“My hair doesn’t need to be fixed. Society’s view of beauty is what’s broken.”
~naturallycurly.com
Act 15: It is tax-free weekend here in Ohio to help parents with the cost of school supplies! Yeah! So today we are going to talk about the policing of Black hair in the school setting.
When I was very little I thought I was going to grow up and become a White woman. I thought the reward for being a good Black child was to grow up and become a White woman with white skin and easily comb-able White people hair. Now mind you, I am the youngest of six and lived in the home with my older siblings and clearly Black adult parents. Although they were good people, I had assumed they remained Black because they must have done something secretly very bad and God had not thought to reward them with golden flaxen hair.
This is a scenario that I think all women regardless of color can relate to. Women were introduced to Twiggy in the late 60’s and the fashion industry has never quite finished with propping up emaciated bodies wearing hair extensions as the standard of beauty. Being repeatedly inundated with reruns of The Brady Bunch and the image of Carol Brady did me no favors. I even thought I would have a maid named Alice.
Then, The Jefferson’s premiered and that changed my whole outlook on who I could and would grow up to be. I could not immediately relate to Louise, but I could relate to Roxie Roker’s character of Helen Willis. Here was this tall, lean (I was inundated with the thin image, too), deep brown Black woman who I could see myself growing into. It was a revelation on the “Come to Jesus” level of aha moments.
Fast forward to meeting a smart, beautiful Black child when she was about three years old. One time while I was visiting with her, she spontaneously broke into tears, sobbing and heaving. I thought, “OMG! What did I do to harm this child?” I gingerly asked, “What’s wrong?” Between deep breaths and choking on tears, she managed to eek out, “My hair is nappy!” Her hair was perfectly well combed and up in two ponytails, but somehow by age 3, she knew what was growing out of her scalp was inherently unacceptable. WTF?
Before posting this, I decided to share my thoughts on hair with my hair stylist and she added this gem from her own childhood: When she was about 4 or 5 years old, her mother bought her a dollhouse with a little black family. She told her mother, she didn’t want the Black dolls, she wanted the white ones! 😭
Back to policing Black hair in school settings. California just passed a law banning discrimination against natural hair. Why do we even need such a law on the books? Because clearly the message has also gotten to certain adults that what naturally grows out of Black people’s scalps is unkempt and inappropriate. By whose standard of beauty? 🤔We needed a law to change that? SMDH
Below is an article that my friend shared on FB the other day. Who gets to decide appropriate and inappropriate hair styles for the school setting and why is it necessary? Instead of celebrating the creative, walking, talking math project on these children’s heads, we are telling them they don’t belong. Instead of blotting it out with permanent marker, why not ask questions like, did they do that freestyle or from a template? Let’s figure out the angles of this cut or her parts for her braids! Talk about missing a teachable moment!
Have a great school year!
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-family-sues-school-claiming-staff-laughed-coloring/story?id=65055093
Small Acts of Racism 