By Sachina Russell

To women in the media, image is everything and stars project a sexualised template that sells the world over.

More often than not, it is one that requires women be slim, with big booty and boobs, straight, long hair and light skin.

The Kardashians have made lucrative careers out of this. Both at home and abroad, women want to emulate this ideal and many become self-conscious and want to change the way they look if they do not fit the mold.

Here in Jamaica, the weave and skin-lightening product business is huge, with fake hair bringing in J$2 billion a year. Weaves are de riguer in the Caribbean, Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and just about everywhere black women can be found – they are all desirous of Eurocentric  locks. This begs the question – Do they even like themselves? And if you don’t like yourself, how can anybody be expected to like you?

Therefore it was surprising when African American female rapper Megan Thee Stallion posted a video of her natural hair on Instagram, stunning her followers.

No weave, no extensions – just black, beautiful, curly, moisturised hair.

She straightened her hair for extra flair and she has got a lot of thumbs -up for this new look.

It’s not too often you see black  female rappers and entertainers wearing a natural look – they tend to recoil from it. One only has to watch videos and movies to know this to be so.

It takes confidence to embrace and rock a natural look. More recently Alicia Keys has gone this route and looks fantastic.

Cardi B is another artiste who always shows off her natural hair.

It’s encouraging to see black women entertainers celebrating  and proclaiming their Afrocentricity. It is a statement of self-love and signals that women of colour can be proud of their looks and not covet the ideal of other nationalities.

As public influencers, this generation of black women entertainers can play their part in seeing to it that their followers accept and love themselves.

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