Every queen has a crown. It comes in shades varying from soft gold to deep onyx. Some crowns are twisted and coiled in tangling, dizzying patterns, while others are straight and sleek or soft and short.
No, these crowns are not composed of glittering gems and precious shiny metals, but, instead, protein. The crown I am referring to is hair.
“I Love My Hair” is the title of a very popular Sesame Street sketch that went viral a few weeks ago and has African-American women everywhere singing a different tune when it comes to their tresses. 
Prior to its release, the nationwide discourse on African-American hair was a quest to discover an answer to the question “what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hair?”
In the universe known as African-American hair, there are two paralleled realms: relaxed and natural. The two balance one another out, a sort of ying and yang. The two are simply defined and distinguished.
The relaxing of hair involves a process by which the hair’s curl pattern is straightened by a cream which consists of chemicals. Natural hair involves no chemicals. Simple, right? Hardly.
From a very young age, I was taught the upkeep of my hair is a task not to be taken lightly.
When I had natural hair, there were days spent sitting perfectly still in between my mother’s knees on the living room floor for unimaginable amounts of time, getting a wild forest of tangled curls and zigzags of hair pressed (the straightening of hair with a hot metal comb).
I quickly learned not to flinch when the steam of the comb hit my scalp. I’d cup my tiny brown hands over my ears to insure they did not get burnt. And every so often I would nod off to sleep to the lulling hiss of the hot comb and the soothing scent of burning hair.
As I got older, my mother would state my hair had changed, that it was unruly, long and thick, not as good as it used to be. Good. It was soon after this statement that I was introduced to the convenient, excruciating burn of a “Just for Me” relaxer.
Surely, several African-American girls can relate to a similar experience. The experience intensifies with age on the quest for “good” hair. Is it easily identifiable? Is it relaxed or is it natural? And who is the judge of what hair is “good” and what hair is “bad?”
The writer of the Sesame Street sketch, Joey Mazzarino, wrote the song to encourage his daughter and other kids to love and accept their hair as it is.
“I just hope little kids, little girls see this and really feel positive and great about themselves,” Mazzarino said.
Honestly, the road to “good” hair is simple: self acceptance. If more African American women learned to accept their God-given beauty, the debate about “good” hair would not exist.
Although “good” and “bad” hair are mostly figures of speech, black hair care is a $9 billion industry, and black women account for 80 percent of the country’s total hair-product sales. 
All this confirms the lengths African-American women go through for beauty’s sake, whether their hair is relaxed or natural.
As the old cliché goes, hair is every woman’s crowning glory. Some may be long, others short.
Red, black, blonde or brown, the good and bad of hair lies in the happiness of the individual who wears such an adored crown.
Melody Andrews is a senior majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].