women.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the quiet wisdom Dewett.
ReplyDeleteMy Mommy is an older Jamaican woman that don't grow hair on her legs. Something about the hair burning off or something another. Young women should feel silky smooth and dainty not rough like my legs. - Anony-Mouse
ReplyDeleteI wish I never listened to the silly small pored white girls i went to school with because once i started shaving my legs i never stopped... According to my non-Jamaican black mother IT WASN'T NECCESSARY, she says once you get past a certain age all the hair on your legs falls off anyway, and it must be true because she has some, but they are barely detectable at this point.
ReplyDeleteAnyway nearly 15 years and countless scars after my first shave I'm still bothering god with the same ol questions.... Are these ingrown hairs punishment for something i've forgotten about? Why aren't my knees the same color as my thighs and shins?! And how come the brown dots (big pores) on my legs aren't in any skin-so-soft commercials?
I think the melanin in my body resents being raped and scraped to remove hair that is bound to return as soon as the air conditioning in nyc train cars becomes way too much for me... damn goose bumps pushing out stubble...
Kayla I'm glad you brought this up because it is such a loaded, layered issue... standards of beauty and femininity hanging out on the color line... do i have to do what white girls do because i go to school with them? does everybody do what white girls do? am i supposed to be down? why should i be down?
Though i love natural things and black people with all my heart... I'm still working on being comfortable enough to show the hair i DO grow (typically in winter) on my legs to anyone but my man... i got to give my skin a break every now and then!
Men what's wrong with a little leg hair on the black girl you love? Funky holistic vegan white girls do it with no problem and still get play...
Screw that anonymous dude and YAY KAYLA YOUR BLOG IS THE BOMB... (sorry for the unreasonable length of this comment)
atiyya, who are you screwing? I hope you don't mean screw Anony-Mouse because I don't play all of that. I am a black man, and I don't want any vegan hippie white chick with woolly mammoth legs and bush. I want a landing strip with dainty smooth legs. How come you keep cutting your legs up like that? Go to the salon and get a Brazilian wax with a full leg wax for your man, I hear you get used to all of that as you do it more. Also if the thin pore white girls can do it then why can't the bulbous pore black women do it?
ReplyDeleteNo wonder so many black men are willing to date white, asian, and latina women so quickly. I don't even have to have this conversation with the asian women because they don't grow much hair, and the spanish and white women know well enough to shave them legs or wax them legs. You are in America fall in and fit in or stay man-less and date other neo soul non leg shaving black women.
I like elements from both black and white standards of beauty, give me a thick sister with natural hair and a clean shaved legs and I will call her my queen. Now you give me a permed out sister with woolly mammoth legs and I give you an incomplete sister.
Wow!! Kayla, it looks like you have a mouse problem. You have some very interesting friends. I enjoy reading your blog and the comments to them. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteBoring! is this a blog or what? Nothing new, no wit, no jokes, no nothing!! Are the black girls too busy shaving their legs? - Anony-Mouse
ReplyDeleteMr. Mouse, you suck for heckling... if that is how you encourage than you suck even more... but kayla darling i would like to read some more of your thoughts (the new ones, fresh and clean).
ReplyDeleteMs. Atiyya!! Why do you screw and suck so much? Anony-Mouse don't suck!!! The mouse might eat cheese and pop off a couple women on the side but I repeat the mouse does not suck!! We should outlaw the use of Yankee terms like screwing and sucking on this blog. Jamaicans don't encourage people we point out what else they should be doing. You should be shaving your legs for the weekend so that you can catch a man before 30. - Anony-Mouse
ReplyDeleteThis is such an interesting post Kayla. And for the record I think black girls with hairy legs should definately shave. But not all black girls have hairy legs and it is ludicrous to suggest that we should all shave just because we live in America!So I guess its not a racial thing it just depends on the person.
ReplyDeleteACL