Good Hair

Hello world

So, I just finished watching the documentary Good Hair and, combined with the fact that my current favorite book is The Hunger Games, I'm convinced that the world is falling apart...

FIRSTLY did you know that African American women spend 1000 of dollars on weaves?? Many of which are made from human hair from India? Indian women (and men) give up their hair in a religious ceremony, which is then sold by the temple to companies who clean it and sell it to businesses in America. The business has become so lucrative, that women are being scalped while their asleep, or while watching movies in a public theater. Basically, in India, if you're not paying attention, you lose your hair.

And you know that African Americans aren't the only ones who are using weaves and extensions and all to "enhance" their beauty.  I'm positive women of all ethnicities are.  And that's just hair! Besides that, there's plastic surgery, botox, make-up, and all the other beauty enhancing products out there.  SO many people are spending SO much money to make themselves more physically attractive - by the standards of today's society.  To take the weaves as an example, they can cost thousands of dollars - where is an average woman getting this money?  The national health care bill is around because "people can't afford to pay for health care" and houses are being foreclosed on all over the place, but women can afford $1000 hair pieces?  As well as other hair treatments and boat loads of beauty products??  What gives??

Don't get me wrong, I'm a clothes and cosmetics whore, but I buy the stuff that I do because I have the money.  Actually, in this case my parents have the money, because I'm so fortunate as to still be able to mooch off of them for a few more years.  But when the time comes for me to support myself, I plan to make enough money to buy those things, or forgo those luxuries.  I would not make taxpayers pay for my welfare, and forgo paying my rent or feeding my family to be able to afford some Indian woman's hair.

This again comes back to Operation Beautiful, in a way.  The idea of popular beauty, how women are slaves to it and how some people are trying to break away from those ideals.

So, check out Operation Beautiful (Again) and Good Hair (A documentary by Chris Rock)

Thanks for reading!
~Rachel

Operation Beautiful

Hello, I'd like to talk about something today.

That something is...

Operation Beautiful.  What's that you ask?  Well, it's a website, but it's also a book (soon to be two), a mindset - a revolution.  It's a revolt against today's unrealistic beauty ideals.

Operation Beautiful's mission is to end the negative self images that plague girls, women, boys and men today.  Anorexia, belimia and other eating disorders are affecting an alarming number of people today.  Besides that, there are things like depression, which many times seem to stem from negative self images.  If you're a kid like me, you've seen it; or you might even be living it.  STOP THE MADNESS.

How?  The idea is, to leave positive notes in public places for women (or men) to find.  I only found out about this whole thing yesterday, but my friend and I have plans to take trips to the mall, other stores, restaurants, and public parks to leave these notes.

This is a pretty easy thing to do!  Take a stack of post-it notes and write simply, positive things down on it! Stuff like, "You're beautiful, don't forget it" or "You can do anything you put your mind to."  It only takes a minute of your time and who knows how much it can affect a person's life.

If you're liking the sound of this so far, check out the site!
 operationbeautiful.com

Let's stop this craziness.  There's no reason for people to be feeling as down as they do.  Help them to remember: they are loved and they absolutely have a place in the world.

Thanks for reading!
~Rachel

Hello there, nice to meet you

So, hi, I'm Rachel.  I know, lame way to start but roll with it, I'm new here.
I'm a high schooler, so I'm basically just a kid, but I feel like I have some stuff to say.  I don't, however, have the dedication or time to post stuff to here daily, so I figure it's just gonna be a weekly thing.

Right now I'm on my winter break.  I have some extra time so I figured I'd try this blog thing out.  I've always wanted to get my thoughts out to the world so, tonight, I'm goin' for it.

I wanna jump into my first project, my newest obsession, but I feel like this first post should be a little bit about me.

So as I said, I'm a kid.  I don't know much about the world, but I do know a bit about being a teenager and, honestly, it's pretty rough sometimes.  I'm not sure what this blog is gonna be for, specifically - I guess it's just for me; just for the heck of writing.  Maybe in the hopes that someone'll see it and get something out of it.  So, I think that's probably all you want to know about me right now.

Maybe this is the product of a bored girl at 11:30pm, or maybe it's something bigger?  Nah, it's probably just the product of a bored girl... But hey, who knows?

So that's about it.

Thanks for reading!
~ Rachel