When I was younger I thought the bonnets that black women wore made their hair magical.

I don’t know why I thought this as a young child, but up until I was 10 I think? I thought this.

When I first asked my mom what they were, my mom explained that black women, wore them to protect their hair. And she sort of just left it at that because I was 5 ish(or younger possibly) and I didn’t fully understand how there were different hair types(I obviously could see that people had different hair types, but thought everyone took care of their hair the same exact way(shampooing and conditioning when they took a bath/shower)).

I always saw black women wearing bonnets and because they had such gorgeous hair when I saw them when they weren’t wearing bonnets, I naturally just thought since they had to protect it, that that meant they had magical hair that gave them the super power of naturally gorgeous hair. I really don’t know what my thinking was behind it all.

But I really remember thinking “Oh! They have to wear bonnets to protect their hair, so that means they must have magical hair and it must be protected all costs!”(I was very dramatic with my thinking)(could you tell I watched fantasy movies as a child?)

And I also thought the same thing about people wearing beads in their hair too, and thought that they must have super powers as well, because they looked so cool to me.

Of course I got older and got more sense and education in me that I realized that really wasn’t the case.

I don’t even know how this memory surfaced after so many years, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

EDIT!

I hope my way of thinking as a child doesn’t come off as offensive or disrespectful in anyway. I just thought my innocent way of thinking about this specific thing was rather humorous and odd.