Use In Hair Raising: Beauty Of African American Culture

Hair has been used as a tool to control people from Africa ever since slavery times by depicting their natural hair as inferior and this is still seen in TV shows today. During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, millions of Africans were taken from their homes and sold into slavery. These individuals were forced to adapt and work in the new foreign world that they had found themselves in. Being so far removed from everything familiar, they had no access to their belongings or possessions. “Without the combs and herbal treatments used in Africa” (Ellis-Hervey, 2016, p. 2), slaves had no way of styling their hair and therefore it became knotty and dirty. This is one of the reasons why the notion of African hair being presented as “bad” and that it

When you get a hairstyle you feel like a completely new individual. It just makes you feel clean/new as it were. Numerous men take pride in There are numerous approaches to trim an African American guys hair. Additionally there various styles. To honestly trim a dull men's hair, you have to grasp the hair's organization and how it responds to being trimmed. Besides, you review some crucial frameworks in African American barbering, and a little practice, you can give course book quality hairdos to even the most persnickety supporters of your dull demographic.

Black people struggle with their hair every day. It did matter if it’s good or bad hair, it’s always a struggle. Madhubti stated “when babies are born in black counties first thing you look at is hair and color. Hair is a main thing they look at because they don’t want it to bad

Since the early 1900s, Black women have had a fascination with their hair. More explicitly, they have had a fascination with straightening their hair. The need to be accepted by the majority class has caused them to do so. Though the image of straight hair as being better than coarse hair still hasn’t left the Black community, there has been a surge of non straight hairstyles since the nineteen sixties. Wearing more natural hairstyles, which ironically enough include ‘weaves’ and ‘hair extensions’ has been considered to be more empowered and more enlightened. However, this image comes with a price, and though it appears the ‘natural’ hairstyle movement has advanced Black women, it has actually set

Comments made by other ethnicities and sometimes our own like “You’re pretty for a black girl” suggests that black women are naturally unattractive or ugly. I sometimes look I the mirror and cannot see myself as someone that is beautiful without adding beauty enhancers ( such as makeup or straighteners) that contours my face to a less threatening persona, to stand out in a white persons eye and a black man’s eye because many have adopted the “white man’s” standard of beauty in this society. I often drive past all the African hair braiding shops and the all-natural Shea stands on Jamaica Avenue to go to the Dominicans hair salon to get my monthly wet and sets. While they straighten what’s left of my “nappy” coils, as I sat there inside I felt that I was only hanging on by a thread to my African roots.

Many Africa Americans used hash chemical to grow their hair; chemicals damage the hair follicles leaving the hair unable to grow. Just like the wrong foods; Black women hair grows just like any other typical race. African Americans hair just need special attention and handled with more care. Growing black woman hair start with eating healthy foods.

This research aims to discover the motives of black women and their hair/hairstyles they choose. In an attempt to answer this question, I observed a salon that dealt with a predominantly black female clientele. While there, I noted the dynamics between the hairdressers and the clients: whether the stylist have an input/impact on what hairstyles are chosen, what are the intentions or goals of the women when they choose a style?, and what the style the majority of them gravitate towards? It was a very friendly atmosphere so I was able to interact with both the customers and the clients and obtain more information beyond the physical/visual aspect of the environment.

Over the course of the years, society has taught black girls that the darker their skin tone is, the uglier they are which triggered them to do their best to meet Eurocentric beauty standards such as having light skin, slim nose and straight hair.

On her website, she shares different opinions and ideas on hair in black culture, beauty, style/ fashion, well-being, food and musing. Specifically, her segment on hair in black culture is helping uproot a cause black women has been facing since forever. Black hair is very different compared to others. It goes against perfection. In an interview with New York Times Jenna Worthman, believed Ross “pushes against a culture fixated on unnatural and unattainable perfection”. (New York Time) There are many conversation about how black hair is unprofessional and how it gets in the way. The ‘Good Hair’ study quotes that wearing natural hairstyles has deep political and social implications. Alexis McGill Johnson, co-founder and executive director of Perception Institute, a consortium of researchers, advocates research on race, gender, ethnic, and other identities into solutions that reduce bias and discrimination. “From the classroom to the workplace, bias against natural hair can undermine the ability of black women to be their full selves and affect their professional trajectory, social life, and self-esteem. This study also demonstrates how research with an intersectional lens can help us create new metrics, such as the Hair IAT, and drive new conversations.” “Black women experience more anxiety related to their hair and greater social and financial burden of hair maintenance than white women. Black women are twice as likely to report social pressure to straighten their hair at

Throughout many decades, African American women have been able to set their own standards of beauty. Lonnae Parker, a writer for The Washington Post, states in her article Black women heavier and happier with their bodies than white women, poll finds, that “Freed from that high-powered media gaze, generations of black women have fashioned their own definitions of beauty with major assists from literature, music, and help from their friends” (Parker, 2012). The importance of this quote is that they were getting help from their culture, the music and literature is essentially the culture that helped them to define their own standards of beauty. By being isolated

Over the course of the last few years the volume of information on how to take care of black hair has grown exponentially. Social media has provided us with easy access to this information and in response black hair has become the rave. Having African American hair is an exciting journey. It’s a marathon and not a sprint so no matter how long you’ve had your black hair in its natural state you will continue to learn and mature in the ways you take care of it. Here are the top 5 things you absolutely need to know about caring for black hair.

There has been a notable amount of conversation on the internet on the rebirth of the natural hair movement. Cherise Luter (2014) states that despite afros and the natural hair movement not being a new concept (i.e. the Black Power Movement), it has gone under what she calls a “refreshing change”. Furthermore, what used to be “I’m black and I’m proud”, has been replaced with “I’m me and I’m proud” (Luter 2016). So, what is the natural hair movement? It is defined as a movement where black women decide to not conform to the social norms of chemically altering their hair and wearing it in its natural, kinky, or curled state (Joignot 2015). The movement could also be considered as an outlet for black women to display their racial and cultural pride or to articulate their “political position (Brown 2014:297). However, simply the terminology “movement” is something that should be shocking to many. There is a great amount of historical context behind the continuous influence Eurocentric beauty ideals have had on black women for centuries. According to Nadia Brown (2014), Black natural hair throughout history has proven to be recognized as “either unintended or intended personal and political statements” (298). the beauty standard in Western society which praises European hair textures, has influenced many black women to be critical of other black women who choose to chemically straighten their hair, accusing them of being subservient to the dominant and pervasive racist

“You would look so much prettier with your hair straight!” is a comment my sister of mixed descent has been receiving from her classmates since childhood. Straight hair is a Eurocentric beauty standard that has been pushed onto my lighter skinned sister for most of her life. I am of a darker complexion however and therefore am complimented often on my naturally curly hair. This leads to the question; do black beauty standards differ from white ones? The answer to this query is explored in Maxine Craig’s work Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? She claims that in many regards, though not all, the answer is yes. While Craig does a good job of defining the historical moments that lead to black beauty standards today, she lacks an explanation as to why darker skin tones are stigmatized the way they are and neither does she factor in how many people consider personality when determining beauty.

A common argument against the existence of cultural appropriation is; “Well, how about when Asian people who dye their hair blonde, or when African Americans straighten their hair?” This is not appropriating ‘American culture’ but assimilating to it. Assimilating is adopting the dominant culture in order to be successful and carry out day to day life. Instead of questioning why people of color are forced to fit in, we should be asking why the American standard of beauty is so

Across the African diaspora hair is an important part of life and because it is so vastly different from other races, it has to be maintained differently. Maintenance includes cornrows, dreadlocks, twists, and various sorts of braids if not worn in the natural texture. For years when a woman wore cornrows she was considered ghetto and unprofessional. However, when nonblack women such as the Kardashians recently began wearing cornrows or modify their hair into afros or dreadlocks, it is considered edgy and socially acceptable. These women are given praise for starting new trends that have existed for years; meanwhile the originators have been denied access to their own culture without criticism from outsiders. Hair might not sound like a colossal issue, but there are teenage girls protesting in Pretoria, South Africa to wear their hair in the way it grows naturally from the scalp because school only recognizes straight hair as “wearable and tidy”. This is not an isolated event, many men and women of the African diaspora, including Afro-Latinas, are denied employment or education simply because their hair does not naturally fit into Eurocentric beauty standards. This is where cultural appropriation exposes itself as harmful. When a trait that is associated with a less privileged group is taken by someone with a more privileged background, negative stereotypes and