- Jan 20, 2015
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So....only white people have straight hair? Do they also own the patent for breathing? The last time I checked Black women who wore weaves and wigs had them made from Asian, Indian and some mixed Afro Latina Brazilian hair.
FYI, Black women HAD/HAVE to adopt certain hairstyles in order to get hired and keep jobs(check the US military mandates on acceptable Black hairstyles).....nowhere is it mandatory to have a tan, chemically overstuffed lips or fake butts in order to be hired....unless of course they're doing porn. White women will never be on the same level as Black women when it comes to being discriminated on their natural phenotypes. When was the last time a little white girl suspended for her natural hair? Btw, the child has a white father yet all they can see is her Blackness.
"ORLANDO, Fla. -
A Central Florida teen told Local 6 on Monday she faced expulsion because administrators at her private school wanted her to cut and shape her hair. But a day later, administrators appeared to have changed their mind, saying she will not be expelled.
Vanessa VanDyke said she was given one week to decide to whether cut her hair or leave Faith Christian Academy in Orlando, a school she's been going to since the third grade.
Read more: http://www.clickorlando.com/news/africanamerican-girl-faces-expulsion-over-natural-hair/23159400
When Black Hair Is Against the Rules
By AYANA BYRD and LORI L. THARPSAPRIL 30, 2014
AMERICA has always had trouble with black hair. The United States Army is only the latest in a long line of institutions, corporations and schools to restrict it. On March 31, the Armyreleased an updated appearance and grooming policy, known as AR 670-1. It applies to all Army personnel, including students at West Point and those serving in the R.O.T.C. and the National Guard.
No distinctions are made for race or ethnicity, only gender, in that the regulations regarding hair are divided between women and men. But it’s not hard to infer that certain sections pertain specifically to black women, since they refer to hairstyles like cornrows, braids, twists and dreadlocks, severely limiting or banning them outright.
While the Army certainly isn’t the first to impose these kinds of prohibitions, it may be the most egregious example, considering that the 26,000 black women affected by AR 670-1 are willing to die for their country. On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered the entire military to review its hairstyle rules, after the women of the Congressional Black Caucus sent him a letter saying that the Army policy’s language was “offensive” and “biased” and strongly urging him to reconsider it. More than 17,000 people signed a petition submitted to WhiteHouse.gov asking the Obama administration to review the policy.
The bias against black hair is as old as America itself. In the 18th century, British colonists classified African hair as closer to sheep wool than human hair. Enslaved and free blacks who had less kinky, more European-textured hair and lighter skin — often a result of plantation rape — received better treatment than those with more typically African features.
After Emancipation, straight hair continued to be the required look for access to social and professional opportunities. Most black people internalized the idea that their natural hair was unacceptable, and by the early 20th century wore it in straightened styles often achieved with dangerous chemical processes or hot combs, or they wore wigs.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that the Black Power movement declared that “black is beautiful” — and not least unstraightened natural black hair. Soon the Afro became a popular style, first at protests and political rallies and eventually on celebrities from Pam Grier to Michael Jackson.
But in many settings, black hair was still a battleground. In the 1980s civil rights groups led boycotts against the Hyatt hotel chain after it terminated a black female employee for wearing cornrows. In 1999, couriers for Federal Express were fired for wearing dreadlocks. And this past fall, 7-year-old Tiana Parker was told her dreadlocks violated her elementary school’s dress code in Tulsa, Okla., and 12-year-old Vanessa VanDyke was threatened with expulsion from her private school in Orlando, Fla., because her natural hair was deemed a “distraction.”
If a person doesn’t have black hair, isn’t married to someone with black hair or isn’t raising a child with black hair, this issue may seem like a whole lot of something about nothing. But what these women are demanding is a policy that reflects a basic understanding of black hair. For most black people, hair naturally grows up and out — think of the shape of an Afro — not down. But the Army’s regulations assume that all hair not only grows the same way but can be styled the same way. For example, one permitted hairstyle is a bun. Yet because of the thickness of a lot of black women’s hair, a bun is not always possible unless the hair is put into twists first. But twists and dreadlocks, no matter how narrow and neat, are banned in the policy and labeled “faddish” and “exaggerated.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/o...tion=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article
You're saying Black women are forced by white society to adopt the white standard of beauty is an EXCUSE for them to imitate the white women's straight hair?
I'm all for Black or white women doing whatever they want with their hair. There are a few thing women of all races have in common. One or two of those is beauty and that includes our hair, nail, pretty clothes, etc. Women love to change our hair styles. If a white women think she look cute with a imitation Afro, what's the problem. If a Black women think she looks cute with straight hair and a weave, that's her hair she can do what she want.
As far as the demonstrations on how to style their hair in an Afro, there are classes on how to do weaves, press hair bone straight. When I wore weaves I took a class or two.
Your post is political and social. At the present time many of those political and social issue on Black women's hair are mostly an illusion. It's up to us to break that sterotype about our hair. I'm natural and have no problems in the workforce. That's a different topic.
Nail salons, spas, and some commercial hair salons for women are integrated.
