That the liberation of natural black hair is an empowering thing should not be debated, my own afro included. But I do wonder how we can negotiate freeing our hair without further encaging "black" existence, as construct, by the necessary push-back against the confines (both material and non) the institution of American racism has projected upon us??? Surely, we are cyclically ensnared by the illusive demand to be black (be for the culture, keep it real, be not a sell-out, etc.), and therefore tricked into allowing ourselves subjection to the disenfranchisement of ghettos, prisons, unhealthy foods and so forth, thereby combating white culture or white privilege; that which is the American privilege we are taught to deny ourselves in our black bodies.
5
I’m an african women grow up with natural hair and know how to do it to...by myself . I dated an african American guy who commented on my hair all the time that I should take it to the black hair beauty salon and “iron “ it!!! I knew then that we had nothing in common . That was over a ten years ago and I never changed the way I wear my hair. I’m happy to see more and more women( color or otherwise ) going natural .
Funny thou : when I sometimes go to Africans party where wigs and weaves dominate the women’s attire, and they would tell you that you should wear one to look more “professional”. Sight !
10
I fully understand that black women face more cultural "baggage" regarding their hair, but as a white "person of curl", I can empathize. Our society values long, straight, kempt hair for women, and woe to you if yours doesn't fit the norm. I have very thick curly hair. My mom dealt with her curls by having a buzz cut and provided no curl guidance to me. I spent my teens ignorant of product and enveloped in a halo of fuzz. I discovered the blow out in college and proceeded to spend four years damaging my hair with heat styling. Also, skipping classes if it rained. Once, shortly after college, I tried getting a hair cut at a new salon. Once I was seated in the chair, the stylist looked aghast and actually said while touching my hair, "what is this? What am I supposed to do with this?". Needless to say, I left before scissors could be wielded. I met a guy once after a blow out; we hit it off and went on a few dates. The first time he saw me with curly hair, he said, "Oh, your hair is CURLY" in the same tone of voice one would use when finding another person's politics to be abhorrent. Never heard from him again. A friend's wife once told me she was shocked to learn that I had a Master's degree because of my hair. Yes, my hair makes me look like I'm uneducated! Honestly, if a white person is getting this much guff over curly hair, I can only imagine what Black women have to deal with.
30
There was a story a few years back about the U.S. Army restricting black women's hairstyles to ridiculously few 'acceptable' options. Has that been corrected?
5
Just so you know...
Lots of Caucasian women
can relate to hair issues.
My background is Eastern
European. There is a genetic
strain of fine, frizzy hair which
I inherited and for my whole
life I have dealt with comments,
insults...wouldn't go swimming,
covered my head in the rain, used
horrible straightening products,
always felt unattractive. As a baby
and in childhood I had a halo of frizz.
My mother said that strangers
would stop and chastise her for
giving a child a permanent. I finally
stopped stressing, straightening with
smelly chemicals, no more "blow outs".
Found safe, effective products
developed for African-Americans that
are topically applied, work fantastically,
smooth out the frizz, leave body and curls
so thank you for illuminating a subject
people of all skin tones confront.
Hair, what an issue.
18
A friend of mine - Scandinavian descent with natural platinum blonde, long, very straight hair, and the pink skin to match, adopted an Ethiopian girl. The baby had be abandoned in the rushes by a river - no doubt by someone who was distraught. She has raised her into the most sparkling child that has ever walked the earth and her hair falls in natural tight ringlets to her shoulders. It's much longer when wet. It is the most beautiful & lively hair I have ever seen....the girl is a powerhouse of a person, brilliant, directed and confident - both in her heritage and in her adopted parents. Would that everyone could have the same about their natural physical selves.
5
There are some really good points made in this essay that I can appreciate regarding the black American woman's journey to self love. And seeing yourself presented in a good faith, respectful, glamorous light is a part of that. However, I am disappointed that this academic did not mention the more disturbing message of this movie. BP is a trojan horse for the black freedom struggle! Beautiful to look at, but deadly as all get out. Dig deeper,my people. Dig deeper.
5
For me going natural is simply a question of saving money and time at a salon and sparing myself the aggravation dealing with my hair at home every morning. Sounds shallow but just don't have time to think about making any kind of political statement. My bottom line is getting to work on time and making a decent living.
14
My girls begged for relaxers (aka perms) when they were entering Middle School so that they could go swimming during physical education class. I refused and explained my rationale. I promised that they could make this choice for themselves once they turned 18 years of age. Thank goodness, they do not wear weaves and simply wash it and wear it however it curls, kinks, wraps, or flat irons! The beauty of black hair is it's versatile and we should embrace it. I salute tightly coiled hair of all black females! We can stop dyeing it too! Hooray for Silver Hair. James Baldwin reminds us that "our crowns were bought and paid for." Black is truly Beautiful!
8
As a Jewish white male now 64 growing up in 1/2 Jewish NY in the 50s and 60s I hated my curly hair. I got it from my mom who spent hours and money trying to straighten hers. Most kids had either straight or wavy hair and the kids with curly hair like mine were usually less popular and self confident. And all the rock stars had long straight hair or they figured out how grow it long despite the curls. It took me a long time to get over my hair hang up. I finally realized keeping it short works the best. I even get to brush it relatively straight when it’s short. But one thing that came along with my curls was being able to avoid going bald. Still have a full head of hair while many my age and younger are going or are bald. Bottom line: try to love what you got and keep it simple if you can. Women with kinky hair usually look best (to me) when they keep it really short.
2
I've noticed if you put a long blond wig on ANYBODY, male, female, black or white...they can appear somewhat attractive! Cross-dressing fraternity brothers could be very disconcerting on Halloween...
Anyone recall the episode of All in the Family when Michael insisted his blond wife Gloria wear a curly brunette wig for romantic inspiration?
Perhaps variety in hairstyles is crucial ...and DOGMA will always go out of style...
While hair weaves, hair coloring, chemical straightening etc. can also make hair look nice (when done well), in most instances 'nature' knows and looks best.
How many elderly women have 'beauty salons' that allow them to walk out with this god awful light copper shade? How many black women succumb to 'perming' their hair, and their hair looks completely dead and lifeless? How many white women, once they start going grey, feel they 'must' color their hair in order to look 'youthful'? Thankfully, we are starting to see more older white women allow their hair color to go natural ...grey...and in many instances it is positively stunning! But alas, a beautiful shade of grey is too much for some women to allow in our age-obsesses society. What they don't realize however is that, by buying into this, and not allowing themselves to BE grey, they are a part of the problem and only help to perpetuate negative stereotypes about aging.
But back to black hair. The sheer variety of what can be done with it...especially as it grows out, is a marvel, especially for the women. Many Japanese hair also has similar follicular tendencies, and if they allow it to go 'wild' or help their hair to go in that direction naturally, it can look quite 'cool'. Most people wouldn't know this however, as many Japanese women chemically straighten their hair, using expensive salon techniques (similar to those used by Brazilians and Dominicans).
1
Lovely article. Now if only women - of ALL races - were allowed (yes allowed) to go gray naturally, instead of all the societal pressure to use very toxic hair dyes every few week.
Men are deemed to look distuished & attractive with silver streaks - and they do. If only women could feel they could do the same & not be looked down on, still feel attractive, and not pay the price professionally. What an idea!
7
Let me share a non-black male's perspective on black women's hair - specifically straightened hair. I have dated black women and have had a thousand cuts on my face from straightened hair (they are like mini razors). Ok, the cuts are not severe or life-threatening, but constant exposure (i.e. rubbing against my cheeks, etc.) during moments of intimacy do add up to what feels like a thousand little cuts. Has it affected my dating habits or lessened my attraction to black women - no, but I am all for this new movement to the natural look . . .
6
Sing it, Sister. As an ex-sociology adjunct professor and feminist historian and civil rights lawyer, I respect Angela Davis' observation and am outraged at the Federal Appellate decision. But there's something else to be said about black women's hair, sexuality, and race relations.
I am also a novelist, whose black woman Secret Service agent protagonist sports an Afro that she normally 'controls' when on the job, and lets loose ironically when she's posing as someone else to go undercover. Immediately after that sequence, and while still in 'costume,' she nearly gets in a bar fight with another (white male) law enforcement officer over commentary about 9-11 from Cornell West on the TV over the bar (well, a professor self-evidently West's Doppelgänger).
Here's my point. I've had lots of comments about people who think the book's sequel ought to be about Agent Washington, rather than the novel's putative 'hero,' a white male FBI agent. But no-one has ever remarked on Sharice Washington's hair, whose sensual and symbolic aspects I felt were among the most provacative in the book; that woman's natural speaks to me, and moves me, in ways much more personal and profound.
I would never reduce anyone to their aesthetic, but one of the things I miss a great deal about her was waking up to the smell, fragrance, and feel of that nappy sphere in the morning. Just made me smile. I've always felt that would be silly or superficial to say, but no more. Thank you.
1
As a white woman with long red hair, this article helps me to understand our collective American culture better. Thank you for eloquently articulating your experience, and I hope we all become aware that beauty comes in many expressions, and can be valued as so.
2
I'm so glad to see this happening! Always thought black women are much more beautiful with their natural hair. As I've seen more such women I make an effort to complement them.
For those white women here talking about going grey - just do it!I did so a couple of years ago after decades of dying my hair and its fabulous - a sort of "coming out" and authenticity that is empowering - just when we need it most in this youth obsessed culture. Can't tell you how many compliments I get and frequently share appreciative nods with other natural women.
2
I guess the women in my nabe haven't gotten the memo. Nearly every young black woman I see is wearing an obvious weave of some sort; long, long straight hair seems to be the wig or weave of choice.
I try not to judge, but I do. Despite the fact that when I was a kid I proudly wore a yellow towel on my head, too. They would probably tell me: "It's just hair, get over it." But is it just hair? The debate continues, I suppose. It's been the same debate for many years.
3
One day when I “checked the roots” of my dyed brown hair and had waited too long, I spotted a wide halogen gleam. This time I paused to notice my emotions. I felt panic. I was afraid of my own hair. I was not allowed to show aging and must cover this up at once! I also recognized a current of shame. Somehow I could offend others by being myself. UGH. Talk about toxic….
That was the last day I dumped endocrine-disrupting chemicals on my scalp to absorb into my bloodstream. It’s even more work to refuse to absorb the shattering cultural messages we take in daily. I’m white so can only imagine how hard it would be to protect a young black girl’s psyche. I hope this movie gives them mad hope.
Thank you for this article.
6
I think some readers are missing the point.
Culturally speaking the issue has always been about the perception of the beauty inherent in luscious naturally straight hair willowing in the wind versus “black” hair unruly and stiff mess. Hair has always been used to define one’s degree of blackness, and by extension one’s genetic inferiority. Once you believe that, the sense of genetic inferiority permeated down to the tightness of one’s curls. The tighter the curl the most inferior one’s hair, and by extension, one’s genetic makeup must be.
Those of us of mixed racial backgrounds have seen this behavior in vivid display in Latin Culture. We define each other’s degree of whiteness, or blackness, by the degree to which our hair is curly or straight.
I am glad to see that Hollywood is trying to change such perceptions.
7
We all had very natural hair in my early 70s high school days, boys and girls, white and black, none of us fussed with our hair. If you were white, it was parted down the middle and long, boy or girl, and if you were black, it was an afro, boy or girl. I loved those glorious afros, picked out sometimes to shoulder width--talk about free!-- and I missed them when they disappeared. It felt like something just begun had been halted in its tracks.
4
First - my identity: white woman with what was always mousy “unglamorous” unfashionable hair (when straight hair was in when I was a teenager and girls ironed their hair, mine was not curly enough to do anything fun, but not straight, and I would not iron it). Now I have gray-white hair and even when I was young, as a feminist statement, I said I would never dye it, and I never have. It’s what I’ve got and it should not be what defines me. Now, all that said, I always felt that women, whatever they’ve got, should just say “it’s what I’ve got - it does not define me and it looks good”. Though there is the famous picture of former President Obama letting a little black kid touch his hair, considered an inspiring picture, I never got why the women in his household (wife and daughters) did not choose to be inspirations to black women and go for a natural do, also. I’m glad to hear that natural is coming back. For what it’s worth, I like it. I like all women to feel proud of themselves and feel good about themselves and use their time for better stuff than dealing with their hair.
4
"Students talked about high school teachers who said their hair was blocking others’ view of the board." And in 2015, there was a fracas at the Metropolitan Opera when one viewer's big hair blocked others' view of the stage (https://jezebel.com/when-the-opera-acts-like-its-never-seen-a-black-pers.... The incident was handled miserably, but the issue is real. There really are situations in which big hair violates the golden rule. In the early days of the cinema, there were onscreen notices that read "Ladies, kindly remove your hats!" (Google the phrase for some great screenshot.) Consideration for others in these situations is not a racial issue. Big hair exists in many cultures. Remember the beehive? Teasing?
4
believe me, kinky frizzy hair is not restricted to african americans, having been through exactly the same angst ridden decades before i too cut off the straightened bits and just went for the curls. like many other sources of personal pain, the kind of hair one has is not really very important, though alas that does nothing for the anxieties it causes, not to mention the memories of real pain when our mothers insisted on getting every kink out every single day. let's try to forget about all this.
4
I grew up in the 60's and 70's when everyone was into au naturel and the expression of black is beautiful. The afro was just part of the culture and I thought it was totally cool! I just figured that everyone else did too! Along those same lines, the women I knew wore very little or no makeup. I never understood how people found the time, money and interest to spend on changing their natural appearance. Glad to hear that au naturel is making a comeback! Appearance is a fun part of self expression and should reflect our own unique personalities. People who can't accept individual difference and diversity are usually afraid of it and insecure in their own persona.
2
Good opinion piece. Love the Ultra Violet 2 art, I will look up the rest of the series.
1
I remember the first time my friend showed up with a natural. She stayed my impulsive reach to touch her hair with the comment that it took "hours" to get that look.
1
I am an old white man with rather unruly white man hair, that unfortunately won't turn white so I'm sure my friends and associates all think I am dying it.
A few months ago on a walk in downtown Denver I helped three young black women figure out the parking meter. As I walked away I over heard one of them say, "I like his hair." I told her she could touch it and we all giggled.
There is great beauty in every color, hair type, body type of human beings everywhere and my hope is that someday everyone will feel that they are beautiful just as they are.
Thanks for this real beautiful piece of writing.
4
Most of the women I know black and white worry about the color, texture, length and tsyle of their hair. We feel as if our hair is not only definitive of our beauty and who we are, but we think the world judges us by how we present ourselves and our hair. A friend going through chemotherapy is distraught at the effects on her glorious hair. Multinational corporations and the US Army used to and still forbid "dreadlocks, twists, braids, and intricate hairdo's on black women.
I had a natural afro as soon as I left high school and wore a short curly natural look for most of my life. It made me feel beautiful, natural and powerful. Many people asked me why I didn't grow and perm my hair so that I could fit more readily into a white corporate culture. Thank God I always rejected the advice. Now I have long dreadlocks that are graying and I love them. My hair is a political, cultural and feminine statement of my beauty. I wish our society was more accepting of our differences but its not. Still, women are free to do whatever makes them happy and I wish all of them a time when they can be comfortable with who they are and how they look authentically.
9
I for one have been waiting for this moment for the Black community since my 70s childhood and am thrilled to see the new and diverse expressions.
Next must be the societal embrace of the beauty of older women and their natural grey hair. There are some beautiful shades of silver out there (I know they're often enhanced but they are closer to nature than brown, black, or blonde) but there's still the sense that it's an impediment to all aspects of life for older women whether in the workplace, in media, and, frankly, all cultural settings. I'm preparing myself to eventually let go and am collecting photos of silver shades I like. But the enormous pressure against a woman of limited means "looking old" is daunting. But I will prevail, eventually.
18
My first thoughts also drew a comparison to aging and grey\white hair. I started to go very grey in my thirties and didn't want to use chemical hair dyes. Sometimes I was complimented, but the typical reaction was that I would appear so much younger if I would color. I succumbed in my late fifties, hoping it would land me a much sought after job. It didn't, but I realized that it did knock off about ten years. I think that women are constantly living up to cosmetic and physical expectations, no matter the age nor race nor culture. As the Me Too movement has exploded, the physical movement has yet to take hold. We fought to wear pants to school in the sixties for practical and comfort purposes. Perhaps our outward appearances will eventually be about more personal pursuits and comfort.
9
As a 5 year old (white) girl in 1972, my mother took me into downtown Detroit to go to Hudson's department store. In the city, there were many black people--including black women--wearing spectacular, gigantic afros. I thought the hairstyle was amazing. I was too young to understand the political, social, historical and geographic context around it.
Over the years I sometimes wondered where this hairstyle went. This article helps me understand some of the reasons behind why it disappeared.
For so many reasons, I'm glad to see it's back at this moment. I hope it stays around longer this time.
Thank you for this article.
17
I hate to be the skunk at the garden party but over my long life I've noticed that women of every race have obsessed over their hair. My beautiful (white) wife has had more styles and colors than I can count and I loved every one - even though she hasn't. Hence the next change. And please don't believe that hair is solely a concern of women - black or otherwise. One has to look no further than the elaborate apricot swirl atop the head of the current resident of the oval office and the endless "just for men" hair dying commercials to realize that obsession with hair is a pretty universal phenomenon.
42
i think you're missing the point of this article. White Womens hair has never been a political statement. They never had to concern themselves with the idea how their hair will be excepted in the world. They have been and still are considered the standard of beauty in this country. Yes, all women are concerned about their hair but it's black people and women that have been taught what grows out of our heads is bad.
3
I've yet to see Black Panther, but have seen images of the actors. I applaud both white and black women "going natural" and not chemically altering their hair. I'm not sure that braided styles come under this category. A woman I worked with suffered with a sore scalp during the days immediately following a braiding by a professional (spending six plus hours in the salon). More than once, I remember her leaving work because her "head hurt". After a while, we knew not to expect her in after a braiding appointment. There were a lot of sprays, oils and tonics that she needed to apply to keep her braids. Also, removing the braids cost as much time and money as having them done. After a while, she cropped her hair and was just as, if not more beautiful than ever, without all the fuss and pain.
12
You ought to see what they do with hair in a good beauty parlor in Windhoek (Namibia). The styles are astonishing.
8
It's certainly sad that black women in the west are the only group on Earth that have to debate wearing there hair natural as most people on Earth including black men accept there naturally growing hair as a given.
10
A course on hair? At the University of Michigan? For college credit? That's just got to be one of the signs of the apocalypse.
17
I miss Carmine Miranda too.
2
Here we are 50 years later, and wearing the hair God gave you is still a symbol of rebellion and an act of bravery. Whereas for white women it's simply Saturday. When are we going to stop forcing black women to wear camouflage just to get through the day with the bare minimum of harassment?
24
Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
-- John Lennon and Paul McCartney
6
How self absorbed can you be. No one cares anything about how you wear your hair except you and those closest to you. How you wear your hair has nothing at all whatsoever to do with anything except how you wear your hair.
11
Should you read the entire article with truly open eyes, mind, and heart, you just might come to see that "how you wear your hair" is about far more than "how you wear your hair". It's all about what has been historically, traditionally considered beautiful, acceptable, and of worth in this society. And it's about having the courage to break free of that expectation and knowing within yourself that you are beautiful, acceptable, and of worth, regardless of the opinion of others.
6
It will come as a surprise to no one that, as a white woman with straight blonde hair...... I don't get it. I don't get why hair is such a hot-button issue with black women. Because I absolutely LOVE your hair!! In its natural state. So beautiful and powerful. Why would you ever change it? But I have noticed that when I compliment natural hair styles in black women, it doesn't go over very well. So I stopped. But I love your hair. It's a think of beauty. IMHO
18
Black women, like white women, Latinas, Asian women, and all other types of women, are beautiful. And that includes their hair. Black women have beautiful natural hair, whether it's in dreads, an afro, braids, whatever.
Fiddle about all you want with the socio-political import of it; it's of no consequence to me. From my aesthetic perspective, natural hair has always been more attractive to me. It is, in a word, wonderful.
Weaves and tie-ins and the like are not show-stoppers for me, but natural hair on a black woman is a huge plus, and I love it, and I get to love it everyday as that has been my wife's preference for a long time.
19
I was a white teenager in Ann Arbor in the 70s and my black friends mostly had Afros. I just thought it was beautiful--I loved the natural look of it and I loved how it felt. (Yes, my friends let me touch their hair: we were children) It reminded me of icons of saints, with their gold halos framing their faces. Many years later when living in NYC I went to street stands in Harlem and bought strips of kente cloth because I thought they were beautiful. I wore them as scarves, and as far as I know, my black friends never thought I was mis-appropriating their culture.
I'm going to Black Panther tonight; looking forward. I've always loved and been jealous of African-American women wearing shaved heads, or very short naturals--I would love to do that but it wouldn't look good on me with the shape of my head.
While I very much recognize hair "politics" in the black community, my privilege as an outsider is just to find natural hair beautiful. I wish it was that simple for everyone.
27
I would also highly recommend Michael July's book of exquisite photography and prose entitled "Afros: A Celebration of Natural Hair."
8
Thank for your piece. Full disclosure - I am a white woman married to a black man and I have long (naturally curly) blonde (highlighted chemically) hair. I saw Black Panther and was thrilled to see women painted in such a strong and beautiful light. I didn't pay close attention to their hair, but laughed hard when the warrior general took off the wig in disgust. I felt her liberation. She's a warrior after all and that wig was probably too hot!
I think ALL women are sort of trapped by our hair, in many respects. I am hopeful black women, in time, can move on from feeling their hair is something to be oppressed by and embrace it, in whatever form they feel is comfortable for them, be it natural, weave, wig, locked or treated.
13
It always comes down to wanting what you don’t have. I am a white woman with extremely straight hair. I have always been jealous of women with curly or wavy hair - the same women who would tell me how lucky I was to have straight hair. Lucky? As a child my mother would spend hours setting my hair with gobs of Dippity-do and bobby pins into tight pin curls the night before a school event (which caused me no sleep), only to have the curls last maybe 20 minutes, and my hair fall completely straight by the time I arrived at school. Years later I suffered through endless home permanents just to get a “body wave” to have the ability to style my hair in some way other than straight. I’ve since given up on trying to curl my hair. I still envy women with curls and waves. And yes, I still am told how lucky I am to have straight hair - by women who don’t.
13
Dream on....there is great debate about that which you speak....
1
Black hair,like black skin, is a biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit beautiful gift marking and memorializing the origin of the one and only human race species in Africa 300,000+ years ago. This is the hair texture of the real Eve and the real Adam.
14
I don't believe, as the writer implies in the last paragraph, that the pendulum is swinging back. Most of the black women I see on the street and on TV are wearing straight-haired wigs and weaves. As a black man who came of age during the -black-is-beautiful '60s, this breaks my heart. Maybe some day soon we'll learn to love what God gave us -- again.
56
Love the hair, love reading all these perspectives on the movie, love it that (some) black women are allowing their hair to grow naturally. Love reading about the kids' reactions to the movie!
I think that all women could connect with this desire to be natural in our bodies. One could assert that all women are subject to the Barbie Doll view of women. I would love to see all women rejecting plastic surgery and other invasive beauty measures, which often leave women looking like mannequins, and instead opt for pursuing beauty through health and through allowing their character to shine out from their faces (plus a little help from the cosmetics counter, of course!)
33
I am a black woman who has worn her hair in every shape and form. I made the choice of up, down, long, short, nappy, curly or straight. Leave my hair alone! Let me decide what I want to do with it, without censure, advice, cooing or sneering. Leave my hair alone! I make the statement I want to make with my hair, and I don't need anyone -- Black or White -- telling me how I (nor Michelle and her girls) should feel about it or do it.
22
As child, I always thought that I had beautiful hair. I was always transfixed with my image after my mother would wash and blow out my hair. It wasn’t until my mother told me that I couldn’t wear my hair in its natural state out in public, that I thought I must have “bad” hair. And ever sense that moment I wanted to have silky straight hair. I chased the dream of looking like my black Barbie doll’s friend “Stacey” that I overprocessed my hair with relaxers from its former lustrous glory into a pale version of itself. As an adult, I’ve decided to go natural, and embrace my hair texture. I had to go back to the mindset of that little girl that was in awe of herself in the mirror, because I had something that was unique. Something that was all mine, that shouldn’t have been silenced with a jar of a “Just for Me.”
13
When I was growing up in multi-cultural Los Angeles in the 1960s and '70s, I always felt sorry for the black girls who obviously tortured their hair everyday before school to make it look like white people hair. I always wondered why they just didn't let it look the way it wanted to look. These days, I absolutely love the way black women wear their hair, and I have felt glad for them that they no longer feel compelled to torture and straighten their hair. The notion of beauty as white people apply it to black people is just another example of casual, everyday racism.
8
That's funny, I grew up in multicultural Los Angeles too in the 60s and 70s and I remember it differently. I seem to remember the 70s especially as a time when Black political and cultural power was ascendant and natural hair was everywhere. Decades later, I told a friend who shared my LA childhood that I thought it really sad that the fabulous natural afros that were such an integral part of the multicultural landscape of our youth seemed to be all but gone. He totally agreed saying it was the Reagan 80s in the face of the strides made by the Black, women, and gay movements that reasserted evangelical white male dominance and we all fell under its constraining cultural conservatism.
I'm a white Mexican-American woman and he's a German Swiss-descended man but we both love and embrace the colorful palette of humanity. Each expression is unique and life is simply boring to us without the differences. Natural afros were a vital thread missing from the multicultural quilt.
When natural hair began to reappear, it was him I texted with fabulous images of black beauty reemerging. One of the best parts of our 70s childhood was finally returning and in newer, even cooler iterations. All we could say was "vive la différence!"
2
As a completely bald 58 year old white guy, I'm not sure I should weigh in. However, a few quick points: 1. I LOVED the afros that my African-American classmates had in high school and thought they were beautiful; 2. as an urban high school teacher I have applauded students in recent years who are bringing that back and who, at our school, have even formed a Natural Hair Club; 3. every year my students in AP English read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and the section in which he describes his youthful practice of "conking" his hair and his later disdain for that look makes for excellent discussions.
16
I admire that natural look. Beautiful. Wish I could have it for myself. At first, it must take courage, but I'm sure it is liberating.
6
Angela Davis has a good point which this author minimizes. The so-called "natural" Afro, for example, can take four hours to prepare after hair washing, and costs plenty in beauty products. Liberating and beautiful as they may be, most of the non-straightened hairstyles are just as expensive and time-consuming and benefit primarily the cosmetic companies who sell supplies to create them. True liberation, for ALL women, would be to de-emphasize the obsession with appearance over substance that capitalism feeds and lives off.
63
So untrue. If you have natural hair you can go as low-cost or as labor intensive as you want. Washing and conditioning my hair does in no way take four hours. As you might well know everyone's hair length is different and it is not one-size fit all.
Please note not all a's are b's ...
10
Speaking as an older white male who grew up in awe of the Black civil rights leaders, sports icons, and general cultural icons in the 60's and 70's...of black people with "naturals"...its about time! (I was jealous then and when I see one now still sigh with that youthful "Oh I wish I had that...")
Ive been waiting for this counter-revolution for decades now.
Wear 'em proud!
19
As an elderly white woman who for many years spent endless hours straightening and using curlers to tame my extremely kinky "Jewish" hair, I have to admit that while I think the styles in the Afro Art photos are spectacular, I also suspect that these styles require a huge amount of care and grooming--time that might be better spent in other ways that might enhance these young people's feelings of self-worth, pride, and confidence.
17
Here's what I remember. I remember how things began to change for me in the 1960s. Stop lightening your skin. Stop straightening your hair. Don't be ashamed of your nose or of your lips. Don't be ashamed of where you come from. Don't be ashamed of you are. We are all made in God's image. We all belong in this world. Say it loud.
And I remember how this lesson was taken to heart by lesbians and gay men who realized it was time to stop straightening themselves and to start being who they really were. And bisexuals. And transgender people.
And I remember the role model Barbra Streisand was for young Jews I knew. You don't have to change your name. You don't have to change your face. You can -- and you should, for your own health and sanity -- be yourself.
Isn't this what Oscar Wilde told us in the Nineteenth Century?! Be yourself; everybody else is already taken.
41
Many were disappointed that Michelle Obama assiduously had her hair straightened, as did her daughters.
Could she not have made a statement while all eyes were on her as “first lady“? Her husband just kept his hair cut very close to his head with probably a haircut every week or more frequently.
9
Michelle Obama did what she wanted with her hair. Leave her alone. There's room for many opinions, styles, colors and choices when it comes to hair.
23
This subject is dear to my heart.
I'm a white woman. I once fell for the idea that we could live in a cooperative planetary society -- and I'm still falling for it. I know that if everyone recognized everyone else's inherent value, it would improve all our lives.
I saw Chris Rock's 2009 documentary "Good Hair" and it was painful. To see how much black women sacrifice to make their hair betray who they are. My best friend is black -- he prefers the term American Negro -- and I've heard him despair over the money women in his family spend to make their hair look like white people's.
I know we have a legacy situation to deal with. I know that white privilege exists because of past horrors, but the time has come to stop catering to small-minded white people. Make them realize the white world they thought they lived in never existed.
As hesitant as I am to do so, because I don't want to offend anyone, I will tell black women with natural hair how beautiful I think their look is. Maybe they're just being polite, but I have yet to have anyone respond as though the compliment wasn't appreciated.
Then I often say something I believe thoroughly -- that I would love to see Oprah and Michelle Obama call a press conference and show up with natural hair, and all they say is, "Deal with it." The response I get makes me think these women might agree.
The more each of us lives free from the lie that we are less than others, the better this world will be -- for us all.
18
The Obama girls wore braids one summer, and the amount of negative comments my wife and I saw on some websites (including liberal ones) was breathtaking, and little takes my breath away these days. There is so little cultural competency in this country. The ethnocentrism is very damaging. It wasn't until recently that a black woman DARE show up for an interview or a job with a natural style.
1
My family and I, my wife and two daughters, saw Black Panther tonight, and the women with shaved heads were so striking. They were portraits of confidence, and confidence is a huge part of attractiveness. Most importantly, at no second of Black Panther was their femininity in question. As an African American man, I knew what it was like to be teased because my hair was a “TWA,” or teeny weenie Afro because it was too kinky to fluff out into a big Afro as was the idealized style of the early Seventies. Still, as a man, any ridicule I faced was only a tiny fraction of what sisters had and have to navigate. Before I saw Black Panther, a part of me seriously questioned all of the attention the movie was getting since it is essentially a superhero fantasy, but having seen it, I feel it does have great potential to reinforce positive images of Blackness, especially dark skinned Black Women, in world where such images can be distressingly rare.
66
Seems the only people with a hang up about 'natural' black hair, is black women themselves. Hair is hair. Nobody is sweating it. Really.
20
I want to read this but spoilers! Well, I see the film this afternoon so I'll bookmark for later.
1
I’m an old white man photographer, 2 years ago a young friend agreed to a session. I only suspected she had a lot of hair under her tight bun. We shot 130 pics in 20 minutes. She never stopped moving while brushing out the magnificent natural afro. Then hiding it back in the bun. Great images as the dark brown hair contained a multitude of colors. Absolutely amazing person, hair and prints. Best I have ever captured. Word usage deliberate.
10
Would love to see pix.
1
Love this essay. Curious about the potential harmful effects of straightening chemicals on women’s health?
2
Biggest disappointment on this front: Michelle Obama. As a gender studies instructor, I am happy to see this article and hope the stance takes root! I've been longing to see the Afro return.
5
We can choose any style we want, so can Ms Obama.
15
I've always admired the distinctive ways black people can and do wear their hair! Go for it!
6
At last. Each ethnicity is beautiful....i think its very becoming in itself, not just as a political symbol. Easier to style than white' s??
I was an Italian American girl who had thick, curly/frizzy hair. Angela Davis saved me from self-hatred whether she thinks hair is political or not. When I saw her proud image, I wanted to be like her. At the time white girls all wore their hair straight, parted down the middle. With all the chemicals, beer can size rollers and blow dryers I could never get my hair to look like that for more than an hour. My hair would just return to its natural self. With Angela Davis as my role model, I cut my hair and let it be just the way it wanted to be. I call my hair my living sculpture. A friend celebrated my hair with drawings of my various "sculptures" using vegetables as the meme -- my favorite being "broccoli head." We are all strengthened by the struggles of others. Those who struggle do not control the impact of their actions on others. I am very grateful for the leadership of black women regarding hair and self-image.
27
I have never been beautiful, or even remotely interested in being fashionable or in style. I have done whatever was fastest and took the least trouble to get presentable.
But I have never been politically criticized for my choice. If I wear my plain old Irish hair in a bun or a pony tail because I didn't straighten it, no one even notices, except maybe to think I look like an old movie librarian or school marm. How I looked has never been political.
So, I feel sympathy and outrage for women who have been told that what they are and how they look is unacceptable because of their race. I can only hope that they do whatever they please with their appearance and everyone who cares can take a flying leap. And I will say this - no African American woman who wears her hair in natural style, or closely cropped to her head will ever look like an old time school marm.
And I hope they keep and open mind that those who do fuss and straighten and bother are OK too. Fundamentally, we should all have the right to present ourselves as we choose and not how we are expected to.
19
Great article! But why "moment" (re: the title)? Can this be called a shift or movement instead of a short lived tend?
2
I just watched “The Black Panther.” And I took in hours of very beautiful and proud people. The costumes, the set: all very well done.
Such a relief to watch a hollywood movie in which Africans are not being patronized or being saved by white people.
6
It was enjoyable, although they were compelled to give the actor who played the CIA agent enough time to shoot down enemy aircraft. Tiresome.
2
Black hair IS good hair. I can tell you that it is maddening to see internalized racism here in DC, and especially in the gay community, where so many black gay men shave their heads or keep their hair crazy short because it is ‘professional,’ which in DC is some catch-all term that obscures internalized misogyny, racism, and homophobia (because seeming feminine, non white, or non heterosexual is clearly ‘unprofessional’ in their eyes).
It is past time that we acknowledged that black hair is beautiful, professional, and desirable in a partner. No dyes or chemicals needed.
8
Beautiful as it is, this type of hairdo is a problem for anyone that goes to the movies and has someone with an afro sitting in front of you.
I could not imagine having someone with the hairdo of Lorna Simpson’s “Ultra Violet 2,” from her 2015 series “Ebony" in front of me. Consideration for other people should be taken into account.
9
Absolutely. Consideration should be taken into account before making insensitive, racist statements.
11
Do you say that to tall guys and girls, too? How should they "be considerate" when they're sitting or standing in front of you? Natural hair is natural hair. If it, like someone's height, is in your way, just deal with it like you would if it were a basketball player ahead. That's how they come, period.
At least she mentions Angela Davis in her last paragraph; no mention of the turbulent sixties when the natural hair movement truly took aim and became a mantra; James Brown's black power created afros that give folk like our editor history to see; reason to consider and the bravery to go for it.
Black Ivy Leaguers live in a world; they have the privilege and fear to never give justice it's true due; these folk either are not angry enough or perhaps it's not in their favor to not speak the truth of the masses;
I remember my first trip to NYC for the Labor day festival in the early nineties; the beautiful black locks were everywhere; there were tens of thousands of them; the Living Single, Bill Cosby's A Different World, even the Cosby show proudly wore natural hair dos.
Cancer may be caused by relaxers; it's another one of those topics no one will touch; Chris Rock raised the question without speaking the words. After his movie; many black women chose to go natural; it's all good; the editors would probably chuck it anyway.
At least she got the Sunday Review. mentioning the writers she's referenced, yet not referencing the movement of when and how naturals came about is somewhat disappointing, but not surprising.
You would never see Oprah or Michelle Obama with natural hair and we all know why. I hated relaxers and the hot comb so much; Deciding to lock was a dream; but have I suffered for it? Today, yes today, when I read her article; I have indeed.
2
I think it was Alice Walker who said, oppressed hair puts a ceiling on the brain. And that is also true for people of all races and hair types, trying to fit into narrow, consumer-culture-driven ideals. I've never trusted people with overly tidy and controlled hair; hair that does not and cannot move.
2
I will never forget the first time i washed my hair without "setting it." In my dorm room at college, I sat around with friends and watched it dry and grow really really big!!!! I couldn't even put a hat on it! That was 50 years ago.
5
This is a breath of fresh air.
Hair rising:)
3
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you.
2
"Students talked about high school teachers who said their hair was blocking others’ view of the board."
In the image the author chose 'Ultra Violet 2', the woman's hair is twice as wide and twice as tall as her head. And the same again with Zaire Craig. I'm curious, what exactly to you expect a teacher to do? We do make tall kids sit in the back or to the side if they are blocking other students view of the board. Your implication is that if a teacher wants you to move, because of the size of your hair - then that teacher is a racist.
And yeah, education is more important than hair.
10
The grass is always greener . . . I'm an elder white woman with fine, thin, thin hair that has begun to get even thinner. I'd be very glad to have a head of hair that did anything but lie down and stick to my head! I always envied black hair because you can do things like weave and puff and rope and twirl it. Such a gift! And all those years ago, black women were pressed by society to want what I already had and didn't want! Accepting any unwanted wig donations. :)
7
Show us more and better pictures. From old white lady who loves natural hair.
Why open with Ultra Violet 2?, Looks big but unnatural.
4
And it's high time, too... I had thought that after the 80s when elaborate brading and going natural came into fashion that people would not revert to straightened hair and pageboys (to me the tortured hair look.).. Little did I know. I love a Fro on anyone with naturally, dare I say it, kinky hair -- curley does not hold a Fro.. Afro, Jew-fro, in the case of my cousin Czech-fro.. Let's hear it for the Fro. Fro for all time-- not just the present moment.. and beautiful braiding.
5
I look forward to the day people are judged by their hair and not their skin color.
3
Judged by their hair? That will not do either. See the recent NYT article about thinning hair in women, a condition even less acceptable than baldness in men.
3
I went natural in 1969, and I felt a great sense of freedom. Later, my mother explained to me that my great-grandmother always wore natural hair. Then, I started wearing it in honor of her, my ancestor.
For some of us, how we wear our hair is not only a political statement or a fashion statement, but it is a spiritual one as well.
13
Thank you for this article. I transitioned my hair in 2011. And promptly was treated differently at work, and lost my job along with several other Black women.
Now I work with several strong, smart women who also sport natural black hair.
Natural hair is still a revolutionary act for Black women. Even in 2018.
47
What was the "cause" of your firing?
Unbelievable.
This from a nonconforming white woman who kept my ultra-straight hair (which I never liked and tormented it with perms in earlier years similar to straightening) short.
Never appreciated from men or women, a tiny minority applauded. Still I persisted and the short straight hair probably weeded out some bad dates (although I had my share regardless of the un-glamorous "tomboy coif."
Persist and resist!
I am a white woman in my 70s. Please publish more articles like this one. It allows me a glimpse into the heart of people I would have never seen had I not read it. Our country and indeed the world would be a better place if we all could share and understand more of the feelings that makes us human.
45
My word! There is a course on the socio-political implications of Black hair at the University of Michigan. Taxpayers should revolt!
I am an older Black man who has sported virtually every natural hair style imaginable, including braids and cornrows. The march of time and my frontal hairline caused me to shave my head in my early fifties. I always viewed my hairstyle as a matter of personal choice, knowing that there would be varied opinions of whatever style I selected.
The problem today is the anti-normative bent of the progressive movement and its insistence that every choice be accepted, if not applauded. Face reality, very few white male CEOs report for work sporting ponytails or man buns. If you want to make some cultural, artistic or political statement with any aspect of your attire, you have to be prepared for varied reactions. The term mainstream has a meaning, and those who elect to swim outside of it face the possibility of self-marginalization.
My advice would be to cancel the course, stop obsessing over the opinions of others and to learn to embrace your own choices. Sure, I would love to lead a successful movement to proclaim, mandate and enforce my personal look as the global standard of beauty, but I am realistic enough to know that won't happen. Strangely some people find Chadwick Boseman far more attractive than me. Get over the hair thing and enjoy life.
40
@AR clayboy - while I concede your larger point...let me play devils advocate.
Perhaps its that "mainstream" conformity, among those white males, that continues and promulgates the inherent "Old Boy" network and behaviors. ???
That the incessant demand to conform, to look and act, and talk a certain way...is what creates the insular Hive-mind. That keeps out "others" (which can be the ponytail'd other white guy. But no man-buns please!) and as such keeps out fresher-thinking. Where only place left for a little personal creativity is in the choice of ones tie patterns, and even that can bring ridicule among the staid and stuffed shirt crowd...who insist on a certain knot, in order to be deemed "in".
The American Corporate Stuffed Shirt crowd wields far too much power in how they enforce their Uniform Codes of Conformity. (As witnessed when Obama dared wear a light colored suit in the Oval.)
A little more laxity in the "dress-codes" wont topple the Republic. (that said, no torn jeans, or visible underwear.)
3
African hair has such wonderful textural and sculptural possibilities. It's always struck me as a shame that so many women who have it try to imitate styles designed for straight hair. Plenty of us with straight hair admire African styles, but they look so awful on us we don't imitate them. Corn rows on me looked like a wig made from frayed rope and went downhill from there during the course of the day.
4
Yes, this article is to be celebrated as natural hair is to be celebrated because it is indeed beautiful and a source of pride; yet, if women decide to make other choices that are not entirely natural, (straightening, coloring, wigs, etc) those choices are beautiful and should be accepted too. Women should have the freedom to represent themselves in a variety of ways without enduring judgment or derision for those decisions. Although I currently have relaxed hair, by no means am I attempting to be white or in some way less proud of my African-American heritage, yet I have faced those kinds of accusations from a variety of folks. I truly wish individuals would understand there is no need to be firmly affixed in "either with us ,or not with us" camps when it comes to hair and lifestyle choices. Sometimes I wear pants instead of dresses, make-up versus no make-up, lots of jewelry versus adorning a simple ring. Life is about having liberties to choose. So today I may rock relaxed hair, and tomorrow it may be my natural ringlets, just know that either disposition is beautiful, worthy, and not self-loathing.
30
Is it sad or ballot to see that we are still having this conversation in 2018. The obsession with how women dress, how they wear their hair, whom should they please. The 70’s was a time of protest - against inequity to all. The protests stalled as women entered the work force in our power suits. We endured harassment, stereotyping, and discrimination. Perhaps this is a happy conversation - women are demanding their rights, independence, a chance to choose their own lives. I would add in defiance of the efforts of men to deny them these freedoms.
6
I work in a setting which requires annual "cultural competency" trainings. A few years ago 2 black colleagues of mine presented to a group of approximate 75 people in our department the "unconscious" racism inherent when women (and men) remark on the hairstyles of black women. As a white woman I remember watching and listening to something that had never even occurred to me and I began asking myself "when I compliment so and so on how much I like the way her hair looks am I expressing my own unconscious racist ideas"? The thought and uncomfortable feeling that stayed with me pushed me to approach my colleagues for a deeper conversation on the topic. As the talk began I at first felt more uncomfortable but as we continued talking and I started to relax our discussion moved on to other topics that might be considered "taboo". I feel grateful to my colleagues for challenging me to think more broadly and I thank you Dr. Miles for this wonderful essay!
10
OT: Sorry, have to do it. 19 year old Basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets, Jarret Allen, 'Fro since grade school. Because he likes it. It is a nice one.
1
Twenty years ago I was a camp nurse in Fishkill for The Fresh Air Fund. I went there from my small town in Wisconsin after working as a school nurse on a Native American reservation.The town of my residence is primarily white. I don’t know if there are any Black residents. We moved to this little white town when my husband got a teaching job on the reservation in 1978, about seven miles from the reservation.
So going to Fishkill, I basically knew of two hair types, white and Native American.I didn’t know about braids, and relaxers, and products.And I didn’t know about wraps and other stuff, but I learned and I liked learning.
One evening a couple of the counselors came to our infirmary and the place was turned into a make shift beauty shop.My infirmary mate was also a nurse, a New Yorker, a Jamaican.We were like two peas in a pod that summer, but that night she let out some fury with me - over hair!
The girls were doing wraps. I must have had too many questions about it, in addition to having my own stick straight hair which I really detested.You see, while they were getting rid of their curls, I thought about all the energy, cost, and time I had spent trying to get any kind of curl in mine.
Anyhow, my nurse roommate ended up, after my questions, hollering at me “Don’t they teach nurses in Wisconsin anything about Black hair?”
But you know, it’s ok.Twenty years later, we laugh about it. Lesson learned!
I love all the various Black hair styles. My hair is boring.
4
I can't be the only white woman who's looked at natural black hair styles, with their queenly sculptural forms, with a pang of envy. Also the braided patterns. Beauty is beauty.
14
The "natural" hair "insisted on" by Camille Friend for Black Panther seems to have included wigs and woven-in braids, cooling tents and day-long treatments. I guess film characters and actresses are still not great role models for regular women who have time/money limitations and other things to worry about.
13
Beautiful article. I agree as I have always thought the flowing wig craze was an unfortunate (and perhaps unintended) form of white cultural appropriation.
1
This pinkish beige father of a brown daughter has always emphasized the beauty of her natural hair. It needn't be coaxed into any other form or texture because it's her gift from Gd and is perfect just as it is.
4
The article was full of great ideas which I hope can become a reality, but In the real world, rejection of black hair seems to be stronger than ever, especially within our teens and young women. New hair technologies, which we black males do not understand, have made it possible for them to acquire the long tresses which they feel makes them beautiful.
2
Maybe it’s because I am a child of the seventies but I always loved the natural Afros of that time. People look beautiful in many hair styles but the easiest less fussy seems to always be the way to go. That said your hair style or color, like your clothes, is yours to do whichever you feel. You’ll look great no matter which you choose. Self expression is something very important, whether to go natural or have green hair. Enjoy and don’t put so much fretting into it.
16
So condescending! Telling her to enjoy and don't put so much fretting into it! She's not fretting, she's writing an article
3
Great column! Hair, hair styles, and hair care are endlessly fascinating topics. Expressions in Hair represent so much about the cross-currents of what we're born with and what we're willing or unwilling to conform to Outside The House. Broadening the definitions and depictions of beauty in all media outlets is very welcome.
The celebration of the natural shape, curl, color, and choice of hair length is long overdue. Friends of a certain age with long, curly hair (exuberant!) who do not bind it back have been chastised by office managers as unprofessional (subdue it!) Enough of that.
13
My mother and I transitioned from relaxed to natural in 2004. My daughters followed suit in 2007 and 2009.
Reuniting with one’s natural hair is an amazing experience. For black women, embracing our natural hair IS a political act. What other women on this earth have to contend with the possibility of violating an employer’s human resources policy because of the hair that grows out of their head.
It’s also pretty cool to approach your hair as art. I’ve been as bald as drop-dead gorgeous Danai Gurira. I’ve worn Afro puffs, adorned my hair with combs and fabric, created intricate twists. And now, as I approach 60, I’m trying something new, that involves some tricky moves with the clippers—another nod to Ms. Gurira. Wakanda, forever!
51
As a little Jewish girl growing up with "frizzy" hair in the early 60s, I became friends with the black girls in my class, the only group that didn't mock me for my hair. Over 50 years later, I still vividly remember us all wishing we could marry white boys, so our children would have straight hair.
34
I think everyone covets the hair they don't have. My two younger sisters have opposite hair types - one with stick straight hair and one with small tight curls.
I have wavy, frizzy hair, which requires more work that I'm willing to put into it to look good by accepted cultural standards. But it was the tight curls that I coveted, not the stick straight hair.
8
After I submitted my previous post, I realized that I wanted to add one more thing. As a white woman in academia, I realize that I have the privilege of being able to wear untamed tresses, and ditto for the way I dress. If anything, it fits with the stereotype of nerdy female scientist.
That said, I greatly appreciate that my fellow female academics who are also people of color have to walk a more careful path in terms of self-presentation.
4
You're so right! I'm a nearly completely bald man. A six inch scar on my scalp from surgery long ago keeps from feeling cool about my exposed cranial skin. So I'd be happy to have anybody's hair!
When you're beautiful on the inside you can't help but be beautiful on the outside. But beauty on the outside is no guarantee of what's inside. So be careful out there.
18
There are plenty of physically unattractive people who are "beautiful on the inside". In fact probably more beautiful and admirable, because of the discrimination they face.
1
I started wearing my hair natural in 1969 and except for a few years when I started strengthening it again, I have been natural ever since. The 1980's was a difficult time for me because a lot of Black men refused to date a Black woman who didn't straighten her hair, so ironically, I oftentimes dated white men during that period of my life. I'm 70 years old now and it's really great to see the pendulum swinging back to those glorious Black is Beautiful days. No one looks like us on the planet and we should celebrate who we are. Always and forever.
125
Sing it, sister!
3
I want all people's to 'rise'. Economics is a spot too many of us avoid: tax policies, tax rates, wages, benefits, housing policies, health care policies, social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. There is our greatest challenge.
Let's talk straight about wealth, property, power. I'm from Arkansas, I know that many 'white' people struggle in poverty. Anyone in poverty is one too many. Here is our fight.
Wear your beautiful hair exactly as you want. Be exactly who you are. And, help us create a society of equals; with no poverty, and, possibly, out of economic necessity, none with billions and billions.
27
I am grateful for this beautiful article. I also wish we as woman would throw off the burden and financial expense of repeatedly coloring our hair for decades. This addiction to appearing young has its' costs.This idea of good gray or bad gray is another way the female beauty industry promots their products over the #1-health of the environment - hair dye is very toxic and #2 the toxic idea that women are not beautiful as they age. When I went totally gray at age 45 I knew I would never ever hear again, "Oh, you look so young!" I have been longing to hear, "Oh you look so wise!" Being judged by what's inside my eyes, which are a window to my soul. I am 65 years old and I've always loved Afros.
88
Silver is beautiful!
https://therighthairstyles.com/20-gorgeous-hairstyles-for-gray-hair/5/
1
Whatever. Fortunately, everyone has a right to (try to) do what they want with their own body/hair.
I love my gray hairs, but as a blonde, they still barely show through. At 62 I'm still waiting to have the lovely silvery hair my grandmother (the one with the Swedish genes) had when I was young.
"high school teachers who said their hair was blocking others’ view of the board"
That made my heart hurt.
47
There was a time when Black women were routinely fired for wearing braids, so I applaud Black women and mainstream society’s acceptance of a diversity of hair styles.
I have always been bothered by the importance we Black women put on hair. The energy, money, time and worry spent on hair is unnecessary. Many, like the writer, are weighing down style with too much meaning. What is on someone’s head is not a true indicator of what is in her head. It is an injustice to assign ideological labels based on a woman’s chemically-treated hair or natural hair. Natural hair is not a sign of political intention. Hairstyle is a design choice. Politics is demonstrated by actions.
44
Agreed. I have been natural for about 5 years after having relaxed hair all my life. At the time I transitioned and for a long time after that it was a political statement for me, but these days it has become less so. I spend way too much time on my hair (read: entire Saturday), it is so tightly coiled I am unable to properly manage and style it, and it breaks off so easily. I’ve reached the point where it’s no longer political for me, I just want my hair to be easily manageable, I’m going to straighten it one of these days.
3
Not necessary? Again, felling people what to do and how to feel rarely works, especially when you are basing your recommendation on your completely different experience. We spend long hours on our hair 1. Because we want to create beautiful styles that last and 2. Because I’m certain lengths, that’s what our hair requires. Before shampoo brands tricked white women into thinking they had to wash their hair daily, white women also had a wash day every week and went to the salon and spent hours styling. Did you disapprove of the time your grandma spent going to the salon and getting her hair washed and set once a week?
"P": you want your hair to be "easily manageable?" Just get a good cut. Closely cropped hair allows black women to confidently exude our femininity!
8
It's wonderful that black women are learning to love their natural hair.
But for the record, curiosity above other hair textures is universal. As a white female who was lived many years in both Southeast Asia and Africa, I can't count the number of times someone has reached out to touch my or my daughters' hair. My very fair youngest was especially a target.
We learned not to take offense or get upset. Most of these people would have only ever seen blond hair on TV and so the curiosity to see how different it might feel is quite understandable.
81
I hope my reading of your implied message is wrong. It sounds very much as if you think that the superficial similarities of your situation to that of blacks in America (i.e. being a visible minority) make the two analogous. It also sounds as if you think African Americans should be devoting more of their energies to "learn[ing] not to take offense or get upset". I hope for your sake that is not the case.
Learning how to stop hating oneself, and learning how to deal with a society that seeks to deform and annihilate you in a multitude of ways - these are not the same as simply being an object of innocent if ignorant curiosity. Whiteness, and anything that connotes whiteness (e.g. speaking English), confers privilege the world over.
7
Again, everyone is different...but it would not occur to me to walk up to anyone and touch their hair or person without their permission. Because you are interested or intrigued by or in something does not confer permission to touch or investigate it particularly on a human being. I don't go into banks and because of my interest in money feel empowered to touch their money or that of other customers...and I dare say if I did I would receive much more than am awkward look.
5
Unwanted touching is always disconcerting, even without the racial undertones that exist in the US. I have blond, curly hair, and when I was living in Mexico City years ago, children (and even some adults) would touch my hair when I was taking the Metro.
As an elderly straight haired white woman, I have never understood why black people want to straighten their hair. For quite a while in the 80's, when naturals were in style, I, along with many friends, got perms to get as close to it as we could, but as soon as they grew out a couple of months, not good. I guess it's hard to keep, but an Angela Davis look is magnificent! Go for it!
11
I think of the childhood story of The Ugly Duckling who discovers that he/she is not ugly at all, but was actually a beautiful swan. I see so many stunning heads of hair on black people, both on and off campus.
12
The author would do well to read Herbert Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man." He said that the "establishment" or "ruling class" tends to co-opt or takeover that which was once radical or progressive.
Example: Long Hair Among white men in the 1960's. At first, it was associated with rebellion and deviation from convention. By the early 1970's it appeared on dumb situation comedies such as "The Partridge Family," in which David Cassidy sported long locks that were denuded of all rebelliousness. The long hair of the beatniks and the anti-war demonstrators became pretty, sculpted and dometicated and started to look a lot like Karen Carpenter. By 1972, silly people might express their fidelity to the "New Left" by going to a mall, to visit a head shop and get one's hair done, instead of working for George Mc Govern or any one of a number of real world endeavors.
I agree with Angela Davis more than the author. One's hair style is usually more about fashion and a fickle sense of what is chic, or contemporary or anything but what is enduring or meaningful.
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Why would she have to read Marcuse when she has already articulated the very simple dialectic that you describe?
How is Angela Davis more right on? Signifiers, such as long hair, are unmoored from what they signify. If they were not, language would be impossible.
In other words, Plato was wrong: meaning is not based on eternity and essence, but on difference and substitution.
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I agree.
It would be interesting to see a photographic essay of the evolution of choices made by former FLOTUS Michelle Obama over her lifetime.
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I’m an African-American woman who has worn natural hair for the last three years. I readily admit my motivation was not political. I simply wanted freedom from long hours I the hairdresser’s chair and the expense. We should not deny that this is simply a hairstyle for many if not most. Read the many natural hair care blogs. The emphasis is often on growing long hair - a persistent emulation of white beauty standards.
Perhaps what this moment needs is a revival of the musical "Hair," only this time with an all-Black actor cast. And lots of great Black Hair!
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Africa is a huge continent made up of 55 nations and perhaps 2,000-3,000 tribes, each with its own culture, dialect and hair styles. It takes only a quick search on Google images of "tribal African hair styles" to reveal this astonishing and inspirational variety. Interestingly, none of the thousands of Google images of tribal hairstyles I saw resembled the style called the Afro, which became popular in the US and some other areas in the 1960s and 1970s; I would like to know more about the history and evolution of the Afro.
It seems likely that the Black Panther movie will stimulate new interest in "natural" hairstyles as expression of individual and political identity, though what constitutes "natural" of course varies enormously across cultures, tribes and individuals. All cultures, ethnic groups and tribes modify their hair; let's celebrate and appreciate that diversity and creativity.
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It's very simple: modifying your looks as an expression of endogenous culture, or even transcultural emulation, is normal and healthy; modifying your looks because you have been taught to be ashamed of your own body is not.
Yes, we can get very philosophical about the tacit assumptions packed within words like "natural". But once we get over our Moorean moment, we might want to remember that such words do give expression to areas of our experience that we find normal (oops, there's another one) and valid (gosh, darn it!).
Many kinds of hair style can reasonably called "natural." Ones that take lye, perm chemicals, or hours of ironing cannot.
Love reading this and celebrating girls and women finding in themselves and their hair, something more powerful than the unhealthy narrow white-dominated advertising culture messages that devalue what nature gives. I loved Viola Davis letting her hair flow at the Golden Globes and other public displays of women taking charge of their image. Can't wait to explore the links in this essay. At the same time I'm confused hearing the words "nappy" or "kinky" to characterize hair that is natural and beautiful in all of its expressions. As a white women who probably doesn't understand I hope these words become a thing of the past.
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As a 30-something white woman who lived in N.C. from 1976 to 1983 I was shocked by the blatant racism I encountered. In my own small ways I tried to get in the face of those ignorant racist southeners. i encouraged my children to cultivate friendships among kids of any color, sent my 2 year old son to a day care in wbich he was only one of a handful of white toddlers, and was proud to wear an Afro! i absolutely loved it and felt I was
making as much of a statement as I was able. Here I am 35 years later, an old white woman back in the "Heartland", and I absolutely love and covet the hairstyles worn by women of color in the 21st century! I am so envious of the beauty and freedom of the hairstyles our sisters are wearing today! God bless!
P.S. I sure miss that Afro!
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Nappy and kinky are only negative if people perceive them to be so. I have very kinky and nappy hair. It is my genetic birthright, and I am proud of it.
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Hello. Nappy and kinky and descriptive words which of themselves do not have to possess a negative connotation. Many black people no longer attach negativity to these words. Just like the word “black”....
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I am twisting my hair as I read this article! I love living in this time, with so many hair options. I remember Alice Walker saying somewhere that hair is a God given plaything. These days, I wish I had the freedom of playing with colors as well (alas employee manuals leave me in the 'natural hair color' lane). Black women have and continue to spend many years of hours in front of mirrors, with water, jell or hair grease or product, 3-4 combs, 2-3 brushes, trying to do things to our hair that are both beautiful and reasonably socially acceptable for our workplace, elders and partners. If only you knew about the many tears have been shed and esteem hampered by our struggles with our 'good' and 'bad' hair. Lest anyone claim otherwise, wearing or dealing with natural hair is as expensive and stress laden as any other hair choice and reflects a person's current choice and interest more than being 'woke.' When it comes to hair, it is a great time to love this gift from God of our ebony grace.
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I am a white female who attended high school between 1972 and 1976. I still recall the Afros and cornrows worn by my classmates. They were stunning and vibrant. It has hurt my heart these many years since to see so many black women straightening their hair. But I do understand why, and it is clearly not my place to comment. Thank you for writing this piece. the photos of Afro Art are absolutely gorgeous. I am sincerely hopeful this is part of a movement that will grow and last. More empowerment, more self love, more healing. It needs to happen.
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Also a white woman who graduated 1972, and my yearbook is full of amazing afros. We had a "best afro" category each year -- I marked the winner in the yearbook.
But I understand the conflict as well as anyone, because I have very frizzy hair and have never worn it natural. I use taming products after washing and supplement with periodic blowouts. Who am I to judge?
Aesthetics are variable over time and culture this is true, and becoming comfortable with yourself is part of growing up. Lessening ones need to be a follower is part of maturity and brings freedom from various rat race ruts we can fall into. I recall having been a dedicated hippie by appearance, and the freedom when I found long hair unnecessary, to be me. Looks are important and always have been, but not definitive. Socrates, according to the Oracle at Delphi, was the wisest man who ever lived. He is also reported to have also been perhaps the homeliest. On balance we don't remember him for his looks.
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i love this article. I have a Jewfro. My hair grows horizontally. It is part of me but has a life of its own, i am a human barometer. I wanted to have Cher hair but I don't. I have learned to respect my hair. Every day, I negotiate and compromise and let my hair fulfill its natural destiny. i cannot control it and it cannot control me. Thanks to "product", we have reached an accomodation. I am me and my hair asserts its own identity. Every day is a surprise but when the stars are in alignment, we and our separate selves are satisfied with that the world sees us as we see ourselves.
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Mazel tov, Susan !
Self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-acceptance and a little self-celebration goes a long way.
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