What can you say when Essence Magazine features the Top Ten Celeb Hair Moments of 2007 and nine out of 10 women selected have processed, straightened hair? Only recording artist Jill Scott managed to have anything remotely resembling natural kinky hair texture.
I’ve blogged about hair politics long before the whole Imus “nappy headed hos” debacle; I was interviewed for a documentary about hair a couple of years ago. A snippet from that post (here’s the video).
In the past, people sometimes emailed me to say that they didn’t understand how or why hair is political.Can you name many well-known black female celebrities who break the processed hair mold (aside from Whoopi Goldberg?). The images we see on film and TV affirm the misguided notion that there is less beauty to be found in naturally kinky hair. And Essence, btw, is a magazine that actually does frequently contain images of black women in natural hairstyles. The lye is a hard habit to break.Most black women know what it’s like to have an arsenal of hair care products, particularly if you choose to wear your hair straightened with chemical relaxers. [Ironically, most of the Rutgers women’s basketball team members had chemically straightened hair, which goes to show you that Imus reduced them to his assumption that black women=nappy hair=unattractive.] I had a cabinet full of “hair product” when I wore processed styles.
And oh, the dreaded hot comb. I am old enough to have experienced the “pleasure” of the thermal hot comb — you rested it over the gas flame of the stove to heat it up. Then the pressing oil was carefully applied to your hair and that comb sizzled through the kinks till it was bone straight, hissing as you prayed the comb didn’t touch your scalp. This is what black women did to emulate straight hair. I say emulate because all it took was water or merely a humid day to revert the hair back to its natural state. But that was the only acceptable style for the working black woman working in the dominant culture.
The status quo is still straightened hair, even though we see more natural styles in vogue now. Black women are unfortunately still chastised by family and significant others not to 1) cut their hair or 2) let it be kinky. It’s one of those “dirty laundry” matters that people don’t want to discuss openly, but when you have such poisonous, enabled self-loathing, it needs sunlight upon it. Look at this ad. It implies that the woman got the job because her hair was chemically straightened. The self-loathing is so culturally ingrained, so pathological — there is nothing wrong with our hair, but nearly every signal received by the dominant culture is that it needs to be “corrected.”
A must-view — a clip from the documentary “My Nappy Roots:”
Also highly recommended — Linda Mosetta Jones’s “Naturally Speaking” column at naturallycurly.com, where I learned that under her famous wig, Tina Turner actually sports short locs!
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My idea of a gorgeous head of black hair has always been
http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/amg/music/bio/430903_rf_200x200.jpg
I guess the ’70s were a different age, though.
A lot of bleached-blonde dos in the Essence top 10, too.
As someone with naturally fine, smooth, flat white-person’s hair, it’s taken years to come to terms with this as not a bad thing. No, there’s not much body. No, I can’t really get volume on top. No, there’s certainly no curl. Humidity makes it flop even straighter. A perm isn’t worth the bother, as the hair just wants to lie flat on my head. And people pay money and spend time trying to get their hair to do just that? Madness!
Chemically relaxed hair often looks so…tormented. The hair can get fried unless the woman’s got Tyra Banks’ haircare budget—and isn’t that really just a wig? A short natural ‘do or easy-care braids/dreads—they make so much sense.
I think there’s room here to deplore the anti-feminist aspect of relaxers, perms, teasing, extensions, gels and mousses, weaves, etc. Many women spend so much time and so much money on hair—money better saved or spent on something less ephemeral, and time better spent doing, well, pretty much anything else. Men aren’t wasting nearly as much time or money on their hair and skin. It’s a conspiracy of the patriarchy, of course.
(Which is not to say that a longer natural ‘do, like an afro, isn’t fabulous too. But the short just looks so easy to manage.)
When I first started dating my wife, I idly suggested she get blonde highlights. Wow, was that a big mistake.
She got very annoyed and told me in no uncertain terms that her natural brunette hair color was healthy and lovely as is and there would be no changes whatsoever. I haven’t brought it up since.
Sorry that this is off-topic, but I don’t know where else to ask. Does anyone know what has happened to Twisty’s blog? Thanks.
Is hair prejudice, or whatever you want to call it, something that’s imposed within the black community? Or is it something imposed by white culture? In the sense of whites actually being negatively disposed to a black woman with natural hair, I mean, as opposed to white culture promoting an idea of beauty that involves flowing blonde hair.
I’m asking because I realize that hair prejudice is real (that ad is jaw-dropping) but the idea, to me, that braids or a short natural or a big poofy natural would disqualify someone as a potential friend or co-worker is kind of unthinkable. And, being honest, I can be sort of judgmental about looking tidy and well-groomed, especially in the workplace. But those styles really don’t strike me as unattractive or unprofessional in the slightest; quite the reverse, actually.
A friend of mine said that a black woman’s hair is like minor plastic surgery. I suggest that there is nothing minor about it.
You know, I’d like someone to throw the gauntlet and challenge black female celebs to not go natural, but just take off the lace-front, weave, wig. Show me the hair that is growing out of your scalp. Once and for all, I want to know where Brandy’s hairline is at. I’m just saying.
Seriously though, I’d like to see more black female talent that’s already established themselves to go natural.
i buy skincare products at an african american owned beauty supply store, and i was always amazed by all the intensive conditioning treatments and oils to nourish your hair and help it grow, especially as the products all contained tons of healthy natural ingredients, i was in awe and was like “wow, such love and commitment to taking care of hair.” i assume now that a lot of those products must be to repair hair that hasn’t been loved, and that has been ravaged by chemicals, which is really sad.
and while i wouldn’t for a second deny the racism involved in the processing of black women’s hair, you can add me to the list of people with naturally limp straight hair that agrees having it isn’t all that great.
Maybe the Essence thing is just media prod to sell more hair care products.
“Can you name many well-known black female celebrities who break the processed hair mold ”
Um…LaurenHill, & to be fair, a load of models. Natural hair looks best on every kind of head, imo.
And not all black hair is kinky.
What can you say? Having a Seventies flashback, I can say, “Watu Wazuri, Use Afro Sheen. Beautiful People, Use Afro Sheen.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHo4UDCABUQ
That guy’s hat is coming back into style, I think.
doesnt whoopi usually wear extentions in her dredlocks? me think so.
and knotting it up by dreading or perming…same thing. it’s ‘processed’, & ruins the hair..
Yep, Mary J. and Tyra are both well-known wig-wearers. I don’t know that MJB is wearing a wig in this slideshow or not, but I’d bet a six-pack that Tyra is.
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/05/16/dior_gallery__265x400.jpg
i thought alec wek was still a top model.
“Can you name many well-known black female celebrities who break the processed hair mold?”
A Google Image search on Alfre Woodard shows her 50/50 natural and processed. Of course, her most prominent recent role on Desperate Housewives has a feathered ‘do. But she looked fabulous with a short haircut in “Star Trek: First Contact.”
This is something that I’m really interested in knowing more about… I am a white girl with super-straight, super-thick hair (that I’ve kept short for years to avoid dealing with it), and in my white bubble, it never occurred to me that HAIR could be loaded with racial undertones (”never,” until a few years ago, when I discovered feminism and all the wisdom within).
So…keeping in mind my utter ignorance of some of the more “hidden” racist issues…are braids considered “natural” (culturally honest, not “trying to be white,” whatever) or along the same lines as straightening & wigs?
I apologize for my fumbling language. I hope my question makes sense. And if anyone knows any great books on related topics, please suggest.
I guess finding ‘unaltered’ women might get to be difficult after reading articles that say that ‘many’ women are buying their boobs at the doctor’s office.
My country for a flat woman…
J: There was a comment from Stingray a while back, saying that Twisty was off riding her horse in the hills country, but now it looks like the blog has been taken down. I fear for Twisty’s well-being. Remember, she’s a cancer survivor.
Mrs Nice Guy
Most of those women pictured were wearing wigs or weaves. I have a friend who does alot of celebrities hair - many white stars are wearing hair they bought, too!
When Alison Stewart started her guest-hosting for Olbermann on Monday with newly-straightened hair, my first thought was ‘that looks weird’. My next thought? ‘Pam probably has something to say about this’.
My sister has very curly hair. She also happens to have been straightening it since she was 15. Shes mixed white and latino. Does she hate herself too? Does a blonde white woman with curly hair that straightens it hate herself?
S. Epatha Merkson tends to wear dreads when she’s being S. Epatha, but she wears that short wig as Lt. Van Buren because she says that a woman lieutenant in the NYPD wouldn’t be taken seriously if she had dreads.
Does a blonde white woman with curly hair that straightens it hate herself?
As a blonde oh-so-white woman with tight, curly (almost kinky) hair, I think I can answer this one:
“Yes.”
When I was growing up, there were no hair products for naturally hair: no intense conditioners, no smoothing serums, no wide-toothed combs, even. At least, not in the “white person” section. And after my mother actually chided me for using a “fro pick” on my hair (because that was “for black people”), I didn’t dare try any of the products that actually would have worked on my type of hair.
But whatever hair type you have, it’s wrong. If you’re straight, you should be curly. Curly? Ought to be straight. Women just can’t win, you can’t be perfect, and anything less is wrong, wrong wrong! I’d go so far as to say that most American women hate themselves to some extent.
Does a blonde white woman with curly hair that straightens it hate herself?
Maybe, maybe not, but I’m pretty sure that no white woman is familiar with the concept of “good hair” quite the same way as a black woman in the U.S.
Check out Donna Edwards (http://freestatepolitics.us/showDiary.do?diaryId=973), the kick-ass progressive who’s challenging sell-out Al Wynn in the Democratic primary in the Maryland 4th. She’s gone natural but kept it short, which has two obvious benefits: 1) less hassle, and 2) less intimidating to white folks.
I had a great time working on my hair stories documentary (for which as Pam noted I interviewed her and a few other women)…I’ve wondered a bit which direction to take the project of late, but it certainly seems there are a rich array of stories out there about hair and politics/culture. One thing I’m wondering is if y’all think that hair is becoming more or less politicized over time… on my campus in the south, where I go to grad school, I’ve noticed more white women have long hair; it doesn’t seem to be as acceptable to have short styles. I’m wondering if there are regional differences for black women?
I wouldn’t say that white people straightening their hair isn’t also racialized, though to a lesser degree. The ideal of straight “white” hair is absorbed by white and black people, and so it’s not surprising that white people buy into it, too. Also, kinky hair on a white person is associated with being Jewish or some other “ethnic” marker, and there’s a long history of people downplaying features that seem too “ethnic”.
But I don’t want to make too much of it, because like Sniper said, it’s just another world of hassle for black women. And Jill Scott definitely looked the best in all those pictures, but then again, I’m a fan of natural looks in general. Unless someone’s going way over the top and making a STATEMENT. Like coloring or straightening your hair to fit in? Borrowing. Coloring it blue for shits and giggles? Awesome.
Sisters need to start loving themselves. And you can’t possibly love all of yourself if you don’t love
your natural hair.
I have a blog: “Politics of Black Hair” at
http://karenhalliburton.com
Kinky hair is political.
Too many sisters are looking foolish heaping on super long lace-front wigs and super straight weaves.
Can anyone explain what the deal with dreads is? A couple of years ago i was dating this guy who had them, and they looked great but were a real hassle. He’d freak if i touched his hair when we were at it, and he would wrap his head up in a scarf before going to sleep. Is the look really worth it if you can only enjoy it from a distance?
MizDarwin - Some white people are absolutely negatively disposed towards natural black hairstyles. I couldn’t tell you what percentage, but I’ve certainly heard comments, even when the hair in question was neatly-styled.
As for white women with curly hair, I think whether or not straightening is indicative of self-hate depends on the situation. If her hair in its natural state signifies some looked-down-upon ethnicity, then, yeah, maybe. If she has Shirley Temple ringlettes but longs for straight hair, it may just be the minimum you’re-never-good-enough-no-matter-what crap that every woman in this country is fed in one form or another. (or she may just feel like experimenting with straight hair)
Amanda, aren’t whites more likely to curl their hair than to straighten it, of were you too young in the 80’s to remember the perm craze?
pablo: it wasn’t so much we wanted curly hair: the 80s were about BIG hair, and it was hard to get that kind of volume without chemical assistance.
Some white people are absolutely negatively disposed towards natural black hairstyles. I couldn’t tell you what percentage, but I’ve certainly heard comments, even when the hair in question was neatly-
styled.
You’d think they’d have more important things to worry about, but no. Karen is right, hair is very political.
At my healthiest I had silly hair - thin, oily and baby-fine. It was nice enough for 10 seconds after a combing but got lank and unruly right away. Thanks to a chronic illness I now have patchy crap hair. Few things make you aware of the political and symbolic value of a woman’s hair like losing it. I think natural black hair looks flat-out gorgeous. So does naturally curly Celtic hair and straight, dark Asian hair. Honestly, I’d be glad to have my silly hair back. (-;
Anybody remember this controversy?
http://www.adversity.net/special/nappy_hair.htm
Well, but for white women, hair is ‘wrong’ if it isn’t in fashion; and we all hate some aspect of our hair because of managability issues. That’s a frustration, but a fairly minor one.
Most white women are not worried about being judged on anything except attractiveness and fashion, when it comes to hair. People don’t touch our hair *for luck*. We are not called “wavy-haired hos” on national radio. Advertisers don’t tell us our hair will cost us jobs. Few jobs forbid natural white hairstyles. I have never been stopped in a government building and then had people say my ghetto hair gave the guards reason to suspect me.
Wanting to be pretty =/= being required to conform to standards that are unnatural, expensive and time consuming, and even dangerous.
Straightened black hairstyles have often seemed beautiful and sculptural to me. But I also have to see now that it may seem mandatory and unfair to the wearer. The more ornate ones probably *are* voluntary, as they are so much more than the requirement, but all women *should* have the same options I do. OTOH, I think working with short, natural-haired blacks may have helped give me the courage to go short.
I really appreciated your essays on black hair when I first found them a few months ago; they’re what led me to pandagon actually. I had the odd experience of growing up completely oblivious to black hair cultural baggage as my mom got fed up with my screaming tantrums to avoid getting my hair combed and tightly braided (I’m tenderheaded) and simply decided to give me dreadlocks at the age of five. While I was treated as a freak in gradeschool (shitlocks was a favorite slur), as the token nerd, token girl, and token minority it was inevitable; it didn’t even occur to me that trying to fit in was an option!
My sophomore year of highschool I went all artsy and dyed the locs henna red and purple and blue and found hairdye to be too high-maintenance. (little did I know…) The following year I wondered what it might be like to have hair I could run a comb through and my mom and I spent 4 days nonstop combing out my locs (ouch.) She took me to a salon where I got my hair chemically-processed and styled for the first time but was shocked, shocked at the $80 pricetag and discovery that I shouldn’t wash my hair for a week. Now THAT floored me, considering I spent my whole life up to that point assuring people that yes, I do wash my hair, why, I do it every time I shower even! Crazy, I know. As a nerd I knew then and there my money was better spent on… pretty much anything else.
In short, I am spoiled and still have no clue why so many choose to burn their scalps and fry their hair into these stiff, depressing “styles”, or failing that, wear wigs as if that’s an everyday thing to do. If anything, what I take away from my short stint of having dominant-culture-approved hair if that if it is so expensive and time-consuming just to make your hair look “normal” or “acceptable”, something is seriously wrong.
…But what do I know, I don’t wear makeup either
And dude, three of those top ten are blonde. Seriously? After I got bored with purple I considered going blonde when my highschool banned “unnatural hair colors”.
I can’t even begin to explain why women do what we do with our hair. I can only say how I felt. I mainly did it to be attractive. For a long time I didn’t believe that men would find me attractive with my natural hair. I relaxed, and when I got tired of doing that, I wore wigs while my hair was natural underneath. Yeah. That was special.
I did that for a few years until finally, this Summer, I decided that I didn’t want to go through THAT much trouble just to make people feel comfortable around me and find me attractive. I decided, on many levels, to live life on my own terms, and one of those terms was loving my own hair. That was a big step because acceptance, on many levels, was so important to me. But I’d finally reached the stage that I’d rather be hated for who I was than loved for who I wasn’t (so trite, i know, but true). It also helped that when I looked around, I didn’t see anyone else bending over backwards to change themselves to make me more comfortable.
Anyway, I’ve found that almost everyone loves my natural hair. I got my hair trimmed and was standing outside when this white guy walked past me, got to the end of the block, then turned around and came back to tell me how great my hair looked. That was so cool.
For the most part people keep their hands out of my hair, but there are one or two coworkers who feel the need to launch their hands into my head, but I don’t believe it’s from a zoo-like perspective. I just think they are touchy people with no sense of boundaries…with anybody. 
Two last notes: 1. My hair is brownish-red with blond highlights. Why? Because it elevates my sexy to ridiculous heights, aaaaand color actually gives more depth to the curls and waves of my hair. For a long time I resisted color, especially the blond, but then I said “fuck it. it’s my got damn head.” 2. I only wash my hair once a week. That has always been the case for me as my hair tends to be on the dry side. Washing more than that would cause more damage than necessary. I’ve also read that kinky-textured hair is very delicate and porous and should really only be washed once a week, depending on your activity level.
Until the last year or so, my mom was a long time subscriber (I’m talking decades) of Essence, so there was always a back issue or two lying around the house my entire life. I don’t think this pile up is fair. The magazine is generally very good about featuring models with natural hair. In fact, I can still remember an issue that came out way back when I was in grammar school that featured a cover model with dark skin and a huge wild looking ‘fro. Girlie’s hair was not politely shaped into a neat nappy halo. It was not on the curly end of the black hair spectrum. It was boldly, unapologetically nappy. I’d never seen a woman who looked like her celebrated for her beauty before. Even today, Essence is the only magazine I can think of that would ever have a woman like her on the cover.
I don’t think the problem with Essence is it’s attitude about black hair. The problem is the magazines focus on celebrities. I can’t recall the last time I saw an issue that didn’t have an actress or singer on the cover. Your Beyonces, your Alicia Keyses, they have to appeal to a larger, whiter audience in addition to black women. I would say that larger, whiter world has more to do with shaping the looks of black female celebrities, not any anti-nappy bias on the part of Essence.
One of the nightmarish things about this topic is that if a black woman treats her hair well but doesn’t mutilate it, she is, by default, making a political statement. . . Just by not changing how her hair naturally grows. Having a fro _will_ lose you jobs; that ad linked to in the main post wasn’t too far from teh truth.
For whites who are still wrapping their brains around the problem, think of it this way: remember all those appalling standards of beauty pushed on women? Okay, take those and mix them up with U.S. racial politics. It’s a 2fer. The only pretty women are women that look like the Hollywoodized pretty-white-boys that make up the majority of the fashion industry. (Black women who are called beautiful by the mainstream press are almost uniformly fairly light-skinned with mostly european features. This goes for, say, Chinese women, too.) Hollywood’s standards knock out most females on earth. Hell, they rioted over this in beauty pageants in Africa.
@Shasta
Your hair is actually exactly the kind I wanted some time ago, it looks great. My quip about blonde was more about how I feel a little weird that black women can go blonde and this is somehow less strange than well, purple. Mind you back when my locs were nearly waist-length the tips were natrually sun-bleached, but if a straight, glossy platinum-blonde bob doesn’t scream “white beauty standards” I don’t know what does.
Dreadlocks lead to dry hair no matter what since it’s impossible to comb, so I wash and condition a lot more out of habit… (satisfying & smells nice) buuuuut it could also be a small degree of internalizing a lifetime of people assuming my hair is dirty.
They should just go all the way and say that half of the 10 hottest black hair moments were actually on white women.
No point in half-assing it. If being an attractive black woman means being as white as possible just go for the real thing instead of a poor substitute.
Embracing your convictions fully is very noble.
Maybe their woman of the year can be Nicole Kidman.
I’ve been reading these essays out of interest and curiosity (being pale as tracing paper, Pam’s not talking about me or my anarchic white-girl hair), and I’ve very recently started looking around to see if the political hair thing is as true here in Soviet Canuckistan as it is in the US. If it were going to be true anywhere here, it would be in the city I live in, which is so white-normative it’s sickening. (That is changing.)
So far, the evidence is inconclusive. Of the black women I’ve seen in professional clothes, one had braids, one had a short natural, and one had what I can really only describe as five parts with “knots” in the centre. (If there’s a term for this type of hairstyle, I don’t know it, sorry. Englighten me.) The rest of the black women I’ve seen around here are Somali Muslims, and you can’t see their hair at all.
The major reason that my evidence has been inconclusive is that the sample population is very small. The vast majority of non-white people here are Asian, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern.
10.: And not all black hair is kinky.
Nearly all of my mom’s side of the family has straight, wavy or curly hair. I have two cousins out of many who got the kinky hair gene.
20.: When Alison Stewart started her guest-hosting for Olbermann on Monday with newly-straightened hair, my first thought was ‘that looks weird’. My next thought? ‘Pam probably has something to say about this’.
Oh NO! She made it onto national cable news with natural, beautiful, big curly hair and now she freaking straightened it!? I need to go cry now…who told her she needed to do that?
29.: Can anyone explain what the deal with dreads is? A couple of years ago i was dating this guy who had them, and they looked great but were a real hassle. He’d freak if i touched his hair when we were at it, and he would wrap his head up in a scarf before going to sleep. Is the look really worth it if you can only enjoy it from a distance?
EH? I think the issue is the guy, not the hair. I don’t know what his dealie was about touching them, there’s nothing mysterious about it — it’s just hair. As for wrapping it up at night, if his locs were really long or heavy, he may have done that to reduce the chances of them breaking at the scalp. Mine are shoulder length and I just put them in a pony tail at night, or if I want them to curl the next day, spritz them, separate them into groups of 4 or 5, twist those together and put a bandanna on. Undo them the next day and off I go.
38.: Until the last year or so, my mom was a long time subscriber (I’m talking decades) of Essence, so there was always a back issue or two lying around the house my entire life. I don’t think this pile up is fair. The magazine is generally very good about featuring models with natural hair.
If you noticed in the post, I said “And Essence, btw, is a magazine that actually does frequently contain images of black women in natural hairstyles.” The problem is that Essence was doing a celebrity top 10, and it’s pretty clear the editors probably couldn’t find well-known black actresses/singers who don’t have their hair processed (I’m a subscriber, btw).
40.: Dreadlocks lead to dry hair no matter what since it’s impossible to comb, so I wash and condition a lot more out of habit… (satisfying & smells nice) buuuuut it could also be a small degree of internalizing a lifetime of people assuming my hair is dirty.
I wash mine frequently as well (2x/week, more in summer), washing it too frequently leads to breakage if you have kinky and dry hair. Of course if you have a short natural, that doesn’t matter. That internalization of the assumption our hair is dirty in recent history didn’t get any help from the jherri curl days (thank god I never wore that!). It could be argued that anyone who wears “product” (gels, mousse, pomade) has to wash it every day simply because it’s made the hair dirty. Insanity.
Does a blonde white woman with curly hair that straightens it hate herself?
To second the commenter above… everyone’s situation is different, and it depends why she’s doing it. But if she is straightening every day, as part of her everyday look, rather than doing it on a whim or for special occasions only? That’s an investment of at least half an hour per blow-drying and straightening, plus touch-ups, plus whatever she’s spending on products to keep it from frizzling up and drying under the straightener… that’s an investment of a good two-three hours per week, minimum. Not to mention the stress and anxiety that comes with trying to avoid any kind of weather that will cause the hair to swell, twist and ‘go back’, usually exactly when she’s least expecting or able to restrain it.
Do white women with naturally kinky/curly hair have the same experience as Black women? No. Absolutely not, it’s a whole different playing field and intersects with all sorts of other oppressions, particularly in the US (where I’ve never lived, and so I’m sure others know much more about it than I do).
On the other hand, does it still suck feeling pressured to see your natural hair as unacceptable/ugly/’inappropriate’? Also, absolutely.
I am a woman of mixed-European-but-predominantly-Irish descent, and have very thick, very curly black hair. In my life, I have had plenty of incidents of nosy/curious people touching and pulling it without my permission, making rude “finger-in-the-lightbulb-socket” type jokes, giving it ‘compliments’ along the lines of “wild”, “exotic”, “mind of its own” etc (and there’s a whole other racist can of worms right there).
When I was a university student working part-time in a cinema with waist-length natural black curls, I found that was mysteriously promoted to ‘gold class’ (meeting and serving highest-paying customers, getting extra perks and tips) after I cut, straightened and lightened my hair to a dark red bob. I was never more thankful than when I got to graduate and leave that place, but that’s another story…
What I notice is that when my hair is straightened, which takes time, money and effort but can be done, I suddenly get the privilege of invisibility. Nobody notices my hair any more for good or bad, I have the privilege of not thinking about it (at least until it rains!) and I can’t deny that it’s liberating not to be ‘the curly girl’ for a little while. Which, I’m aware, is a heavy dose of white privilege right there.
Straightening, for me, is a way of ‘fitting in’, a way of not drawing constant unwanted attention to my hair from strangers, a way of making the damn stuff easier to manage (it sucks, but it’s true), and yes, if I admit it, a way of making it look more like the images of ‘beauty’ that are constantly held up as ideal. I am not sure that it automatically means that I hate myself, but it does cause me to end up putting in a lot of time, money, stress and worry that a naturally straight-haired person would not have to spend. It’s not necessarily about self-hatred, but it is definitely about politics, of many different kinds.
Reading “My First Conk” by Malcolm X 15 or 20 years ago opened this white girl’s eyes to what Black people go through for their hairstyles. White people can usually straighten their hair, if they are so inclined, with some intensive blow-drying.
“Do white women with naturally kinky/curly hair have the same experience as Black women? No. Absolutely not, it’s a whole different playing field and intersects with all sorts of other oppressions, particularly in the US (where I’ve never lived, and so I’m sure others know much more about it than I do).
On the other hand, does it still suck feeling pressured to see your natural hair as unacceptable/ugly/’inappropriate’? Also, absolutely.”
I agree. I have dark, long, curly-hair and the first person who ever helped me style it was a black woman because the straight-haired (white) hair stylists at the salon took one look at it and freaked and immediately wanted to straighten it.
While I don’t experience racism, all of the slurs that have been directed at me and my hair were all racialized (”afro puff”, “kinky”, etc). While I still maintain my white privilege, the white people around me are making racist comments about my hair because they associate it with something they don’t approve of = black women’s hair or “ethnic hair”. After all they said to me I shudder to think what they say to WOC with kinky hair, locs, etc. I could talk all day on how I’m perceived simply because I have dark, curly hair.
Those stupid kiosks at the mall with straightening products they try to push on you? Wow, do I love telling those people to shove it.
Pam, have you read the book Queens. It’s by the same guy who did Crowns and is a celebration of black women’s hair.
I gave my godmother Crowns for Christmas one year. I haven’t seen Queens, will check out.
Jill Scott is such a hair diva. she’s a woman of size, so i think she’s learned to adapt to expectations when she feels like it and throw other expectations out the window. Same with Angie Stone, too– back in the day, she had some serious hair. it says a lot that most of the women Ebony chose are skinny and popular along with their straight hair, rather than coming from slightly-harder-to-find venues where they wouldn’t fit the selling-hair-and-beauty-products purpose of the magazine.
i think Donna Edwards is a good candidate, but seriously, why should black people’s hair even *be able* to intimidate white people? think about that: someone has the right to react with fear and anger to the hair that grows out of your head– regardless of what you do with it, they reserve that right? that’s nutty. it smacks of a sense of ownership over other people’s bodies, and the fact that the fear-and-anger response is tempered only by looking “sexy” really says what that sense of ownership is for.
has the right to react with fear and anger to the hair that grows out of your head– regardless of what you do with it, they reserve that right? that’s nutty.
Not only nutty, but kind of hilarious if you starting thinking about hair-fu as a martial art.
Being a somewhat ingnorant white girl because I didn’t grow up aroung people of color, I have been surprised to learn how early the processing of hair for black women begins. The daughter of a Nigerian friends (they have lived in the U.S. for 15 yrs) has extensions braided into her hair, and she’s only 8 years old. I was also surpised that influence or pressure to straighten or add extensions reaches even African countries with very little white population.
I witnessed the hassle and pain of removing the extions once in preperation for a new set, and I was saddened by how damaged the natural hair was. I expect my future children to have pretty kinky hair like their Nigerian dad, and I have vowed not to do that to their hair.
As a side note, I wish more women would be happy with the hair they have. I have finally accepted my straight, no volume hair for what it is, and it has made all the difference in how much money and time I spend on it.
I think my hair is probably like Orange’s, thin fine flat; I had a hairdresser tell me once, “you have absolutely the *limpest* hair I have ever seen.” As a white woman, I didn’t have to suffer from racial implications of my hgair, but when I think of all the cumulative time I spent trying to get my hair to DO something, anything (the products, the perms, the blowdrying, the curlers, the clips and combs that all just slid right out)….what a waste! I finally came to my senses — now it’s just straight and limp and I don’t give a rat’s ass, I just put it in a ponytail and get on with my life.
Tlazolteotl, I agree about your idea of a gorgeous head of black hair, I have always LOVED the look of the natural 70’s afro! And I was thinking about this woman here where I work, and the first time I saw her: She’s very tall and was wearing some tall shoes on top of that, bright clothes and this big beautiful afro, and I was just stunned by how GORGEOUS she looked — so bold and powerful, a downright Amazon! Wow! and I was thinking about that when I read Serena’s comment:
and I consider that comment in light of the words that pop into my head when I describe my co-worker’s look: bold, proud, powerful…. well, serena, there’s your answer right there.
Thanks for clearing that up for me. He gave me the impression that i would seriously mess up his dreads if i touched them. His hair was just past his collar and always wrapped it up the way Lucy(I Love Lucy)would when doing heavy housework, before going to bed. He instilled a fear in me of dating guys with dreads.
@Shasta: You are absolutely gorgeous.
Nothing else to add.
It’s kind of odd when I think about it, but as a white woman going to white hairdressers, it was really hard for me to find one who didn’t want to immediately change my hair texture or (even worse) didn’t have a clue how to cut straight, fine, thick hair like mine. I’ve had much better luck with hairdressers who trained in Asia because they seem to “get” straight hair more.
On the black hair front, I wish there were a glamorous African-American woman out there who treated her hair the way Carl Reiner used to treat his toupee — strictly as an accessory. Sometimes he’d wear it, sometimes he wouldn’t, and he basically dared people to comment on it. Sometimes he’d even doff it like a hat when he took a bow.
I know, I’m dreaming if I think that could happen in our society with our media. But a girl can dream, can’t she?