Amandla Stenberg is best known for The Hunger Games, but her greatest role is in a made-for-school video called “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows.” The video was shared widely, and Amandla’s name is now synonymous with the dialogue surrounding cultural appropriation.
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“I’m not tired of talking about hair in the sense of it being an empowering thing,” Amandla tells Solange Knowles. “I know when I used to chemically straighten mine, I did it because I wasn’t comfortable with my natural hair. I thought it was too poofy, too kinky. So for me, personally, when I started wearing it natural, it felt like I was blossoming because I was letting go of all the dead hair and all the parts of me that had rejected my natural state.”
Amandla goes on to say that loving natural hair might not be for everyone, which is also fine. Turns out Solange agrees. “Absolutely,” she said. “I want to have the freedom to wear a long weave down to my ass tomorrow if I want to, and then wear it in crocheted braids, and then have it so straight that my edges are laid.”
Couldn’t have said it better.
This article originally appeared on MIMI.com