Girl, get that thang off your head!: On Saturday night I went to the Goree Diaspora festival with a mix of Senegalese and American friends. The ambiance was great, but lots of the big stars never showed up. So we had a few drinks and snacks and sat talking about everything from tension between men and women in the African American community to the common bias against Baayfall (a Rastafarian-like sect of Islam practiced here in Senegal). One of the more amusing discussions was brought up by our new American friends, Gabe and Calvin, two Howard grads who recently moved here to teach. They had been super excited about meeting beautiful Senegalese women, and understandably so. Senegalese women are stunning. However, one thing they had not counted on is the insidious presence of BWS - Bad Weave Syndrome. Weave is very common here, expecially bad weave (and when I say bad, I mean 'Girl, someone lied to you!' baaaad). Our conversation included a lot of joking on the topic (we're thinking of launching a campaign to fight BWS, including an on-the-ground Weave-snatching force...lol), but this is actually a pretty serious subject. I spoke to my friend, Morgann, about it before she left and we decided that BWS is the result of media promoting permed/synthetic/Caucasion hair combined with a lack of funds to buy quality products. It is actually very disheartening to see beautiful Senegalese women with multicolored, tracks-all-out, no-shame, bad weave hiding their natural hair, which is often so oversaturated with 'defrissage' (straightening) chemicals that nothing else can be done with it. I noticed a similar trend in Ghana with perms, but it is less extreme. And we all know the politics of black hair in the U.S....Calvin said it plainly, "If people in Africa are not comfortable with just being black where can we go to be ourselves?"

Afro-Woman:
Fighting Bad Weave Syndrome
one postive black image and weave-snatchin' at a time...