I’ll start with this: This is not my business. Not.My.Business. I know that, and if any African-American readers want to tell me as much, I won’t be able to argue.
But last night, I watched Chris Rock’s documentary about black women and black women’s hair, called (very pointedly) Good Hair. And when I find something that profoundly disturbing, that’s usually a sign that I need to write about it, and so here I am.
I’ve known for years that the concept of “good hair” exists in the black community, and that it translates to “not nappy,” or (as I understand it) “as close as possible to white hair as black hair can get.” I have always understood “good hair” to be a statement of deep, internalized criticism, one that teaches little black girls (and little black boys) that there is something essentially not-good — or, in other words, bad — about black hair. About having black hair. About being black.
Why I had this awareness, I’m not sure. I spent some of my growing up in the home of my aunt and uncle, where I have two white cousins and one black one, but we were all very young, and they were working hard to let their boy-who-happened-to-be-black know that, in fact, being black was a very good thing. There were black dolls, books with black characters, subscriptions to Ebony, and Ebony Jr.
The awareness may have seeped in from there, or from the occasional comment by black figures in pop culture. I remember Whoopie Goldberg doing a bit about putting her slip on her head as a little girl, pretending it was long, blonde hair that would blow in the breeze. I can still see her, grown woman channeling the little girl, slip on her head, grinning, waving her head back and forth, back and forth.
I came into adulthood in a foreign land, but one dominated by American pop culture. I would see the ladies of En Vogue flipping their long, long, long hair, or Beyonce, or Naomi Campbell, or Tyra Banks, and honestly wince as I thought of what this was telling little black girls — about beauty, about self-worth. About their bodies. About their skin.
And then I moved back to America, and came to see another side to it: Sure, I rarely see a black woman whose hair is not relaxed — forced to “goodness” — but I also came to see how much creativity black women express with their hair. The wigs, the weaves, the veritable sculptures that some create with potions and props and sheer will. There’s an art there, one a white woman really can’t access or, likely, understand.
I came to see, also, that there’s a class issue, wrapped up in all the other issues. I once asked a black woman online about the effort involved in creating the almost cantilevered styles I see in the Chicago neighborhood six blocks west of my house, and she said, with an almost-audible sniff, “Oh, you mean the parade floats?” And I suddenly saw: Black women of a certain stripe do this, black women of another stripe do that, and if you’re a lawyer or want to be one? You’d better choose hair that no one would call a parade float.
And (once again thanks to some complicated series of internet links) I stumbled across this video (for the longer — and very powerful — cut, click here, and to read more about it, click here) in which a black high school student recreated a 50-year old experiment with young black children, asking them to choose between a black or a white doll — “which is the nice doll?” — and, straight up, it made me cry. It broke my heart. Breaks my heart. No child should be walking around with such a powerful sense of being less. No one. No one.
So over the course of about the last three years, I’ve learned that whatever I thought I knew about black women and their hair — I really had no idea. I really wanted to see Good Hair when it came out in 2009, but missed it, so when the husband saw that it was available on On Demand, he immediately recorded it for me. And last night, I watched.
And I really had no idea.
According to the statistics offered in the film, the black community makes up 12% of the American population, but accounts for 80% of hair care expenses. It’s a huge, huge, multi-billion dollar industry that by-and-large funnels up to white-owned cosmetics firms, but also has a few black millionaires in its ranks, not to mention the thousands of black-owned beauty shops, supporting countless black families and black dreams. The anchor of the film was the annual Bronner Brothers hair show, in Atlanta, and if you’re looking for personal creativity, look no further: Creativity and energy and a real commitment to excellence.
And a whole lot of chemicals and other people’s hair and anything and everything that looks almost nothing at all like the hair that black women actually have growing out of their heads. As one of Rock’s interviewees said, if you’re a black woman and you just let your hair grow out of your head in its natural state, “that’s revolutionary.”
And the chemicals are dangerous and corrosive (when Rock told a white chemist [just after watching the active ingredient in hair relaxers eat through a piece of raw chicken] that black women use that same chemical on their hair, the chemist was visibly shocked: “Why?!” was all he could say), and the weaves insanely expensive (just the weave itself can regularly cost anywhere from $1000 to $3500, and that doesn’t include the constant professional maintenance they demand), and the whole process literally creates a barrier to intimacy between black women and black men — because when you’ve invested that much in your hair, pretty much nobody had better touch it.
“It’s decoration,” one stunning young woman says with a smile, “it’s decoration. Don’t touch it.”
And I suppose now is the place at which we (finally) get to the point of this being Not.My.Business.
Because the whole thing just left me so sad. So beat down, even.
It was like watching beautiful women talk about their lifetime of dieting, their tricks for dressing to look thinner, their methods for cutting calories during the holidays, smiling broadly over their successes and also kind of (a little bit) laughing at themselves for the obsession, while yet maintaining and feeding the obsession. Like watching mothers tell their little girls not to eat, that they won’t get what they want if they allow their bodies to be something other than slim, while at the same time hearing their men complain about not being able to just eat a damn dessert now and then.
Both sides feeding into a self-destructive, self-denying, self-loathing system that neither side fully recognizes but which each side plays a part in perpetuating. The women serving as their own police force — as any oppressed society does — leaving the men to be baffled by something that ultimately serves their needs and their position of (relative) power.
With (in this case) the willing, willed, and sometimes completely unknowing collaboration of the majority white culture, which is setting the standard for beauty and, more than that — the standard for acceptable. Normative. Human.
If black women stop wanting straight hair, where will the industry go? How will those white-owned cosmetics firms turn a profit? Racism, sexism, class, and the basest of capitalist impulses, and all played out literally on the heads of one of this society’s least enfranchised groups. As the Rev. Al Sharpton (who, it should be noted, relaxes his own hair) put it to Chris Rock: “You’re literally wearing your economic oppression.”
Not.My.Business.
Bottom line, every person on earth has the right to do whatever they want with their hair — just as every woman has the right to decide if she’s going to put effort into re-shaping her body, and every gay person has the right to decide if they’re going to be out or not.
Moreover, every such decision is the result of a hundred different little factors, many of which are entirely invisible to the naked eye. Not to mention that human creativity is not to be denied, or belittled.
But it seems clear to me that — just as with the in/out decisions in the LGBTQ community, and the accept/change-my-body decisions among women generally — as black women continue to spend billions of dollars and risk actual, objective physical harm in order to approximate a kind of hair that can only be called the-opposite-of-black, the decisions made are heavily influenced by societal pressures that undermine their value — their humanity — at every turn.
It saddens me, and it disturbs me, and frankly, it seems like a horrible waste — and not just of money and skin cells. I think of all the time and energy that women spend on body image, and LGBTQ people spend on the closet, and black women spend on their hair, and I wonder:
What would America look like — what would the society in which I live, breath, vote, love, work, and raise children look like — if we could allow each other and ourselves to live in our own skin? Black girls and women included.
Wow…that was really powerful. An eloquent statement of the self-hatred rooted firmly in the black community. at all class levels and both sexes.
i cut most of my hair off last year, and while i do it every few years, i forget how liberating it is, how easy it is and how many folks compliment me on it.
invariably, i find myself pushed at some unconscious level to “let it grow out,” “straighten all of the time.” it’s a steady drumbeat of media images, and hell, images on the street.
watching that show really brought it home for me again. and your article is dead on.
thanks.
Thank you so much for saying so. I worried/worry that I might have crossed a line — white America has always had so much to say, so many opinions, about black America and black lives. I don’t want to cross that line, just because I feel some burning need to write something.
i know it’s always a fine line in any communications about race, but i for my part, i always appreciate an honest assessment from a personal observation.
thanks, again.
You didn’t cross any line. We can’t be afraid to address issues related to cultures other than our own, as long as it’s done thoughtfully, which you did. Boy, did you ever! Love it.
Beautifully written, Emily. I wish there were some way for men to let Black women know how beautiful their hair looks in it’s natural state.
To me, it is a look of great self-assurance, self esteem and, yes, very sexy.
I would say you should tell them!
I mean, don’t go up to women who’ve just spent 6 hours in the stylist’s chair and say “Oh, but natural is so beautiful!” (I, myself, would clock you under those circumstances) but when the topic comes up, or you see a woman rocking the kind of hair you were thinking of when you wrote this, or when you overhear your nieces or daughters talking about it — say something nice! We change the world a little every day, and even though this is one of those issues that seems exclusively female, the male voice is important. It matters to me that my husband doesn’t even want me to be rail thin, even though most of my battle over body image is in my own head. And more importantly, I think it matters to our daughter.
While I will frequently bristle at random strangers saying things like, “You look fine!” I have to say that hearing “I like your hair” is something that is pleasant to hear. It’s not that I need the validation, exactly, but…it’s still nice to hear sometimes.
Which is to say, I won’t hit you if you say it!
Wow, Emily. It’s your business now. Beautifully written with a powerful message.
I cut off all my processed hair back in 1996. The DC humidity was driving me crazy, so I walked into a Hair Cuttery in Dupont Circle and said “Cut it off.”. The woman looked at me like I was nuts. I wore it natural (check the “About Me” section up top for pics) until last January when I met my hair god, Anthoni McCree at Static Salon in LA. I had hair loss due to stress and depression, and was itching for a relaxer (after 14 years). I just wanted one and hadn’t been to a proper salon in yeeaaars. (I used to cut my own hair.)
Long story longer, I’ve never loved my hair more. He won’t do color or processing unless he is sure my hair can take it. While my hair was “healing” (I’d been using box color for years (the horror! The horror!) he hooked me up with an awesome style and turned me on to the Morroccan Oil line of products. Two months after my first visit, he relaxed it. A month later he colored it. I fucking love my hair. Even my mom likes it (she wouldn’t let me get a relaxer until I was 12, and even then, it took a lot of pleading. She encouraged me to go natural for years before I finally did.) I now have standing appointments with Tony. He makes me feel hella glam, and he’s a lovely person to boot. (Everyone at Static is.). Basically, I love everything about him and I trust him completely. Every black woman in LA should visit him. Seriously. Just call. Static on Melrose and Gardner.
Fantastic post. Really fantastic.
Thank you so much! I really, really appreciate it.
It’s so fascinating to me to hear these kinds of personal journeys — and of course, yes, how we deal with our hair/body/stuff-the-world-sees is absolutely a journey. To me, the hair issues sounds so, so much like the body image issue that I’ve seen so many women struggle with, and finding that balance, where you love your hair because you love your hair (/you love your body because you love your body) is a difficult and I think on-going thing. But so wonderful when we hit it right! If I ever make it out to LA again, I’ll stop by Static just so that I can lay eyes on Tony! A hair god is a rare and wonderful thing, this much is true across the races.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned this from the brilliant people at Sesame Street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpFde5rgmw
I can’t believe I didn’t mention it myself! I fucking love that clip! (Can I say “fucking” about a Sesame Street song? Hmmm).
I think by the time I’d hit word number eleventy billion up there in the post, I figured I should stop with the words, and so didn’t get to it. But: YES! I LOVE THAT CLIP!
I’m black and I do my own hair, and believe me, no one is ever going to “discover” me on the streets of Virginia. I am ” lucky” because my gene pool is mixed and I have “decent” hair without much trouble. My hair is shoulder length because I am too lazy to maintain a styled look. I can pass for relaxed with just flat combing my hair.
For a White woman, you did an excellent job describing the politics and price of black hair. I have not seen the movie and I probably won’t because the topic is just too depressing. It is just one more thing that indicates how “other” we, black women, are…even in our own communities. Sisters, you are beautiful.
I remember hearing DL Hughley say something about Condoleezza Rice’s hair, something along the lines of, “So, whatever, you’re working for W. But most black people want to know: Do they not have good hot combs in Washington?” and just cringing. With all the woman has to deal with (and believe me, I am no fan of Condi Rice, but still!), you’re going to dog her about her hair — and suggest that you have the entire race behind you as you do it? Man, that is mean. First black Secretary of State, and she’s a woman — and she’s got to worry about her perm.
You really get it.. You just became an honorary sister. Ceremony and certificate pending.
:)
Oh wow. Interesting post, hits home here as I’m a white mommy to two biracial kids. My daughter’s hair is natural, I’ve been researching for years the best way to keep it, and learned that her texture would be considered mostly 4a with some 4b and even 3c thrown in for extra LULZ. It’s long, thick, healthy and super fine. Oh, and she hates getting it combed. I’ve had several well-intentioned black women come up at various stages of our learning-how-to-style-DD’s-hair adventure and give advice. Some advice has been way too self-hating – hours at the Dominican salon getting combed out, rolled up, heated and hot combed to the smell of burning hair, or advocating that her “nappy” hair required caustic relaxers and that I wasn’t being a good mom by letting it be natural, etc.
I can do a passable regular braid, so for now we just section and braid and have fun with hair doo-dads. DD’s very sensitive about getting her hair even combed, but we’re working on it (I may have to take up drinking – she sure can get nasty!) FWIW, I’m trying out henna conditioner on her, since we can use the non-coloring kind, to help keep the hair cuticles smoother. The hope is to help keep the fine strands from getting so easily tangled and matted, but the cumulative effect does take a while. My hair used to be a 3a/b, but as I’ve gotten older and been using henna for years now it’s more like a 2b/c. I used it for the gray coverage, I was surprised by the conditioning effect. hennaforhair.com is the place where I get all my supplies, they have good products and very good info for black and white hair types (no affiliation, just love their products!)
Not sure what these numbers and letter are that you refer to but I’m biracial and yeah, it’s hard to figure out what to use. I’m 1/2 Ethiopian and they have what equates to “naturally” relaxed hair…long story short, I highly recommend the Pantene conditioner for “Women of Color”, adding a good dose of REGULAR (skip the “leave in”) conditioner AFTER the shower, NEVER comb/brush (just fingers, lots of finger combing) and finish with a strong gel (even before bed at night). This should leave her hair curly but not frizzy. The Pantene shampoo for “Women of Color” may be fine but it’s too heavy for my hair.
Good luck!
Don’t comb her hair dry and only use a wide tooth comb. Just my two cents. Also check out this site http://beadsbraidsbeyond.blogspot.com/ for hair advice for kids.
Just as an aside, Oyin is the best thing that’s ever happened to my hair. My wife and I both use the Grand Poo Bar; I’m black with natural hair, and she’s white with really thick, straight hair (short in both cases). She finds their honey hemp conditioner a little too heavy, though it’s just right for me. We started using the shampoo bar because it doesn’t contain sulfites, and the difference in texture between now and when I was using the Pantene is astonishing.
I am a black woman, but when I saw “Good Hair,” I was also blown away about all that I didn’t know about black hair. I gave up trying to pretend that I had good hair right about the time I decided to join the tennis team. It was nice to have something else on my mind, besides my hair.
I agree that hair can be seen as a form of artistic expression, in the same way as wearing make-up, getting tattoos, scarification, etc. It’s my body, and I’ll fry if I want to. However, the sadness begins where self-love ends. If a person cannot feel beautiful without doing something about “my nappy head,” Whitney Houston, we have a problem.
This is a nice article, but it does what so many others do when it comes to talking about black women, it lumps us all in the same boat. I relax my hair, not because I have any desire for it to be more ‘white’, but because unless I want to wear it short, it is much easier to take care of. I have had it natural and I have had it relaxed and both are fine. I don’t spend much time or money on my hair, much less than many of my white female coworkers. Who get their hair, cut styled, frosted, extended and so on.
Black women do what all women have done since time began, women of all races spend more on their hair, body and faces than they really should. White women spend hours cooking under UV lamps to get tanned, women of all colors go under the knife to increase the size of their breasts, butts and decrease the size of everything else. They pull the age out of their faces and spend millions on diets that won’t work.
The truth is most black women are not self hating people who wish they were white, most studies show that we are happier about the way we look (size wise) than most white women (although that is changing with the younger generation).
So while I know this article is well meaning, it perpetrates that idea that we are all sitting around wishing we were white, and at least in my case that is not true, or that we (black women) are all alike, in being obsessed by what our hair is like and we are not.
Black women have the same diversity of looks and personality as women of all races, like women of other races, some black women are obsessed about the way they look, others are not. We come in all colors, shapes, sizes and belong to all different classes, cultures and countries of origin.
The real freedom for all women is to live their lives the way they choose, so if black women want to spend their money that they earned on their hair let them (why should we all go around with natural hair, most white women don’t?), if they want to keep their hair natural, let them, if white women want to get their hair permed, let them if they want to keep it natural let them.
Regards and wishes for a wonderful new year
Food for thought:
When white women get tanned, or increase the size of their lips nobody thinks that they hate being white and want to be black.
While I agree with MOST of what you say, Dee, I think it is also important to acknowledge that there is a pervasive, usually unspoken (although I have had black women who ‘do hair’ see me on the street and hand me their card, telling me they could really ‘do something with my hair’) belief in the African American community that natural hair is somehow less beautiful than straight, straightened or “good” hair. This is a message that must be put to rest, one head at a time. While relaxing your hair may be a choice for you, too many young black women grow up believing that it is somehow mandatory.
While relaxing your hair may be a choice for you, too many young black women grow up believing that it is somehow mandatory.
I think that this is what I have been seeing over the course of my life, and for me it really is analogous to women and body image. It’s very hard for me to know when I’m making eating or exercise choices based on my body’s needs vs. the expectations and judgments of the society around me.
I absolutely didn’t want to put across the idea that I think that all black women are in the same boat, and I’m sorry if that’s what I conveyed, because clearly, that’s not the truth, and that’s the kind of thing that the white community has been dishing out to the black community throughout this country’s existence. There’s no need for any more of that, and I’m sorry if I added to it.
What I was attempting to look at, I think, was the broader picture. The problem of course is that everyone is at once an individual and a member of society (often, a member of many societies, overlapping and interplaying). This is what I was trying to get at when I said that “every such decision is the result of a hundred different little factors, many of which are entirely invisible to the naked eye” — what I think matters to me, as a woman, as a mother, as a human, is that we (humanity, all of us) find a place where we can make those decisions with greater freedom and more love of self. The fact that many individuals already do is wonderful, but not necessarily an indication that the larger problem doesn’t exist in a broader, society-wide sense. In writing this, I was trying to use my sociological imagination; of course, humanity is riddled with individuals whose lives are not bound by the sociology that surrounds them.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me.
“When white women get tanned, or increase the size of their lips nobody thinks that they hate being white and want to be black.”
Actually, for the record, that’s not true. I have personally heard people say EXACTLY that, on more than one occasion.
sorry jen, i have not hard that one especially as much as i ve heard the opposite.
Dee i totolly agree with you. you are on point. I am not mix and i have beautiful long relaxed hair. I do not wear relaxed hair to look like any other race. i am very proud of my hair,and beautiful brown skin. Black women are beautiful natural, relaxed, or ect. I actually like to see black women with natural hair. it is very pretty and unique.
Contrary to popular belief, relaxers don’t necessarily damage hair. Putting a relaxer on damaged hair, using a relaxer that is too strong for your particular hair texture ,not retouching the new growth soon enough or retouching it too soon ,and not properly caring for relaxed hair are what causes damage and breakage. Relaxed hair can and does grow to extraordinary lengths, depending on your genes, nutritional status,stress level and management, and how well you care for your hair. The same goes for the kinkiest, afro textured hair. Think back to the 1970′s, when Black women wore humongeous afros. When straightened out, the hair was very long and very thick. Older people who say that afro textured hair can’t grow to amazing lengths have selective amnesia. Lastly, it doesn’t matter if a Black woman’s hair is relaxed or natural, what matters is that it grew out of her scalp.
Emily, I cannot possibly say how glad I am that you took the time to write this and the courage to post it.
First off, I know you didn’t mean to lump all black women in one boat but were trying to express a reaction to an industry and broad sweeping assumptions that feed it. And it’s important to note the exceptions to these broad generalizations but that doesn’t change the overall truth of the article or of the exceptions. This is OK. :-) The only thing wrong would be the failure to recognize these inconsistencies and talk about them openly and honestly.
Secondly, please, please stop apologizing for being white and having an opinion about justice for persons other than yourself. What would be wrong is for you to approach a black woman personally and assert your opinion to her without acknowledging that she is an individual, not your chosen representative of an issue or, God forbid, a vast and diverse group of people of African descent. Having opinions about issue and concerns about how our broader culture impacts other persons is CRITICALLY important to having REAL conversations about racism, social justice, sexism and pretty much any “ism” we can and need to talk about to get beyond. An ENORMOUS part of the racial problem today is that we fail to have or express opinions unless we can vouch for them with personal experience. And sadly, personal experience is not only a limited way to educate oneself it’s an incredibly shallow and ill-informed way to maintain a helpful cross-cultural dialogue.
Lastly, as a biracial woman “blessed” with “good” hair I would like to assert that 1) Even with “good” hair I was pressure to make my hair look “more black” or do something with it so it wasn’t so frizzy…most of my biracial friends who tried this had all of their hair FALL OUT…and it was in an effort to look more LIKE A BLACK WOMAN TRYING TO LOOK WHITE. How fracked up is that?? 2) I can say with assurance that what effects one of us affects all of us. This is to say that just because I have “good” hair doesn’t mean I’m not black or don’t qualify as a black woman or that my opinion is disqualified. I have different choices and I have different privileges. That is all. Being aware of them is 99% of what qualifies my opinion. The other 1% is that I’ve voiced it.
I’m sure I have lots more to say but you’re the one who wrote the post and it’s late so I’m just going to get even more incoherent. :-)
Thanks for the great response. I love this topic, the movie “Good Hair” and Chris Rock’s work generally because they all bring to light tacitly taboo subjects in the black community. All my life I have grown up under the shadow of “don’t talk about that” because of some weird need to hide from judgment by white society. Of course this makes sense in the face of mindless racism that still seeks to destroy us for the crime of existing, however this silence has become oppressive and seeks to destroy us from within — as the inability to speak our own truth always does.
I am convinced that until we can show up fully, as situated human beings, rather than as merely “black,” “white,” “biracial,” beings, and all the baggage and assumptions about our humanity that these labels contain, we will never be free.
Not incoherent at all! Very coherent, and very kind!
My concern, I think, is that white people have been telling black people about themselves since the earliest days of our acquaintance, believing that we had the key to another people’s reality.
I don’t doubt the genuine nature of my effort to try to get to the crux of a troubling issue, and given that we all live here together, I guess I also don’t doubt that it’s a worthy issue for me to consider.
But I do think that it’s more important that I be respectful of the room I’m in, than that I get to express myself. I don’t know. In black-white relations, I guess I would rather err on the side of too much caution than risk adding to the history of disrespect.
Not for nothing, but I have also occasionally felt weird about complimenting a black woman’s newly natural hair — I’ve heard enough complaints out of the black community that white America likes it best when blacks are “exotic”/”native” that I want to be sure that my compliment is heard as “wow, don’t you look lovely!” and not “wow, it’s about time you started looking more like Kizzy!” (If you see what I mean…!)
Emily i have to say i like your comments and agree on some. I truly respect your point of view and your gentle attitude. someone said you do not have to say sorry .you did not have to but you did.that shows character in which some people need more off. i respect your humbleness. stay like that no matter what any one saids. Your good and humble attitude cause me to listen to what you had to say. you are one of the few whites i will listen to because most are not open enough to understand Why.They just go on what they see and you asked Why? To me That shows True concern and not just partiality.
you ask why i will tell you from my point of view why. why some, not most b/w do and behave as you mentioned. It is because bw are consistently being under attack by the media, racist people in all cultures, and now by some men in our race.could you imagine what pain and struggle these women/girls has to endure. i am sure some people may not understand and probably will never understand what i am saying. those b/w that you are mentioning are not strong enough to endure such battles alone. so, they give in to what is and has been said and done to them. this is why they do not know their worth. They are worth wayyyyyyy more than what they have heard and seen.
One thing about the “hippie era” is that many blacks wore their hair natural as a statement of principle.
Since then has there been backlash against natural hair because it was stigmatized as sign of being a DFH or a member of a (radical) elite?
Yes, Afros & dreads are considered to be a radical political statement, and are frowned upon in professional situations by self-styled arbiters of such.
In a much smaller sense, I remember when EVERYONE young and female and white pretty much had to wear their hair like Farrah Fawcett. My mother insisted I get it cut that way to be “stylish,” despite the fact that this cut made my thick wavy hair stand out from my head in mad-scientist patterns. Pretty much the last thing I needed.
I suffered enough to rebel and did’t get my hair cut at all for twenty years. Only to get tripped up again because having it so long was considered “unprofessional” even though I wasn’t working with heavy machinery or any other consideration. It just plain bothered people, and several jobs told me I’d have to wear it up. Period.
It’s all a form of control. Letting ourselves do what suits us gives some people the horrors.
This has been a very interesting and brave discussion. I say brfave because a compliment on a new hair cut from a white woman to a black woman at my former work site ignited a lawsuit, charges of harassment, racism, reverse racism…it went on and on. The upshot of the whole thing was an announcement form our mostly white administration that it was inately racist for white people to comment positively about a black woman’s hair.
I can remember a certain stress about Michelle Obama nd her hair. Nothing I can quote or pin down, just a sort of hint inthe media of concern about how she would manage her hair ( with hints of vast socio/political implications of various choices).
.
I can remember how utterly humiliated I felt at the size of my feet when I was thirteen. I was painfully aware of not being successful in the white woman standard of beauty.
So now when I think of the teens I see with their braids and beads and extentions I wonder how much of that is clelebration and decoration and how much of that is painful compenstion for humiliation?
I know this sort of thing varies from individual to individual and that within each person can be a complex mixture of motives and influences.
It really is too sad tht so many people carry the burden of having to fight for selfesteem.l
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I thought Angela Davis was about the sexiest woman on earth. That was more about her passion and commitment than her hair. But the hair was part of it.
As a white guy (with, FWIW, a shaved head, because that was the ultimate solution to advancing gray), it’s easy, and tempting, for me to look at a black woman with an elaborate hair sculpture or long, heavily decorated nails and say, “This is not someone I’m interested in, because she’s too heavily into superficial stuff.” But my view of what’s superficial is an outsider’s view. It’s unfortunate that hair is an issue, but the great unanswered question is how we all get past that.
Great post, Emily!
As a 58 year white woman who lost most of her hair to chemo earlier this year, I understand how having ‘hair’ is so important to a woman’s self image.
I also remember a Ghanian classmate of mine, when I was attending school in Brussels in 1979, who took a strand of his hair and pulled it straight out from his head–up about 8 inches–and then let it spring back. He looked like he had a closely cropped afro but his hair was actually quite long. He told me that this was typical of folks in Ghana and he thought that this trait was diluted in America as the races mixed. I’d never heard that before or since.
This reads like something i would’ve written sans the “i am white” disclaimers. I had my hair relaxed for many years and never once felt like i was trying to be ‘not as black’ or ‘closer to white’ (hair-wise)and defended my right to do whatever i wanted with MY hair; however, after going natural (with locs) almost 5 years ago, the feelings of freedom, of self discovery, of redefining beauty (i could continue with platitudes for about a paragraph) was unparalleled. I don’t try to explain it, i just revel in it while accepting compliments all around.
I wish the same for all my sisters.
Good hair should be strong, healthy hair whether nappy, relaxed, curly, straight, loc’d or other!! :)
can I add another wrinkle? I’m white, English and have had a full head of braided-in extensions for the last 7 years (because I want big hair, long hair and braids and my super-fine hair will grow no further than the small of my back and it still doesn’t look long and will never look big – and I went braids and fakehair rather than ‘natural’ extensions because it’s more fun and easier to maintain – I spend a day at my stylist’s house about once a year and then rebraid the rest of the year myself). I love my braids; they’re white with hints of green and orange. People notice them, lots of people ask about them – I’ve met some really cool people because of them. The only person who has ever been uncomplimentary (apart from one friend who gave his honest opinion) was a black gentleman on a New Zealand ferry who had the longest and most beautiful dreads I’ve ever seen who walked across the room to tell me that ‘I knew they looked terrible and I should take them out’. My hair is personal but I know appearance is politics. Am I guilty of cultural appropriation? Am I complicit in some kind of stereotyping? Should I feel some element of guilt that I’m privileged in my hair, in that I can do this for fun rather than for other reasons? (from my point of view I sometimes wish my hair had the kind of texture that would let me have microbraids latch-hooked in so I think of it as swings and roundabouts). Or am I derailing by even mentioning this in a discussion about the role of hair in black culture?
incidentally, everyone assumes I’ve had the braids done on a cruise or in Hawaii (Muswell Hill isn’t that exotic!) and while the stores where I buy kanekalon for my braids have names like ‘Afrocare’ a lot of the inspiration for the fakehair folk comes from Japanese manga/anime, especially for the big ‘poofy’ dreads from combed and felted wool so I don’t know if it’s secondary appropriation ;-)
Eloquently and fairly objectively written post, Emily. You will be happy to know that there is a whole community of Black women (myself included) who are wearing and successfully caring for their hair in its natural state–whether in the form of afros, braids, curls or even straightened (but chemical free). This natural hair community is supporting each other both on and offline and sharing information on a grand scale; as well as being proponents, not just for each other’s hair, but overall healthy lifestyles. These are women who are also working to change these self-loathing behaviors by raising children to understand that they are beautiful because they are who they are–not because they are black–but that being black (and all that comes with it) is beautiful too.
Thank you for writing this. I think perhaps there’s an audience that you can reach that may have become numb to hearing it from other women of their own race. Well done.
The problem with the “natural hair community” — of which I’d consider myself a proud member — is that there is no real money to be made in natural hair. On the other hand, there is a vast, international industry in unnatural hair. To further complicate matters, it is one of the few industries that supports black and low-income communities.
I know there are no more Madame C.J. Walkers, since the industry has been largely taken over by the big hair products corporations. Still, the folks distributing, doing the hair, and having their hair done are typically in the same community. What would so many of these young women who work in hair parlors do for money if there were not heads to be done. (OK, don’t answer that.)
It’s a tricky question. There is money to be made in beading, twisting and braiding natural hair, but not even close to the cash behind processes and extensions.
I agree. Much of the natural hair regime is based upon self-care. I am a proponent of each individual deciding what works best for him or her, and would by no means want to take money out of any person’s pocket. Just wanted to clarify that there is another side to the coin.
Your article means well. However, it – like the pseudo-documentary Good Hair – positions black attempts at achieving beauty to be particularly effortful, without acknowledging that *all* beauty is effortful. It erases and normalizes the effort that goes into white representations of beauty as well, and pretends that it’s natural.
I could confidently say that 95% of the white Hollywood starlets with full and long hair are wearing extensions or wigs. From Sandra Bullock to Nicole Kidman to the Kardashians to every host on E! to Hef’s girls. Theyre *all* wearing them. Yet, in the documentary, black actresses were asked to pull up their weaves and reveal what was and what was not theirs. The absence of the Nicole Kidmans and Kardashians from the discussion implies that their beauty is more “real” and natural and doesn’t involve long hours in the salon or caustic chemicals.
There was an infamous segment on The View where Barbara Walters grabbed Brandy’s hair and asked her about weaves or wigs. Why did Barbara not grab the hair of any of the scores of other actresses who have sat on the View couch? Because the white actresses’ artificiality is made invisible and normalized.
Again, I know that people mean well when this discussion is brought up. But it always has an undercurrent of “Aw, poor black women, isn’t it too bad that they can’t be as naturally feminine/beautiful/whatever as us. We’re just wash-and-go.” My response to that is – NOT! I see the weave tracks. I know that people spend hours in the salon getting their perms and dye jobs and haircuts.
that is facts!
Well said. Whites need to focus on their own destructive hair practices before pitying anyone else’s. For instance, washing one’s hair every day. Look at any bottle of shampoo at Walgreens, see if you can pronounce or identify any of those chemicals.
There are also morality judgments they place on each other: if one does not subject themselves to washing their hair every day, you’re dirty and amoral. And cost: how much of their annual budgets is spent on all these detergents (shampoo) and synthetic emulsions (conditioners) to replace what they strip away on a daily basis?
That’s just hair-washing, leaving out the trips to beauty salons and all that happens there.
I’m also tired of the generations-old trend of white parents of Blak children who are either intimidated by their own kids’ hair, or don’t take the time or effort to simply take the child to a Black stylist for care and maintenance. It’s just hair, not theoretical physics. Sorry ABL for the crabby post.
Emily, you have the right to expound on any issue you choose. When I was less than ten years of age, I asked my mom, “Why do we have nappy hair and whites have straight hair even rats and cats have straight hair”. She replied, “Lois, God made His little lambs with curlly, wooly hair, and He loved them more than all the other animals”. “He speaks highly of the little lambs in the Bible and you are one of His little lambs.” Those word from a wise woman, my mom, was most consoling to me as a child and hroughout my lifetime of sixty-seven years. During the late 60′s and 70′s, Jesse Jackson made histor with his proclaimation, “I’m black, and I’m proud”, which was yelled in the civil rights marches in the southern, and eastern states from Florida to New York. From that experience, I became proud of every aspect of my blackness from skin color, to speech patterns and hair texture. After all, by high school, the Bible confirmed by the statement, that which my mom had said,”everthing God made was good,”. That is enough conformation for me. Many books have been written to explain this dilemma, because the media has made it an issue to make half-witted people feel inferior.
Emily, you have every right to expound on any issue you choose. When I was less than ten years of age, I asked my mom, “Why do we have nappy hair and whites have straight hair even rats and cats have straight hair”. She replied, “Lois, God made His little lambs with curly, wooly hair, and He loved them more than all the other animals”. “He speaks highly of the little lambs in the Bible and you are one of His little lambs.” Those word from a wise woman, my mom, was most consoling to me as a child and throughout my lifetime of sixty-seven years. During the late 60?s and 70?s, Jesse Jackson made history with his proclamation, “I’m black, and I’m proud”, which was yelled in the civil rights marches in the southern, and eastern states from Florida to New York. From that experience, I became proud of every aspect of my blackness from skin color, to speech patterns and hair texture. After all, by high school, the Bible confirmed by the statement, that which my mom had said,”everything God made was good,”. That is enough conformation for me. Many books have been written to explain this dilemma, because the media has made it an issue to make half-witted blacks (Idespise the politically correct terminolog, “African American” for no other immigrant to this nation is referrer to as French American, Swedish American, etc.) feel inferior.
the little box on the side says whatcha talkin bout. That had to be some narrow minded idiot. that proved my point that some people will never know what i am talkn bout.
I REALLY ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE. It was thoughtful, intelligent and took an honest look at the black hair experience without fingerpointing and caustic judgement. As Black women we have SO MANY THINGS AND PEOPLE in the world that tear us down and crucify us. It was nice to read an article about black hair that wasn’t full of criticism, blame and scorn. THANK YOU!