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Race Relations 101 – Let’s start with hair.

Magniloquence

(“Race Relations 101” isn’t exactly the title I’m looking for. Suggestions for better things to call this series would be much appreciated.)

The issues surrounding “ethnic” hair in general, and black hair specifically, come up pretty frequently in discussions about people’s experiences of race. It intersects with feminist concerns about beauty culture, hierarchies and colonial issues, and the difficulty of conveying lived experiences, to name a few issues. I’ll start with those, and work out from there.

This is going to be slanted toward the issue of black hair, both because I myself am black (well, black-Japanese, but I definitely have stereotypically black hair), and because much of what I’ve found that has focused on hair has been in that vein. If anyone has come across (or written) anything they would like to have included (particularly on the issue of asian hair, which I find least mentioned), please comment about it or otherwise let me know so that I can add it in.

White hair stories are also welcomed, but I would like to preserve this space for those that truly intersect with the issues laid out. If you have a story that you would like to share, but which does not really hit any of the major issues I lay out, please leave it in my Open Thread. If I get enough stories, I will write up a corresponding post about that over at Feline Formal Shorts.

Lived experience.

For me, hair is one of the easiest, most tangible ways to start talking about difference. I have kinky hair that I currently wear in something approximating an afro, and even though I didn’t start wearing my hair naturally until I graduated from high school, its texture and needs have always set me off as different from my peers. People ask you stupid questions: “did you stick your tongue in a light socket?” “Can you brush it?” “Is that really all your hair?” “Do you ever wash it?” … like what’s coming out of your head is something completely alien.

So… even though it feels a little silly, that’s the first thing I think about when people are talking about why “diversity based on skin color” is irrelevant. Setting aside all of the merits, all the reasons why race can’t be reduced to skin color and why those arguments are dumb… setting aside all of that, I can’t help but think of my hair. Because how can you feel like you’re all the same when people don’t even know that you use a brush just like they do?

This seems to be the core of the hair issue – our day to day lives are different because our hair is different. Things some people take as a given (that you could theoretically just toss your hair up in a ponytail without spending much time on it, for example) don’t work the same way. Our hair has consequences, it has weight, it has quirks… and it impacts our lives. That’s why it’s important, and that’s why people get bristly (forgive the word choice) when it comes up.

History, colonialism, and hierarchy

You can’t really process all the complexities of the lived experience without also appreciating the damages done by our histories of conquest and colonialism. Ask any brown person (and heck, most white people), and they can point out the “good” hair. Good hair isn’t curly (and if it is, they’re big, soft, well-defined curls, not small ‘frizzy’ ones). Good hair isn’t ethnic.

These are terms we use ourselves, terms we have internalized. My sisters have “good” hair. Unlike mine, theirs is long and curly, cascading past their shoulders in waves, neatly obeisant to gravity. My hair is nappy. Kinky. Coarse. And while I like it just fine, I can’t tell you how many times I wished I had hair like that.

It’s a complicated thing. There’s a lot of history involved. There’s colonialism (whiter is better because they came and they were in charge), class (whiter is better because it means you have the time and money to pursue that beauty ideal), and the everyday hierarchies of a place (long hair means this, short hair means that, this is what we do for ceremonies, to dress up, to express who we are).

Beauty Culture

These hierarchies that spring up, though, don’t simply have racial lines. They are, of course, also very much a part of the beauty culture that feminists engage. What does it mean as a woman to have to straighten your hair to be accepted? We cut, dye, press, perm, blow-dry, curl, weave, braid, twist, loc, scent, condition, wash, and style our hair with certain things understood. How much of your self do you have to shave away to become patriarchy approved? As a brown woman, can you ever really fit? How much of what you do is to attract a man? How much of what you do is just to avoid harassment?

The issues are the same, because we are women too. We struggle with beauty culture. We struggle to find ourselves. We struggle to be ourselves.

But the issues are also different. I listened to a white girl railing against shampoo ads one day. She said “nobody needs to shampoo twice before rinsing; it’s just a scam to get you to buy more shampoo.” She insisted that you could properly care for your hair by just rinsing it, and maybe splashing on some shampoo when it was really dirty. Conditioner was frivolous. And I thought… but what about my hair? I know those things aren’t necessary the way they’re advertised, but kinky hair has different needs from straight hair. Curves are brittle. Conditoner (or hot oil, or cholesterol, or whatever) is important to keep it from breaking.

How does expressing your cultural heritage (locs take maintenance; braids take absurd amounts of time; keeping a neatly shaved head is a constant effort, if a relatively small one) intersect with beauty culture? How do you reconcile different penalties for nonconformity?

Hair issues are necessarily intersectional issues. They overlap many of the essential beauty culture problems, but they are also their own problems. What do you do about insistence on unprocessed hair as a marker of authenticity? What do you do with the icky classist/racist undertones in the admonishments one might hear about a black girl with a weave? Different, but the same.

Ally work

So… if it’s different, but the same, how on earth do you approach that as an ally? Is it okay to talk about hair? Is it really all that important? How can I avoid putting my foot in my mouth?

Mostly, you ask. Like any other touchy subject, particularly one with which you might not be terribly familiar, the best thing is to sit back and listen, then ask questions. Being respectful and patient will get you a long way. I know that’s not very helpful right now, but it’s the most useful thing I can think of.

So that’s the overview. For the details, you’ll want to look at these links. I’d thought to sprinkle them in the above sections, but … they all bleed into each other. The issues aren’t generally separated out the way I put them up there, and this is easier. Look below for a list of things you can read to get you better acquainted with the way people blog about (and understand) hair.

Blog posts

“Good Hair Day” – Pam Spaulding

“Good Hair, Kinky Hair” – The Angry Black Woman

After all, talking about black people’s hair isn’t just a matter of finding a good style or a good dresser or a good product. It’s also about how we as black people feel about how our hair looks in its natural state and what we do based on those feelings. It’s also about how American society and culture (read: white folks) feels about what black people do with their hair. If you don’t think that black people’s hair isn’t a battleground for issues of race and culture and assimilation and bigotry, you haven’t been paying attention to the news.

“What do you call that?” – Magniloquence

It’s not just knowing you’re being looked at, it’s knowing you’re being looked at, measured against all manner of stereotypes, and weighed not just as you, not just as a black person, or a woman, or even just as a black woman, but as a person that reflects directly on your specific community, your specific family, and in greater part, on everyone who looks like you or acts like you or is affiliated with people who look and act like you ever.

It was knowing that when my grandmother worried about the way I looked, she wasn’t just measuring me against her internal aesthetic and finding me wanting, but knowing in her bones that if I didn’t look and act flawlessly, I would be disadvantaged. It was knowing that even though my aversion to certain styles smacked of internalized racism, it was also navigating the paths available to me; even if I personally rejected the coding “ghetto,” anything I did or said with that taint would carry. It was knowing that as me-my-mother’s-daughter, me-my-grandmother’s-grandchild, me-a-member-of-my-church, that every single one of my choices would be scrutinized and applied back, talked about if they weren’t right, and used.

Don Imus: Rutgers women’s basketball team ‘nappy-headed hos’ – Sheelzebub (? Link credits her, but all “I” links go to Pam’s House Blend)

This isn’t about School Daze and socio-political commentary; this is about Imus and Co. demeaning those women using a common racist denigration of hair texture — nothing more needs to be telegraphed — kinky hair=bad, ugly, animalistic, straight hair=good, attractive. And to top it off, those nappy-headed gals at Rutgers are therefore ‘hos as well. Nice.

And people wonder why so many black women have a complex about their hair, gooping it up with nasty lye relaxers, frying their scalp with hot combs? The self-loathing is so culturally ingrained, so pathological, and it’s reinforced by the messages like the ones Imus and friends are having a great laugh over. It’s toxic and ignorant.

“Black denial” – Miami Herald

SANTO DOMINGO — Yara Matos sat still while long, shiny locks from China were fastened, bit by bit, to her coarse hair.

Not that Matos has anything against her natural curls, even though Dominicans call that pelo malo — bad hair.

But a professional Dominican woman just should not have bad hair, she said. “If you’re working in a bank, you don’t want some barrio-looking hair. Straight hair looks elegant,” the bank teller said. “It’s not that as a person of color I want to look white. I want to look pretty.”

“Boortz: Rep. McKinney “looks like a ghetto slut” – Media Matters

On the March 31 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Neal Boortz said that Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) “looks like a ghetto slut.” Boortz was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney’s “new hair-do” makes her look “like a ghetto slut,” like “an explosion at a Brillo pad factory,” like “Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence,” and like “a shih tzu.” McKinney is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.

“Let’s Bury ‘Good Hair'” – Black Voices

Let’s talk about the term “good hair.”

You’ve either grown up hearing it all your life from relatives, friends and beauticians because you have “it”, or you’ve heard the opposite such as, “Your hair won’t do that because you don’t have ‘good hair.'” I am in the latter category. I can recall being seven years-old and spending the night over my cousin’s house. The next day my aunt was helping me get ready for church and while brushing my hair, said disgustedly, “You have such nappy hair, child.”

“Racial Variations” – New Hair Institute
(Discusses the different ‘types’ of hair from a more-or-less scientific standpoint. A very good base for the words people use and their real-world meanings, even if it doesn’t actually touch on the issues resulting from those differences.)

WHERE WE LIVE: East Bay hair salons grow business by catering to Latino community

Dolores Valezquez of Pittsburg talked about her job as Bertha Osoria painted chunks of her hair with a white paste, covering them with foil until the metallic strips fanned around her head like a lion’s mane.

“They are good people. We talk about work. How we have been. Mexico,” Valezquez said in Spanish.

Latinos make up most, but not all of their clientele, said Maria Gonzalez, Latino’s Hair Salon owner.

“Our hair is different than American people’s,” Gonzalez said. “We have coarse hair. For white people, it’s very easy to do highlights. For us it’s harder.”

Whew! That was pretty long. And not entirely 101. Was it helpful to any of you? Are there issues you’d like to see fleshed out a bit more? Do you have any links you think would help make this clearer? Tell me below.

56 thoughts on Race Relations 101 – Let’s start with hair.

  1. http://www.ablackgirl.com/blog/2007/04/black-hair-white-fetish-part-i.html
    http://www.ablackgirl.com/blog/2007/04/black-hair-white-fetish-part-ii.html

    This is a long one. It’s broken up into two parts. This is part one.

    So, here we are again: back to Black women’s hair. Somehow with war, genocide, AIDS, and any other number of things threatening the lives of humans (mostly of color) on this planet we come back to the issue of Black women’s hair.

    Recently, Don Imus was thankfully fired from his post at WNBC for referring to the women of Rutger’s basketball team as “nappy headed hos.” This statement was of course followed by a media frenzy that included an interesting twist: blaming hip hop for the source of Don Imus’ comfort with saying “nappy headed hoe.” As if, somehow, white men weren’t saying derogatory things about Black women’s hair and sexuality before the onslaught of hip hop in the 1970s. This also comes up as the boys from the Duke lacrosse team are released from charges of rape of a Black woman. Let’s not act like the shit ain’t linked. I could go there. I could go down the road of how Imus’ invocation of hip hop is purely a way to distract attention from himself, and dissemble what could be a fruitful conversation about the U.S. American audience’s complacency for violence verbal or physical against Black women’s bodies. But I want to stay on a topic that seems benign in all of this. The issue of Black women’s sexuality is certainly hot, and certainly needs healing. (For Black women in the DC metro area, please contact me, as I will be having a circle on May 3rd to discuss issues around the body for Black women.) I am going to talk about that. But first, I would like to make a small observation.

    So Don Imus gives us the double whammy of referencing Black women’s hair, and Black women’s sexuality in one poignant moment that reveals, I would argue the psychological underpinnings of U.S. American fears, fetishes, whatever of Black women’s hair… (go to links for more)

  2. “Good” hair had a totally different meaning in my childhood. It meant thick hair instead of fine hair (ideally thick and at least somewhat wavy hair, since nearly everyone in my family had hair without the least trace of a curl). I had “good” hair, and that seemed to mean that I needed to spend more time brushing it, and actually did need to shampoo twice before rinsing; “good” didn’t mean easier to care for, but it did mean prettier.

    It was only when I got old enough to read the autobiography of Malcolm X that I first started to realize that “good” hair could have an entirely different meaning.

  3. I admit openly, my hair is practically a hobby — and the best kind, a low-low-low maintenance hobby. 🙂 I’m much more into hairtoys, hairsticks, the history of hairstyles, as well as any interesting toy that can hold up the entire enormous mop by itself. (Hairsticks == of Heaven. My hairtoys have to be frigging load-bearing.)

    And I had to learn how to deal with it — I’m Italian, which means essentially that my hair is identical to Latina hair: coarse, thick, extremely dark, unhighlightable (although the only time I ever did bleach a streak it was promptly dyed royal purple), and extremely curly under the nape. I was very surprised to learn that black woman also have a near-mythos built up about the difficulty of handling nape hair, where it’s extremely coarse and curly, and mats easily.

    So I do confess to curiosity about how one does take care of very tightly curled hair. Hell, I don’t use a brush! Ever. Brushes are death to thick, dry, coarse hair — combs and picks are it for me.

    I also still confess surprise that “black hair” is sub-par in some way, even though I also grew up feeling ethnically inferior due to a head of very rebellious non-Marsha-Brady hair. Living in LA did a lot for my own opinion of my hair, when I saw tons of Mexican, Indian, and Pakistani women walking around with drop-dead gorgeous hair that wasn’t thin, perfectly straight, and blonde. But at least I could get “away” from “ugly, frizzy Italian hair.” “You’re hair’s too thick to do that.” “Honey, those barettes aren’t for people with hair like ours.” At least there was an “away” to get to for me.

    And honestly, when I was a kid, it was the late 70s. Every little white girl in school was envious as all hell of the admittedly few little black girls with braids. They swung these heads of beaded, gorgeous, braids and looked just like Donna Summer. God, we drooled.

    I also don’t know how to express curiosity of black women’s haircare without sounding like Clueless White Chick #6,711. But damn it, I really am fascinated by hair. And I know that even as a white woman with non-Barbie hair, it took me until I was 40 years old to learn how to care for it properly. (Washing every day? Are you NUTS? Brushing? AGH.) So yes, I’m curious. And if I go up to you and say, “OMFG, your hair is FANTASTIC,” I really mean it. I’m a hair groupie.

    As Frank-n-Furter observed, “Tender subject.”

  5. I am very white, and I work for a nonprofit teaching free money management classes geared towards low- to moderate-income families. The majority of people who attend our classes are black women.

    During discussions about finding places in our budgets to save money, skipping expensive visits to the beauty salon is often one idea that comes up. But the women in the classes have told me that I don’t understand. That black women *have* to go to the beauty shop and get their hair done. That the expectations for black women and their hair are different than what I’m used to. They don’t have the option to “let their hair go.”

    I don’t know how to respond when I hear this. It’s sad and frustrating to me that they feel so trapped by beauty standards that they’ll spend money they can’t afford and that they’d rather save in order to conform. But, I am in absolutely no position to comment on or criticize the cultural norms they are subject to.

    Any ideas on how to address the issue in a way that’s sensitive and helpful?

  6. Well unfortunately, I can’t contribute much about the requested Asian hair, but I do have very Middle-Eastern hair, and I don’t hear a lot said about that subject. Certainly it doesn’t attract as much scrutiny as some types, but it is absolutely as difficult and complex. In modern Middle-Eastern culture, “good” hair is almost always bleached, highlighted, and/or straightened, despite its natural dark, rich color and insanely voluminous nature. Every attempt is made to make it closer to “white” hair, which, I assure you, is an impossible task. Along the same lines, not much is generally said about the differences between “white” body/facial hair, versus non-“white” body/facial hair, a topic which is very near and dear to the hearts of us Mid-Eastern womenfolk, and quite a few of the furrier menfolk as well.

  7. I would also point out to my white friends that when black folk say perm, we don’t really mean that. It’s a term that’s synonymous with ‘relaxer’. Black folks (well someof us) relax out our natural kink/wave /curls whilst our white sisters perm to get kinks/waves/curls.

    It wasn’t very clear in the post..:)

  8. I am Hispanic.
    Since I can remember, my mom has been taking me to the salon to have my hair chemically straightened. I have frizzy curls, not “beautiful” soft curls like my Scandinavian best friend.

    I finally stopped straightening my hair, because I realized that my mom was doing everything she could to pass me off as a white girl. She refuses to talk about our roots, and if I say I am Hispanic, she’ll snap at me “no, you’re AMERICAN”

    She has been so deathly afraid that he children will be discriminated against that we are now confused and lost adults when it comes to race and culture. I have yet to feel comfortable in my own skin, let alone my own hair.

  9. I would also point out to my white friends that when black folk say perm, we don’t really mean that. It’s a term that’s synonymous with ‘relaxer’. Black folks (well someof us) relax out our natural kink/wave /curls whilst our white sisters perm to get kinks/waves/curls.

    It wasn’t very clear in the post..:)

    Oh! You’re totally right. My context is showing; I’m not used to thinking about perming as anything but relaxing. I think if I tried to curlyperm my hair, it’d explode or something.

  10. During discussions about finding places in our budgets to save money, skipping expensive visits to the beauty salon is often one idea that comes up. But the women in the classes have told me that I don’t understand. That black women *have* to go to the beauty shop and get their hair done. That the expectations for black women and their hair are different than what I’m used to. They don’t have the option to “let their hair go.”

    I don’t know how to respond when I hear this. It’s sad and frustrating to me that they feel so trapped by beauty standards that they’ll spend money they can’t afford and that they’d rather save in order to conform. But, I am in absolutely no position to comment on or criticize the cultural norms they are subject to.

    I’ll admit that I’m not too sure how to deal with that either. Given my experience and a lot of what I’ve read, I agree that it’s not feasible for most black women to ‘let their hair go.’ The biggest part of that is societal – you can get fired or harassed for not having the right hair – but a large part of it is also biological; some kinds of hair are too damaged to handle without expert knowledge, and some kinds of hair are near impossible to deal with if you can’t see the back of your own hair. (And as a person who’s been followed by strangers and family members alike commenting on the evenness and smoothness and symmetry of the parts in the back of my head and anything else done there, I can attest to that.)

    My inclination is to work with them and see about alternate structures. If they have the time, find someone to teach them how to do the basics for their own hair – how to use a hot comb without burning themselves or breaking their hair, how to maintain a relaxed hairstyle without too much damage, how to create relatively-low-maintenance styles that will get them through more days before going to the stylist. Most people know these things already; they just need permission (and perhaps some polish) to find their skills equivalent.

    That said, there are also factors of time (braiding my hair takes 8+ hours), money (a good hotcomb is a good investment, but you still need oils and conditioners, not to mention curling irons, setting sprays, and all manner of other things, not to mention paying for the hair if you want extensions or a weave), energy and skill – it may actually be more economically feasible to just go to the stylist (perhaps in conjunction with changes to extend time between visits) than to do it on your own.

  11. I have to say, working in my current job, I’m learning more about African hair than I ever thought was possible. The majority of my coworkers are African-Americans, and the majority of them straighten their hair (the women, anyway.) But my technician is growing her hair natural, the loose curls style, and it looks amazing on her. Sometimes she pulls it back, other times she wears it loose. Thankfully, we don’t have fashion editors here saying that “political” hairstyles are a no-no.

    Sometimes we talk about hair. Usually it comes up in conversations about other things, like when another coworker is considering cutting off her hair and going natural, but she’s afraid of how it would look until it grew in. I do my best not to ask stupid questions, but I can’t swear I never do.

  12. Hair is a great place to begin this conversation.

    I was a hairstylist for a year or so. A few things I noticed:

    1. The cosmetology training and exam was mostly designed for working with white hair. For example, finger waves and marcel irons are taught, but more time is spent on others things. And they never taught us how to braid, if we wanted to learn we just learned it from each other.

    2. People trust their hairstylists more than their therapists. When they’re in the chair, getting their hair done, they will tell you anything. It’s really weird, but I think part of it comes from a comfort that ‘if you know my hair, you know me.’

    3. I’m white and have curly hair. When I straighten it, people take me more seriously. I get more compliments when I straighten my hair. I also feel more in control. When I control my frizzy, curly hair, I feel more in control of my life.

    4. People have wacky theories about hair, just like their wacky theories about other aspects of race.

  13. “I don’t know how to respond when I hear this. It’s sad and frustrating to me that they feel so trapped by beauty standards that they’ll spend money they can’t afford and that they’d rather save in order to conform. But, I am in absolutely no position to comment on or criticize the cultural norms they are subject to.”

    Tell them to cut back on the cable bill instead. Seriously, the salon is not just about conforming to beauty standards, it’s often a female only safe space and a support network.

    I wasn’t kidding when I said people open up to their stylists like they do to their therapists. The salon can be therapy.

  15. It’s always fascinating to me to hear other people talk about how hair like mine is “good” hair even though I’ve hated it and wanted to change it pretty much my whole life. I have that stick-straight, shiny, fine hair that everyone is supposed to want, but I always felt pressured to make it curly, or at least wavy, or at least fergawdsakes give it some “body.” At least I have the luxury of saying, “The hell with it” and going with wash-and-wear hair because limp hair doesn’t offend anyone and because I’m white and middle-class.

    I’ve told this story at Pandagon before but, when I was in college, my roommate had her hairdresser friend come to our apartment every couple of weeks and spend hours with the hot comb and relaxers, etc., which was fascinating to me as a sheltered suburban girl from the Midwest.

    It was the early 90s, so she almost always got straightened, slightly flipped hair (not unlike the hairstyle that Condoleeza Rice has). One time, her friend finally talked my roommate into letting her do a slightly different hairstyle, one that was smooth (a little crimped) at the front and fell into soft curls in the back. It was gorgeous. I, with my stick-straight hair, was envious.

    And she hated it. Hated hated hated it. Couldn’t wait for the next hair appointment to get it undone. Because it looked (and I quote) “ethnic.” I didn’t really get what she meant until years later and more experience with the world.

  16. In response to Unruly Duckling, I would say that for your clients it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situtation. This also may be an issue of class, as well.

    Let me try to explain: These women that you work with probably are in low to moderate income type jobs where in order to ‘mainstream’ it is probably easier/drama free to wear relaxed or pressed hair. In order to get a rung up on the economic ladder, one sometimes has to conform. If you are an admin or a front line worker as homogeneous appearance sometimes can be the difference between a job and unemployment. The people who are hiring in those positions are probably not going to hire the sister with the burgundy weave.

    I could at this point in my career go natural with little to no flack. I currently wear my hair relaxed because I’m lazy and often wear ponytails. However, I also have an MBA in finance and work in a professional environment. I have moved up the economic ladder to a point where I don’t feel my livelihood is threatened because some white person doesn’t like my hair. You’d be surprised that for some black women it literally has been like that.

  17. Here’s what I think:

    Hair is to black women as weight is to white women.

    Yes, gross generalization, but one of those that makes SENSE. As a white woman, I have found this to be an immensely helpful way to approach the subject.

    And yes, it does intersect with colonialism. Lots of us (white women) came from ethnic groups in which being BIG was a sign of affluence or plenty, and large women were preferred. Therefore, we are basically fighting our genes and inherited physiology to become very thin, just as black women fight genes and inherited physiology to straighten hair that isn’t supposed to be straight.

    The big difference is that most white women do not see this as colonialist, and most black women have that political consciousness. But I don’t know if this consciousness makes any real difference in the way we all choose to conform to these expectations, or not. (?)

  18. A loaded thing that I discovered I did as a mature white woman with heavy, straight hair…was to grow it. Just grow it out long, as long as it will go, no bangs, no layers, just let it grow.

    It’s at waist-length now, and I’d like to grow it to iliac or even hip or knee length…whatever it’ll do. I would definitely say that having longer hair than is considered fashionable is some kind of a statement, and I’m still working out what society at large reads it as. It’s definitely got a lot of sexuality bound up in it, and that’s always an explosive thing.

    But even there there’s a bit of a financial thing: stylists charge more for the labor of having to trim it, and there’s a distinct difference between seeing someone whose hair tapers off into stringy elflocks and someone who has hair of the same length but has it bluntcut across the bottom. So I’ll be getting the bottom bluntcut soon. Yes, part of it is to remove damage from the previous haircare regimen (mine, whoda thunk, basically wants to be left alone) but part of it is so that I signal a higher class than I do now when I let my hair down.

  19. I’m very white, with waist-length hair. But being a mother in my mid-30s I get one of two reactions. It’s either beautiful or I’m too old to wear my hair that way. After all, moms are supposed to cut their hair short, aren’t they?

    And horrors! I don’t dye the greys.

    I’ve often felt that when it comes to appearance, you can’t win. There’s an ideal, and no one can match it entirely. Harder certainly for the various ethnic types that simply don’t have the ability to meet the standards of beauty without a lot of work.

    I’ve always hoped that more people can learn to ignore the expectations and find their own ways to be beautiful. There are a lot of ways to make hair look great, and they aren’t all the styles most people think about. I like the standout hairstyles that take advantage of what the hair has naturally, whether it’s nappy or straight as can be.

    Oh, and Janis, I’m a hair groupie too. I love my hair sticks and other hair toys!

  20. My ex-boyfriend is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 French. Somehow, the mix gave him big, curly, kinky black hair with Chinese facial features. When he used to wear his hair long in dreadlocks, he was stopped on the street at least once a month by somebody demanding “Is that your real hair?” I guess it’s very shocking to see an Asian person with stereotypically “Black hair.”
    He cut it all off when he started looking for a job because his (white) father convinced him that it looked “unprofessional”. I was sad to see it go, he looks ordinary now.

  21. The thing about the standards isn’t that they’re “hard to meet,” so much that they’re entirely wrong. When I say that I learned how to take care of my own extremely thick, coarse, wavy, “frizzy” dark hair, I don’t mean that I made peace with the fact that I have ugly hair and Will Never Have Beautiful Hair.

    I mean that I found out that what I had, when it wasn’t chopped off in disgust because it didn’t look like Marsha Brady hair, looked damned good when I realized how to take care of it. When I didn’t, it was dry, crackling, bushy, breaking off at the ends, and felt like hay.

    Once I just let it grow and dealt with it the way hair like mine was meant to be dealt with, then damned if it didn’t look fantastic. Now, I get compliments — from extremely white women with glossy, straight hair.

    LA is supposed to be this terrible place for women’s self-esteem, where everyone is perfect and blonde, and in fact, it’s so ethnically and racially diverse that everyone looks like everything. (They’re nuts about weight; that’s their crazy issue.)

    I mean, there had to be a reason when I was little why everyone was idolizing Sofia Loren and Virna Lisi. They “couldn’t meet” the pin-straight blonde hair `Mericano standard, either. But they set their own standard.

    And man. Take that all and multiply it by about a zillion for black women. It’s not that they “can’t meet” the standard. It’s that even the existence of a fixed standard is bull. 🙁

  22. My dad is Latino, my mom is White. I’m light skinned, though my hair is thick and wavy and frizzy. I too, never understood why it didn’t comb as easy as Marsha Brady’s.

    All my life, people have asked me to straighten it. I LIKE my hair frizzy. Aesthetically I like it, and intellectually It’s my way of not conforming. I don’t mind shaving my legs, wearing heels, or makeup, and I love dresses and women’s business suits, but I will not straighten my hair for “fashion.” It’s hard not to take it personally when getting ready to go out my girlfriends want to take an iron to my head.

  23. I’m white (mostly) and I have what I would have assumed from this discussion is very good hair — slightly wavy, not too fine, not too thin, (used to be) a nice color — but the whole time I was a kid, it was obvious that there was something wrong with me. My parents were always trying to fix me, and it was usually my hair that they were trying to fix. I guess a woman can never be all right.

    But I fooled them! I grew up to be a hippy. You can say what you like about hippies, but the degree of acceptance of people, just as they were, was huge, and a huge relief after a childhood of needing “fixing.” It was so good to be okay just as I was, in fact to be better than okay, to be *liked* and *valued.* Never went back.

  24. Unruly, I’m wondering if you might not have a few black women who run salons come in and talk about different care routines, how natural can save you money and still look chic, etc. I don’t know. Like a lot of people have said, it’s a social thing, so you can’t just cut it off cold.

    Hell, some of the women you find and invite in to talk might be great advice-givers for women in the room who might start a business. *shrug*

  25. I wouldn’t for a second try and compare this with your experience, but I thought you might find it amusing. I’m a redhead. This inevitably results in random people making comments about what a hot-headed bitch I must be. Well yeah, NOW.

  26. I’m curious…do black guys have the same feelings about shaving? I know a lot of them get ingrown hairs (i.e., a lot of bumps) if they shave too close, because the follicle doesn’t follow the same path through the skin.

    Once or twice in drugstores, I’ve seen cans of something called (I think) Magic powder, which is apparently a kind of facial depilatory intended for black guys. Yeesh.

  28. Huh. I just wrote a post about an editor for Glamour who got into hot water after she did a presentation about work-appropriate attire at a Manhattan law firm and said that “political” hairstyles like afros and dreadlocks were inappropriate.

    Which I found funny, because I’ve been practicing law in Manhattan for 10 years now, and damn if I don’t see fewer and fewer black women attorneys straightening their hair, or even braiding it.

    Most of what I know about black hair care comes from my best friend in law school, who used to drive from Ann Arbor to Detroit just to get her hair done until she discovered a black hair salon run by a Korean woman who’d recognized the profit potential in black hair care. I didn’t even really ask her any questions — she’s a loquacious person who volunteers stuff. She even found out that the assistant to one of the deans knew how to do black hair even though she was white, because she had two adopted black daughters.

    Me? I was just concerned with trying to find a hairdresser who wouldn’t shave the back of my head when I went in to get my short hair cut.

    Oh, and the girl from camp when I was 12, who lent me her shampoo after we’d been in the pool. I don’t think either of us realized that black hair care products are not meant for white hair. My hair acted weird for days.

  29. Wait a minute zuzu, I am a white woman, very white with red hair. Curly thick red hair and I found that black hair care products work great for my hair. Matter of fact by accident I ended up going to an all black salon down the street from where I was working. (Had a job interview that day and needed my hair tamed, so as I knew the owner I badgered her into seeing me ASAP.) First time my hair ever, and I mean ever looked good, hey I had Marsha hair. I no longer work or live near that salon, but I still go get a “perm” their on a regular basis, and my hair trimed as well as tips on how to care for and stlye my hair. I took me 46 years to discover that I had “black hair” as far as texture goes and that long to find someone to show and teach me how to take care of it with out damaging it.

  30. Ah, your link to eric.ed.gov doesn’t seem to be working, so maybe I can add a few links of my own for some of the history, if’n you don’t mind.

    Black hair was often described as wool, and taken as proof that the difference between blacks and whites wasn’t just mere skin color (as you note). Sometimes people went so far as to say that blacks and whites were completely different species.

    Numerous people (‘Ariel’, James Denson Sayers, and more) tried to prove that the ancient Egyptians, Incas, etc. were “white” because of hair found on mummies, contributing to their myth that only white people make civilization.

    And let me quote from Thomas Gossett’s Race: The History of an Idea in America:

    The structure of human hair has been considered as a possible index to race. Blumenbach attempted to classify races by their hair, but discovered that peoples who resembled one another in other respects differed so much in their hair structure that no racial system of classification was possible. In the 1840’s, Peter A. Browne, a Philadelphia lawyer with scientific interests, invented a variation of the microscope which he called the “trichomete” for measuring the various properties of hair and wool. At first, he was interested in the subject for its commercial possibilities and studied the hair and wool of lower animals. When he came to study human hair, he discovered that there are three kinds–some oval, some cylindrical, and some “eccentrically elliptical.” These three kinds corresponded, he said, to the white race, the Indian race, and the Negro race. “Pile” was the word he coined to describe both hair and wool, and he found that Negro hair was more like wool than like the hair of a white man. Thus, he noted that “the hair of the white man will not felt, but the wool of the Negro will felt.” There was no difference between Negro hair and that of sheep except in “degree of felting power.” This discovery was enough for Browne to proclaim that he had “no hesitancy in pronouncing” that Negroes and whites “belong to two distinct species.” There is an account in a book of the period of a Negro pastor who quieted the fears of his congregation when they had heard this “proof” that they were a different species from the white man. He assured them that they were under the special protection of God, since they were the lambs of the world with wool instead of hair.

  31. Well, razzle, I’d posit that you have hair that doesn’t necessarily fit into the popular image of “white hair.”

    If you’re concerned that I didn’t include your type of hair in the idea of white hair, well — just say that.

    Basically, I have what is typically referred to as “white hair” — while I am not blonde, I have fine, thick, nearly-straight hair. Except for the color, I have what might be referred to as “ideal” hair, if I could stand to grow it long.

    If my hair is what typically fits the “white hair” profile, then it follows that hair-care products not meant for fine, nearly-straight hair, but instead for kinky/curly coarse hair, are not for me.

    In any event, are you trying to tell me that the weird, greasy, slimy effect I got on my hair from using black hair products was some kind of illusion or something I made up?

    Because, again, if that’s what you’re trying to say, spit it out.

  32. Think, razzle just wants to say that even “white hair” can be different from “white hair”. My blonde/red sister can literally dye her hair with colours supposed to be gone after 6-8 times of washing. My hair (dark-brown) has always lost any colour after 4 weeks and was left with a slightly redder shade than before.

    And maybe razzle just experienced what quite a few white woman know, that they’ve tried every product around for their hair but it’s still always cracked and dry.

  33. RE: #12 and #13

    I agree, going to a hair salon / stylist is about more than just the looks. I think another part of it is the sensual pleasure of a scalp massage, the feeling of being pampered.

    In addition, getting a new hairstyle seems to be associated for me and maybe for other women as well with the desire to change one’s life. The times when I was unhappy in a job or a relationship were the times when I drastically altered my hair style.

    This is reflected in those “makeover shows” as well: have you ever seen one that leaves the person’s hair as it was?!?

  34. more noise from a white girl:

    (I blogged about this a while ago, pardon the redundancy)

    I was on the Metro in Washington DC one evening. the car was empty save for me (a white woman in my mid-twenties) and three black men, all Historically Black College students, judging from their clearly labeled backpacks, t-shirts, and greek letters shaved with great care and precision into the backs of their heads. (which should tell you how long ago this was!)

    I was on my way to spend the weekend with the Girl of My Dreams, at long last, and I was desperately trying to get my long, curly, frizzy, tangled, messy, ridiculous, swear-to-god-I’m-gonna-shave-it-all-OFF hair under control before I got off the train.

    it was here that I discovered that my hair is, apparently, culturally ambiguous. as I was wrestling with it all, muttering and probably weeping a little, one of the fellows came up to me and said “I hope this doesn’t come off rude, but…” pregnant pause “are you half-black?”

    “no, not that I’m aware,” I said.

    “is there any black blood in your family?”

    “don’t think so,” I said. I hadn’t ever really thought about it.

    “my sister is half-black. her hair is like that,” he said.

    “huh. what does she do about it?”

    “she goes to the beauty parlor. she gets it done.”

    “I should consider that,” I said. and then my stop came up.

    it never occurred to me that my hair could be sending a mixed cultural message. (I’ve been told all my life that my hair is “weird”, but culturally confused? that was a different angle entirely.)

    these days I work in an office where I am the only white woman among my coworkers.(five black women, 4 Puerto Rican women, one black man, and me) . there is discussion about hair ALL THE TIME. how we fix it, where we go, what we use, who we trust, how much it costs. but I have to say, in most office environments I’ve been in, there’s been pressure to “fix” my hair, cut it, straighten it, make it more “professional”. but not here.

  35. I’m white (with brown hair), and I’ve got big, but tight curls that are sometimes frizzy. It involves being washed and cared for every morning. My boyfriend is black and our problems with hair are virtually the same.

    It’s weird because although it’s considered “bad hair” for so many black people, I’ve always been told mine is gorgeous. Personally, I love it and hate it. I love curly, kinky, fun hair; I hate taking care of it and can understand the want/need to go to a salon.

    Anyway, why do you think the reactions are so different when really the only difference is mine is dark brown, not black and the curls are a larger version of what my boyfriend’s got?

    I apologize ahead of time if my question’s stupid. Although I know of the issues with hair, I am not an expert by any means.

  36. The politics of hair is one of my favorite topics.

    Things I’ve enjoyed have been Kobena Mercer’s writings on hair, including “Black Hair/Style Politics” and others. I’m pretty sure that essay is in Welcome to the Jungle, a worthwhile book regardless.

    Also, Mimi Nguyen’s essay/performance piece “Hair Trauma,” which is archived here (I think. Her site is blocked at work.):

    http://www.worsethanqueer.com/slander/hair.html

  37. It’s amazing how the perception of hair, especially hair of women of color, is often such a controversial issue. Hair is a personal thing and I have had many experiences in my life that have been defined by people’s reaction to my dark brown, big curly hair. People judge you based on your appearance, it’s inevitable, but hair seems to be something more…like an accessory you can’t hide.

    I guess what I’m trying to express is: if people can’t even accept that curly hair/natural hair isn’t “professional” then how can we even get past the greater barriers of institutionalized racism when we have to overcome our own internalized racism? I think it’s something that can help people take the first step on the way to tackling the greater barriers. I’m just extemporizing but….great post and great links. Your discussion of hair, and the blogs you linked to, are amazingly eye-opening.

  38. Excellent post.

    My hair is the bane of my existence. Since I am half Hispanic and my great grandmother was a black woman, I have very course, thick curly hair.It’s odd, because I am very light skinned and people do not often know that I am of a mixed background. My mother has black hair. My sister does as well. I have hair a bit less course then theirs, but thick, curly and often frizzy as hell.

    I still grapple with my hair as a definition of my beauty. I don’t find myself beautiful when I wear my hair curly, despite the fact that my husband does. He is often telling me to “wear it natural, it’s sexy!” I can’t. I look into the mirror and I see a real ugly duckling—even now, at 33. It’s my secret–I never ever tell people how awful my hair makes me feel, despite my longing to try and have a love affair with it. I secretly hoped my daughter wouldn’t have to deal with the hair that I deal with. It’s too late–she has the curls, and now I must teach her what I have learned. I’ll leave out the part about hating my image, though.

    When the “Japanese hair Straightening” method started gaining steam a few years back, I saved and saved to get it done, giddy that I would never have to deal with my horrible curls again. My stylist (who is also of a mixed background) talked me out of it. She pointed out that I often wear my hair curly in the summer (it’s just easier that way) and although I have annoying hair, I also have the ability to wear it in several different ways. I should never take that option away.

    I listened to her and I am glad I did. I’m getting there…I’m trying to love it. Sometimes I do. When humidity is 100% in the Baltimore area, I usually don’t.

    I always feel like I’m alone fighting this battle against my inner demon. I never talk about my hair because it is such an emotional part of my self image. reading this post was somewhat cathartic. I’ve never felt like I’ve had someone to discuss hair with.

    I want to love my hair. I want to feel beautiful when I wear it curly. This post has given me some motivation to start thinking about these things in a much more serious light.

    Thanks.

  39. I want to thank Magniloquence, Elaine Vigneault, Tiffany in Houston, and Janis for their input. Our program definitely doesn’t insist that people need to give up everything that’s fun and enjoyable in their lives in order to be financially responsible. We encourage people to spend their money mindfully on things that are important to them. Your insight has given me a much better idea how to discuss the decision to save or spend money on professional hair care in that context.

  40. Hmm. I have the opposite problem. White, Slavic background. Relatively thick, very fine hair that cannot hold a curl. Every now and then my mother would take me to the beauty salon and we’d try yet AGAIN to put my hair up in rollers and stuff me under the dryer. Never failed–20 minutes after taking it all out, any curl I had would relax into a wimpy little flip-up at the ends and that’s it.

    Now? Am growing my hair back out again. Waist-length, am growing it back down to my knees. Style of wear? Coronet of braids. I drool over Yulia Timoshenko’s hairstyle.

    I wonder how much fuss over women’s hair as being “professional” simply means having something demonstrating you’ve put time and effort into it. And so that it doesn’t shed all over the place.

  41. (dread)Locks…what they are and ARE NOT (mud) made with.. please.

    As a Black woman with locs, I’ve always been curious about White people who also wear them. For me, it’s a way to get rid of the relaxers, the weaves, and hot combs (no more burnt ears!) and turn away from the eurocentric standard of beauty.

    But why do White people do it?

  42. “As a Black woman with locs, I’ve always been curious about White people who also wear them. For me, it’s a way to get rid of the relaxers, the weaves, and hot combs (no more burnt ears!) and turn away from the eurocentric standard of beauty.

    But why do White people do it?”

    1) maybe it’s for religious/spiritual reasons
    2) maybe they’re emulating someone they admire (a musician, philosopher, political figure, friend, etc.)
    3) maybe they’re eager to abandon eurocentric standards of beauty, or present a confrontational appearance
    4) maybe their parents HATE it
    5) maybe they think it’s just cool.

  43. antiprincess, I’ve had similar experiences. My family background is completely Northern European, and my hair is extremely thick and wavy when long, curly when short. When I had it long, I would sometimes get asked if I was part black, I guess because it was so thick and stood out from my head.

    I had it down to my waist at one point, but the weight gave me headaches, especially if I wore it up, and it was very difficult to take care of. So I shaved it all off. Now I just keep it short and manageable.

    Black hair: funny thing, I used to envy the black girls I knew because they had such interesting hairstyles; I thought their hair must be easier to work with for things like braiding.

  44. But why do White people do it?

    To have a hairstyle more interesting than boring, straight white people hair :-).

    Not that I’ve ever done it myself; the only thing I’ve ever done with my hair is to get a perm a couple of times to make it curlier (and for a while use a curling iron at home for the same purpose). But I can see why another white person would do it, since it is an attractive style.

    very fine hair that cannot hold a curl

    Ah, that must be why my grandmother on my mother’s side was so fussy about her perms; her hair was probably finer than mine, and took more trouble to keep the curl. I got the hair genes from the Greek side of the family, so my hair’s not too fine to keep a curl if you put it there; it’s just that it doesn’t start out with any wave to speak of. Of course, the flip side of having hair that can be curled if I want is that I also have the leg hair from the Greek side of the family.

  45. Tzs, can I trade hair with you? I don’t know if it’s the Welsh or Swiss ancestry or what, but my hair refuses to go quietly into braids at all. I swear it unbraids itself, and when it’s loose it floats everywhere and clings to stuff and gets caught on everything. It laughs at brushes. It has broken combs. It’s about mid-thigh length at this point, so I guess I don’t hate it completely, but I always wanted straight hair, ever since I was young.

  46. I’m a white person with dreadlocks. I just thought it looked cool, and I guess being ‘different’ is part of it.

    I get pretty bored of people asking me if I wash my hair, though.

  47. Not that it’s the same (it’s not) but I have thin, curly hair that frizzes very easily. As a kid, I brushed it every day hoping that it would someday lay flat like the popular girls, who always asked me, almost every day, why I didn’t brush my hair. I quit brushing it altogether and now it takes on some somewhat frizzy but more or less whole curls. My sister has the same problem, but her hair is thicker. It’s strange that our parents are both blessed with straight black hair (my father from his Sioux mother, my mother from her Cherokee father).

    For me, it’s not a matter of ethnic difference, since Americans don’t think of Native Americans as a “real” ethnic group (questions usually involve whether I get money from my tribes, so it remains a largely personal matter) and I’ve been treated as a white person my whole life. But it is a matter of conforming to a white ideal that doesn’t represent a significant portion of the population.

    A lot of really great thoughts here… thank you for sharing them.

  48. It’s weird because although it’s considered “bad hair” for so many black people, I’ve always been told mine is gorgeous. Personally, I love it and hate it. I love curly, kinky, fun hair; I hate taking care of it and can understand the want/need to go to a salon.

    I was thinking about this too: my sister has a huge mop of wildly curly (by white standards) blonde hair. It was the bane of her existence for a while as a teenager, because she hadn’t a clue how to take care of it. But now it’s a key part of her identity because it’s so distinctive. She never gets anything but positive comments on her hair, but the flipside is the amount of work she has to do to keep it looking good. Also, she’s young. Maybe in a professional environment the huge curls would be a barrier to being taken seriously.

    Since I pretty much suck at femininity, I have settled for chopping off my superfine, utterly unstylable mess, which refuses to grow past shoulder length anyway. At least it suits my face short, but part of me has always wanted long, princess hair.

  49. I’m Hispanic, with dark, curly hair, the kind that are small and tight. And I live in Miami, which feels like it ‘s the most humid place in the world; frizz is just part of my world.

    Growing up, my mother always referred to my hair as “bad hair” and would style it by pulling it very tightly back and into a bun. Eventually, I started chemically relaxing my hair. I did this until high school when I realized that I was a feminist and that my hair was a feminist issue. From that point on, I’ve worn it how it is, curly.

    I notice how people treat me different according to my hair style. I almost always wear my hair curly and everyone tells me what great, fun hair I have. But when I blow it out for a day, for a change, it’s no longer great and fun; now it’s pretty hair. Last year, when I chopped off my locks for a curly pixie do, I suddenly became funky, sassy, playful, etc. Nobody has referred to my hair as pretty since.

  50. I shaved my hair. I got annoyed with me being defined by my curls. Yeah, I then got defined but my bald head, but then it wasn’t about how gorgeous my hair was. It was because I was the girl who had enough confidence to shave off a defining thing about me and take that kind of risk. I thought I was prettier bald anyway.

    It’s funny what a hairstyle says about you.

  51. … the hair of the white man will not felt …

    O_O

    That guy’s obviously never had to detangle the single enormous vertical mat that results from THIS white woman making the vast mistake of wearing a ponytail with a cabled sweater.

    I’ve known white women with very long hair who had to cut it i>off when they made that mistake. That’s one of the major complaints of women with the extreme end of what’s called “white hair,” where it’s extremely fine and straight. It’s a complaint for me, especially under the nape.

    This is what happens when people make decisions based on hearsay and rumor — and then they pat themselves on the back and call it “science” when any reputable scientist cringes to read it.

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  55. Redhorse: But even there there’s a bit of a financial thing: stylists charge more for the labor of having to trim it, and there’s a distinct difference between seeing someone whose hair tapers off into stringy elflocks and someone who has hair of the same length but has it bluntcut across the bottom. So I’ll be getting the bottom bluntcut soon.

    I’ve avoided salons now for about a decade due to not being willing to spend 60$ for a freaking trim (it’s waist/hip length, fine ash blond hair, somewhat thick) and a somewhat paranoid fear that once I got in that chair a hair stylist would try to “update” me into the short hair everyone else has. What I do is put it up in the manner I’ll most often wear it (pony tail or Dutch braid, usually), braid it down until it starts really fraying, and take a pair of scissors to the end. I also cut my own bangs, first bluntly then going back with the scissors at an angle to make it a more ragged edge. Not difficult and very economical. Granted, there have been a couple of notable disasters in the bang department, but the trim is very straightforward.

    Re: why white people try for dreadlocks – I’ve found them sexy for years, so I can understand why someone would want to emulate it as a hairstyle.

    I don’t have much else to add, really. Adore the thread.

  56. I’m a young black woman who wears a natural fro. It’s fun. I work with my texture and it’s very easy to care for. I like standing out and not being like everyone else. Don’t get what the big deal is with other black women not liking their hair. But I’ve never been inclined to conform, so perhaps I never will understand the hair anxiety.

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