Hair Wars: The Politics of Hair ‘YOU CAN TOUCH MY HAIR’ Exhibit

Singer Janelle Monae

See all posts re African hair.

How did things get so bad for black women's hair? I thought things had changed in the seventies when natural hair flourished on black women's heads. I thought we had reached an Age of Enlightenment, never dreaming that I was experiencing a temporary blossoming of acceptance of racial differences.

CHEMICAL VEIL

Soon black women were pressured to go back under a "chemical veil", forced, like Muslim women, to conceal their natural beauty. When did that happen? Around the time Ronald Reagan was elected?


Muslim woman wearing hijab Photograph by: Dario Ayala , The Gazette


Hair Wars: The Politics of Hair ‘YOU CAN TOUCH MY HAIR’ Exhibit (VIDEO)
by Pragmatic Mom
I Love Newton
April 12, 2014

I’m Asian American and I’ve never really given that much thought to my hair … except that one time. I was on the swim team in high school in Southern California and my hair, from being outdoors in a chemically treated pool three hours a day, bleached out from solid black to dark, dark brown with red highlights. I thought the red streaks were kind of pretty until my swim team female friends ridiculed it saying that I had “Mexican” red streaked hair.

Believe me — in Southern California — this was not a compliment.

Hair as politics. Hmm…

Read more and see photo gallery and video HERE.