The Elaborate Odyssey of Black Hair

A few days ago, I recorded Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair on BET. It was a fascinating piece that covered the science behind African-American hair care products, the cultural implications behind why black women put so much into their hair, and the business of weaves and where they come from. I noticed that so many mothers were taking their daughters to the salon to get a relaxer before they even hit puberty. Some of these little girls were under two-years-old. Chris Rock interviewed a six-year-old girl at a shop and asked her if it was important to get a relaxer and why. She said that every black girl should have a relaxer so they can be beautiful. There was something very disheartening about this. To think that so many young black girls are being raised in this mindset; the mindset that anything close to white is better or prettier.

The irony of so much of our efforts as a people to blend in and look like everyone else is that we have our distinct characteristics as a necessity. If black people didn’t look different, then there would be no human race. Evolutionary scientists have discovered that early humans adapted to Africa’s unbearable heat by getting darker, losing body hair, and growing kinky hair on their heads. Afro-textured hair evolved on modern humans as a way to regulate body temperature due to the hair’s density. The unique helix shape of the follicles also contributes to an airy effect that makes the scalp cool in hot and humid weather. Kinky hair does not respond to sweat and moisture in the same way that straight hair does by sticking to the scalp and skin. Afro-textured hair also protected the human brain from burning, which along with the consumption of protein, led to its increase in size. Thus the development of Negroid texture was essential to man’s early existence in prehistoric times.

Black hair was a status symbol in sub-Saharan Africa and was fundamental to sexual selection and produced the need for hair dressers. Royalty had some of the most chic styles which separated them from the rest of their tribes and kingdoms. The more bodacious designs were considered the most exquisite. This period of pride was not to last forever as one can see from history.

The Atlantic slave trade re-socialized Africans and made them to feel inferior about their contrasting appearance. Willie Lynch, for whom the practice of lynching is named after, wrote an entire manual on how to make a slave. One method commonly used was the sexual abuse of female slaves that resulted in mixed-race children who were put on pedestals because of their closer resemblance to their European masters. These repeated instances of rape led to wide genetic variations in the black community that included straighter hair follicles.

Other ways that African slaves were constantly reminded of their presumed ugliness was through the insistence of the plantation owner’s family that male house slaves wear straight wigs and females wear scarves, as white imperialists were made greatly uncomfortable by such divergent attributes.

The invention of the flat iron in 1872 by Erica Feldman only made it easier to blend in with white society and deny the true and unique self. This continued until the 1970s, when the Black Power Movement encouraged a new take on African heritage. Afros were in and Blaxploitation movies featuring headliners like Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown and political activists like Angela Davis made the Afro now en vogue.

However, this era of high self-admiration was brief as the previous feelings of self-hatred set in for later decades to come. Weaves became more popular and by the end of the twentieth century as many as twenty-five percent of black women wore these new hair extensions. These statistics only increased with the twenty-first century and rise of media prevalence among American families. If someone were to pick up any black hair magazine, all of the styles would be flat-ironed or have Asian wigs. Afro-centric designs are rarely if ever found and support the idea that the only beauty is white beauty.

Women who have average middle-class jobs like school teacher and daycare owner spend thousands of dollars on perfecting their beautiful Afro-textured hair into an unnatural state. The obsession with keeping one’s hair in this state has caused many women to avoid getting in swimming pools and thus learning how to swim because they don’t want to their hair to go back to its “nappy” form. Others won’t even work out for fear that sweat will seep its way into their roots and make them look ugly, contributing to an issue of weight gain.

I had to come to terms with my own identity crisis regarding my hair. Always quick to hide it, I made sure that the kink in it didn’t show through my relaxer. It wasn’t until I took biology classes that I became enlightened about the exceptional genetics of black people and how beautiful our journey has been, even with its hardships.

Despite the lack of confidence that black women have struggled with, I still have hope that things will change for the better. There are many examples of black female empowerment emerging. BET started the “Imagine a Future” campaign to encourage self-love and acceptance among this new generation of young black women. Beverly Bond founded the “Black Girls Rock” organization to strengthen self-esteem. In media, there are such examples as First Lady Michelle Obama, and fictional characters like Olivia Pope from ABC’s Scandal. Progress has occurred, and will continue to do so if communities join together and inspire love and tenacity in their children. I firmly believe that change starts at home with the family. If we expect to see positive shifts in our society, we should start with the most impressionable of its members, our children.