Team Natural

ThirdWorldProfashional put up a post today about natural hair and relaxed hair in Nigeria and her opinions on various matters involved in the whole situation. I left a couple of comments on the post, but I felt it was important that I repost them here.

I think that there is a lot of unwarranted hostility towards natural hair in Nigeria and there is a lot of misinformation being spread around. Even worse, there is the particularly annoying and very dangerous habit that pro-relaxer Nigerians have of downplaying the very serious issues surrounding the self image of Nigerian (and by extension black) women when they compare themselves and are compared to women of other races and the key role that these issues play in steering women towards the decision to relax or to remain natural.

I am tired of hearing Nigerians say "It's just hair" or quote India Arie and say "I am not my hair".

You know what?

FUCK India Arie. She wrote a feel good song with a positive message, but you'd have to be drunk off your rocker to believe that bullshit.

Like it or not, you are very much your hair. Your hair does not define the totality of what you are because as a human being you are made up of so many facets but your hair is a very REAL and very legitimate one of those facets and whether you want to hold hands and sit in a circle and daydream till kingdom come, the FACT of the matter is that people in this world DO and WILL judge others based on their hair.

People who relax are very much aware of this and that is why they relax. Because at the end of the day, noone wants to be told they are ugly and people want to feel good about themselves. People who relax KNOW that the way this world has been set up, black people are dehumanised and shit on by EVERYBODY, and everything that reminds anybody of Africans or any aspect of our lives or cultures or existence is demeaned at every opportunity and dismissed or at least deliberately ranked as less than or lower than anything attributed to anyone else and that includes our hair.

So maybe you can go through life with relaxed hair and everyone will smile at you and nod their head and your boss will be happy and you will get promotions but at the end of the day what does it mean? All it means is that you AGREE that you were made defective. You AGREE that you are inferior at least in some way because well, you were given an inferior brand of hair so you have to "Fix" it or at least get it looking as close as possible to the CORRECT type of hair.

It's not just hair and your decision about your hair doesn't affect just you. It affects ALL of us. The Indian women and Brazilian women whose hair you are wearing with so much pride, what do you think they think of you? How do you think you look to those women? To those women we are pathetic. We are so desperate to wear THEIR hair on our heads it's a joke. They can shave it off if they want and sell it to a hair trader, it's not a big deal, it will grow back, big diff.

It affects all of us, because it's not even as if any of our rejection of our own bodies is going on in private. It's happening IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE WORLD and THEY CAN SEE and they laugh at us. Black women are the laughing stock of the whole world because everyone is watching us desperately go to any means to look like anything but what we actually are and it strokes the ego of every non-Black woman that can see because it's obvious to her that you're trying to look like her and she's not trying to look like you.

Sure, we hide it under all sorts of euphemisms or faulty logic or fake science like "relaxed hair is more manageable" or "straight hair is more professional" or "light skin is just cleaner looking" and so on, but NOBODY is fooled.

These things we do are what make people like Satoshi Kanazawa feel like he has the balls to come out and write an article on the Internet titled Why Black Women are Ugly. This is why Nigerian singers like Dare Art Alade, Naeto C, and Dbanj have the guts to ignore the millions of Nigerian women who will support them die with their money and fan worship and populate their videos with white South Africans and Indians. After all are you not the one that told them that Indians are better than you by eschewing your own hair but doling out hard cash for hair that an Indian gave up for free? This is why men have the balls to say things like "Anybody who dates black women is nasty" or "Black girls are gross". People insult us because we have already insulted ourselves by our actions.

Why won't somebody open their mouth and trash you when you have already said non-verbally that your hair is trash, and your skin is trash? Why won't they?

If you want to relax your hair, I am not coming to your house any time soon to come and flog you in the middle of the night with a koboko but please, PLEASE stop this nonsense of "It's not a big deal" or "It's just hair" because unless you are blind, deaf, and dumb and live inside Olumo Rock on top of that you will have noticed the way Black women are treated when it comes to beauty in comparison to other women. I am not saying that the people treating us this way are not at fault too or that the American media that seems determined to dominate every corner of the globe with its racist imagery is not at fault too, but I AM saying that WE went outside and plucked the cane that they are using to beat us.

P.s.

You can read my comments to TWP on her blog on this post

Help Choose My New Glasses!

I went to Lenscrafters today and got my eyes checked. I'm a little short sighted plus I have some astigmatism so I wear glasses to read stuff that's far away and since my current pair is more than two years old and is being held together by a thick wad of masking tape, I think I'm more than due for a new pair.

I didn't get my glasses today because I'm really excited about trying this new service I found online called SpexClub. Basically, it's an online glasses manufacturer that sells all their prescription glasses for the same price: $88. You just give them your prescription, pick the glasses you want and they custom make them for you and ship them to you in about two weeks. Best of all they've even got this thing on their website called SpexVision where you can upload your photo and "try on" the glasses that you're thinking about buying.

They have a lot of nice frames and I picked out a couple that I liked but the problem is I really can't decide which one I want to get (I'm getting only one pair) so hopefully you guys can help me pick which frames I should get from SpexClub.

Please vote on the poll below by selecting which of the frames you like on me. The pictures are a little small I know, but for reference, I've re-uploaded them here so you can check and see what they look like on me. You can select as many frames as you think suit me.

The poll is open until Wednesday night at 8pm EST, after when I'll buy the winning frames.

Alpha:

Arty:

Black:

Clay:

Harman:

Reeve:

Scout:

Tomah:

Thanks everybody!!!

You Mess Five Akara Form Voltron

I found this awesome video on Tumblr and was pleasantly surprised when Catwalq informed me via Twitter that she had made it.

Nothing brings back memories of childhood in Nigeria like our amazing uniquely Nigerian insults.

As someone who's lived abroad for four years and moved around a lot for most of my life, memories of growing up in Lagos are very special to me.

I was a very naughty child and used more than a few of these on my elders. ^_^.

Waka! Shege! Anuofia! Oponu!! Ah.... music to my ears.

Watching this totally inspired me. 

I'm going to make a video post about some Nigerian memories of my own.

Cap and Gown

I'm officially a Graduate.

^_^

Sugabelly Sims 2 Giveaway!

Woo hoo! It's about time I did another giveaway.

Everybody knows that I love The Sims. I played The Sims when it came out (with its terrible graphics I know but I still enjoyed it) and then The Sims 2 and now I play The Sims 3.

For those who don't know, The Sims is a "god game". Basically, you the player are "God" and not only can you make humans (and creatures), etc in your image (and in the images of your friends, family, and enemies) but you can also control their lives (or give them free will), make their lives hell, or kill them in a variety of ways if you wish.

I don't have to tell you how insanely fun this is. I think one of the greatest past times of simmers everywhere is creating their mortal enemies and then killing them in all the amazing ways you can kill in the game.

I really really love this game and that's why I want to share its amazingness with all of you.

 I'm giving away my ENTIRE collection of The Sims 2 to one lucky winner. That means The Sims2 game and ALL expansion packs:

• The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - The Sims 2, The Sims2 Nightlife Expansion Pack, and The Sims2 Celebration Stuff pack.
• The Sims 2 University
• The Sims 2 Open for Business
• The Sims 2 Pets
• The Sims 2 Bon Voyage
• The Sims 2 Apartment Life
• The Sims 2 Free Time
• The Sims 2 Seasons

All games are for PCs/Windows computers. Sorry guys, but I'm a PC.  I don't believe in Mac.
Here's what you get:

Sweet huh?

Here's what you need to do:

If you haven't already, Like the Facebook page here:  Sugabelly on Facebook

Next, Follow the Sugabelly blog on Blogger/Google by clicking the Follow button to the right of the page:

It looks like this:  

Finally, leave a comment on this post.

You have from now until Sunday May 22, at 11:59pm EST to enter to win. 

You can leave as many comments as you like in order to increase your chances of winning. Liking the Facebook page, following on Blogger/Google, and following on Twitter also increases your chances of winning. 

I will select one winner next week at random and announce the results in another post. 

Note: If you win, I will ship the entire set of games to you for free. I don't know if you'll be able to register them online on the EA website (because I don't remember if I registered them) so you might not get to download EA content but you can still download amazing custom stuff from mod sites. Registration does not affect your ability to play in any way. It's just so you can participate in EA forums and stuff. 

If you live in America, I will ship the whole thing to you free of charge.

If you live outside America (e.g. the UK, or Nigeria), I will still ship it to you free of charge but you might have to pay import duties to customs (that depends on your country, I'm not sure. I doubt it, but it's good to be aware). 

If you live in Nigeria especially, make sure you have a reliable/ good shipping/mailing address. I cannot ship to Baba Omukoro's Hideout near Lawanson, off Atijide roundabout near Mama Put. If you win and your home shipping address isn't good, give an office address or something easy and reliable. I'm not responsible if you don't get your prize because of a dodgy address.

To avoid comment spam, I am reinstating word verification in the comments to deter spam bots. Try to leave meaningful comments but I understand if your comment ends up saying "I hope I win" or something equally simple.

Good Luck!

^_^

Update: Speaking of which, this is a prime example of the kind of weird stuff that happens on the Sims 2.

Graduation

It really feels weird but I'm graduating next week.

I'm officially done with university. 

Next step:

OperationGetIntoArtSchool

Sims and Copics

A little bird told me
that Copics are awesome

The bird is saying "Pio! Pio!" (written in Igbo using the Ndebe script)

I will change my nail polish ..... soon.

I finally drew something.... again

Totally off point but I was on the Sims 3 forum the other day, and there's a really large thread there asking why the Sims community almost never makes black sims or Asian sims. 

Of course, it quickly derailed into every body making excuses about how they just don't know how to make black sims and changing the topic or making pointless irritating statements like "why are you making this about race?" or "sims have no race" (Of course they do. The whole premise of the Sims is to imitate human life).

Anyway, the whole thing just sickened and really frustrated me. 

I feel frustrated every time I visit the Sims website because it's pretty obvious that EA and Maxis don't care about their black (or in my case Nigerian) simmers. 

Every time a new Sims comes out, we literally have to beg and plead, and protest, and boycott, and write letters, and open nyash for EA before they give the option to make sims with natural African hair or add any hairstyles that are typical of black hair.

They added a new option where you can adjust the breast size of your sims but of course there is no option to adjust the butt size of your sims.

You see, the size of one's backside is not something that is culturally valued by white Americans and unfortunately they make up the vast majority of the people creating the Sims.

The Sims markets itself to people all over the world and simmers are from every country on Earth but it continues to be pretty clear that only what white Americans like, value, and are interested in will only ever make its way into the sims or be created by the Sims community of users because once again, they make up the majority of sims modders who create custom stuff. 

Okay, my rant is over. I just wanted to say that even in the Sims I feel marginalised. 

I don't think I could ever get used to this feeling but it's the general atmosphere here. 

There is such a vast difference between living in Nigeria a country where you are valued as a human being and judged as one not by the colour of your skin and here where all anybody ever sees is your skin and that pervades absolutely all interactions that you have ... even with a video game.

I am sick of the excuses that the Sims makers and sims modders in the Sims community continue to make for almost never making black sims. 

I just wanted everyone to know that Nigerian Sims are beautiful and other black Sims are beautiful too and you should stop making so many fucking excuses and just fucking make them. Why is it that you can make ten white sims with such intricate detail but you can't just take the time to make a single black sim. 

Whatever.

This is Nime Ite

 (yes I know. Her name is a pun in Igbo. Nime = Inside. Ite = Pot)

She's a sim I made yesterday after reading the sims thread.

EA has refused to give us natural hair in spite of numerous requests and protests so I had to use straight hair.

And this is her boyfriend

Kainene Okasieme 

(I know, another pun. Kainene = Let's watch and see  Okasieme = How it's done)

Dear people who play Sims:

Making black sims is easy.

You just don't want to.

Osama bin Laden is Dead

Rejoice!!

...that he was not found in Nigeria