Straw-straight, golden sun-lit strands sway as she moves — this is beautiful hair.
Coffee-bean-colored locks catch the sunlight and spiral toward it. This is beautiful hair.
Then why is it that society seems to be actively programming us to only see the first as beautiful? I am black, and I am a woman. And like most women, whenever I go through a significant change, so does my hair. The summer before I started college, I cut all my hair off, just like the white girl in the movie. What white girl? What movie? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I cried after as it hit me that just because our reasons for cutting our hair were the same, our hair texture was not. She had a pixie cut, and I had a black dude fro. Notice that I did not say that my black dude fro was ugly or that her pixie cut was cute. This is to say that all hair is beautiful, and while it does not define us, it does lend itself as a tool of self-reflection. And maybe if I had seen a black girl in a movie doing the big chop, I wouldn’t have cried… as much. In a society that shallowly seems to operate on a basis of physical attraction, it is not shocking that with the European standard of beauty so pervasive, only 16 percent of women in films of 2017 were black. The European beauty standard associates attractive people with those who have the most European features, including straight hair. As a result, for hundreds of years too long, black women and their hair have been pressurized and insulted under white beauty standards.
And so, despite the one-sided illusion that white supremacy has inflicted upon society, I’m writing this not to convince you or myself that black hair is beautiful. No matter your race, wake up and see this: Black hair is beautiful.
It is well-established that white beauty standards forced upon black culture have had a detrimental effect on black women, as they are subjected to endless messages of the seeming ideal. This effect can devastate a child’s self-perception as young as age 3, as seen in Clark and Clark’s Doll Test of 1947. In this experiment, 253 black children between ages 3 and 7 were shown two identical dolls, one black and one white. About two-thirds of the children indicated that they liked the white doll better in spite of their own skin color. In fact, when the study was conducted again in 2005, the findings were similar. One young black girl chose the black doll when asked which doll “looked bad.” And then when asked to choose the one that looked like her, the girl touched the white doll at first and then, with a painful look in her eyes, chose the black doll.
Just the difference of skin color can lead to lower self-esteem and, in some cases, self-hatred. Now imagine adding other black features like curly or kinky hair. Let’s break the chain for both us and future generations, and in the same way we’ve come to celebrate black history, black culture and African heritage, let’s celebrate black hair.
Black girls and women need to see themselves on television, and not as sassy sidekicks or sexual objects, but as everyday women rocking their everyday hair. On the red carpet, actress Zendaya wore her hair in beautiful faux dreads, swept to the side. TV personality Giuliana Rancic stated that the dreads looked like they smelled of patchouli oil or weed. This blatantly insinuated that black hair is not elegant or beautiful according to Rancic’s white supremacist beauty standards. Zendaya has a huge fan base, especially among young black girls, so it was important that she rocked those dreads and then further declared Rancic’s comments as ignorant and offensive, and most importantly, impertinent to the beauty of black hair. “There is already harsh criticism of African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair,” Zendaya said. “My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough.”
It is great to see actresses like Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg and Yara Shahidi bringing light onto black girls and women. But black women are more than just caramel-colored with lengthy loose curls.
Powerful strides to diversify our representation are being made through inspiring actresses such as Lupita Nyong’o, Issa Rae and Viola Davis. Seeing Davis in “How to Get Away with Murder” take off her makeup and wig was unforgettable. She was vulnerable. Her character was vulnerable. And I felt that her being seen made me feel seen as well. We need to see all types of black women. We need to see black women unafraid to own the beauty of their black hair. We need to see black women going to bed or waking up with their heads in wraps, scarves, bonnets or pineapples (loose ponytails to preserve curls while you sleep). This is our reality and our hair. How we take care of it or style it should not fill us with shame or insecurity.
Our weaves, wigs, bantu knots, twist-outs, Senegalese twists, box braids, cornrows, frohawks, blowouts, freshly relaxed or permed tresses, our curls and kinks are all beautiful and should be represented. The image of that little black girl choosing the black doll with defeat broke my heart. I am a black girl that was raised in white suburbia, and whether it was school or the next hit rom-com, I was reminded that I would never have the long, blonde swaying hair, and to me, that meant I would never really be beautiful. The secret to beautiful hair is that I was both right and wrong. I would never have long, blonde swaying hair. I am beautiful.
Taylor Keaton is a UF Telecommunications senior.
