2 Reasons We Still Don't Take Kindly to Black Women With Natural Hair
#2. You want black women to follow in the footsteps of a white woman
It happened again.
The moment I entered the room, the hairs on the back of my neck stood. They couldn’t take their eyes off me. One white woman outright asked me, “Why are you wearing your afro hair in a professional setting?”
I felt naked.
You would not expect a feminist space to look down on a black woman, would you? And yet, there I was in Montreal, Canada, participating in a feminist seminar with a few black women and mostly white women.
I got the feeling I shouldn’t have worn my afro hair in the seminar.
I got the feeling everybody was looking down on me just because my hair was not straight.
Even though my thick, unruly hair is my own, even though it’s nobody’s business how I wear my hair, they kept on staring entranced, as if frozen in copra hypnosis. They made my hair their business. Their own.
Even though I love my hair, I wanted to chop it off from my head. So this wouldn’t happen again. So my hair does not become a gossip, a curiosity, a thing they can’t relate to but make it a hot topic of discussion in the middle of a feminist seminar.
So they would leave my hair alone.
We’ve heard it all.
“Your hair is wild,” a white colleague said that to a friend at a recent zoom meeting, oblivious to her discomfort.
From “Is that really your natural hair?” to “Can I touch it?”, from “How long does your hair take to look like that?” to “How much are you paying to maintain your hair?”, from “You would be more beautiful if you straighten your hair,” to “Leave your afro hair at your front hair. It does not belong in a professional setting.”
We’ve heard the most uncomfortable, the most embarrassing, the most demeaning, and outrageous comments on our hair.
The movement towards natural hair is encouraging.
But…
We still don’t take kindly to black women with natural hair. We still don’t see a black woman’s afro or cornrow or braid (even though these styles in white women are called original) as authentic.
If you say, “It’s just hair. Why are you making a big deal about your hair?” I’ll give you 2 reasons.
These reasons hide sinister thoughts on why we still don’t take kindly to black women with natural hair.
Here we go:
1. You want to control black women’s identity through our hair
For centuries, our bodies have been appetizers for a white man’s gaze. They’ve been used. Exploited. Vilified. We had no right to our own bodies. We had no say in what we wanted or didn’t want. We muffled our cries, our wails for every transgression, for every crime committed on our bodies.
For every unwanted vile touch.
Even though the chattel slavery is over, to some white men, our bodies are not our own.
My white male readers are going to be outraged when they read that statement. How dare you say this, I can hear them asking? I dare because some white men are predators. Some white men stalk a black woman and refuse to take no for an answer. Some white men touch our hair without our consent. “Why are you making a fuss about your hair?” they say when we tell them to remove their wandering hands from our heads.
This mentality to touch what’s not yours but what you consider as yours is the same mentality that raises your hand to touch our hair without our consent.
This is why touching our hair without our consent or commenting on our hair is so much more than fulfilling your curiosity.
It’s about everything.
It’s about our identity. It’s about wanting to control our identity through our hair. It’s about our history. Our ancestors who fought for black women’s freedom. So we can have a say in our bodies. So we can wear our hair in any way we like.
2. You want black women to follow in the footsteps of a white woman
I can’t tell you the number of times a white colleague or client told me, “You’d be more beautiful if you straighten your hair.”
No thanks.
Done that. Burning the blackness from my hair in my 20s has left me with hot amber of regret. Now, older and wiser, I prefer wearing my natural hair.
You’ve probably seen the online video of two white girls having a fit when they received black dolls for Christmas. Everybody wants the white doll. Slim. Eyes, the color of the ocean. Straight, blond hair. Hair the wind loves to swirl. Hair everybody envies.
Let’s be honest here.
We still don’t think a black woman who wears her natural hair is beautiful. When we wear our natural hair, you stand in our front doors and judge us. You pressure us to follow the model of white female beauty standards. The straighter our hair, the more beautiful we are. The more acceptable we are.
How utterly horrid.
Becoming the judge, the jury, and the executioner on who and what is beautiful is deciding who and what is beautiful. It’s flaunting white beauty standards. It’s deciding a white beautiful woman is the standard for every woman’s beauty. It’s molding every woman of color to this standard.
Look at the mainstream media:
We’re still celebrating a slim white woman with blond hair. It’s not that we shouldn’t celebrate a white woman’s beauty. It’s that you’re measuring and tailoring and appropriating women of color. You’re making our beauty choices your choices.
You’re taking control of our bodies.
Again.
In the meantime, no one is asking why our natural hair isn’t called beautiful. No one is talking about the harmful effects of using hair relaxers. No one is talking about the burn on our scalps when we use hair relaxers. No one is talking about the tightening of our entire bodies when the hairstylist uses chemicals to straighten our hair. We’re not talking about the tremendous amount of duress both black girls and women put themselves under to look “good”.
Leave our hair alone.
Put yourself in a moment when you commented on a black woman’s hair or touched her hair without her consent. Put yourself in that moment. Think. What’s going through your head? Be honest. Why are you touching someone’s hair without their consent? Would you let someone touch your hair? Your daughter’s hair?
How would you feel?
Want to be an ally to black women?
Embrace our natural hair. Don’t tailor it. Don’t appropriate it. Don’t touch it without our consent.
Leave our hair alone.