The Natural Hair Movement has been on-going since the early 1960’s. This was around the same time that the Black Power Movement taught the black community to embrace themselves.
During this movement, Black Americans began to wear afros, the hairstyle being a sign of empowerment by not-only African American women, but also African American males. The use of relaxers or pressing combs were a way for black people to align themselves with Caucasian beauty standards of pin-straight hair. The natural hair movement not only encouraged embracing one’s blackness, but also one’s natural hair texture.
In the last 5 years, there has been a resurgence of more women going natural and abstaining from getting relaxers and texturizers. More African American women, and recently men, are starting to embrace their natural hair textures again. The majority of African Americans fall into the curls types 3a, 3b, 3c,4a,4b, and 4c, with texture 4c being the kinkiest and more coarse.
Throughout history, people with looser curl textures have been more accepted by society than those with a kinkier curl type. This has created a natural hair bias within the natural hair community.
In an article done by Ebony Magazine, Trudy Susan says, “Women with kinky textured hair, commonly known as type 4, are experiencing something of a “texture discrimination” as a consequence of this new natural new beauty standard. Curly and wavy girls dominate the branding in products mass marketed to natural hair.
So while the recent rebirth and modern day celebration of natural hair has provided some balance for Black women looking to escape the media induced pressure to yearn for European imitated straight, long hair, now there is a new pressure for natural women to yearn for a specific type of natural hair.”
Freshman Biology major Dayla Smith agrees with this article stating, “All the pictures you see online are of light skinned women with looser curl patterns. It’s like they have completely missed the point.” This is missing the purpose of the natural hair movement completely. Not only does this cause a division of “Good Hair vs Bad Hair”, but it also creates a stereotype amongst black women. This visualization makes people, that aren’t black but also other ethnicities, believe that the lighter your skin, the better your features and the less kinky your hair is. The kinkiness of our hair is what makes people of color unique and sets us apart from other ethnicities. If an African American woman is trying to embrace her natural hair and is viewed as less beautiful by her peers, there is something seriously wrong with the black community.
Freshman Devin Ross says that “black women shouldn’t put down other black women, that just doesn’t make sense.” Texture discrimination is one of the many issues that the black community needs to work towards fixing in the near future.
We are already as black women seen as unprofessional by their peers when wearing Natural Hair.
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Natural Hair Bias in the Natural Hair Community
February 14, 2017
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