Kinky = nappy in my part of the woods. So your aversion against kinky hair is exactly what I’m talking about. If there wasn’t a stigma against nappy (or kinky, take your pick) hair, we’d not see such an obsession with straight hair in the black community. This stigma has existed for a looooooong time. It used to be against the law in some places for a black woman to go outside without her hair covered. Nappy hair has never been prized in the US.
Your community must be different from the one I’m used to. Any hair that is not straight or wavy/curly is considered nappy, irrespective of whether or not its been combed. It’s also a word most commonly hurled at black women, not men, because we’re the ones who are supposed to have the long, flowing locks. Having crinkly, kinky, afro-textured hair was not generally considered pretty when I was coming up. Hence, the hot combs and chemical relaxers. The only “acceptable” hair was hair that was straightened or at least altered in a way to look less kinky.
You are using “nappy” in a way that is atypical, in my experience. When monstro says she has nappy hair and is proud of it, why do you think she would say that if it nappy = uncombed? That wouldn’t be anything to be especially proud of. And in that sense, anyone could have nappy hair. But it seems to be a term used and applied to black people more than any other group. There’s a reason for that.
There is a whole hair movement that embraces nappy natural hair, and it has nothing to do with not combing ones hair. Do me a favor and google “nappturality”. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
Indeed, isn’t the phrase “good hair” still often used idiomatically to describe non-kinky hair on a black woman?
I also grew up (east coast, in a poor urban neighborhood with few whites) with “nappy” as synonym for “kinky”, with the latter considered the only proper way a white person should ever refer to it to avoid being insulting. White folks might “jokingly” say their kid’s hair was “nappy” if it got tangled, but this wasn’t because it just meant tangled for them: it was more that kinky hair was automatically assumed to be messy hair, again from that racist subtext. Certainly if a white kid used it even innocently around a black kid they’d have been in big trouble, so to me the idea that it wouldn’t be racist is surprising. I’m curious about regional differences here, maybe we should start an IMHO thread.
Yes, indeed. And if you hear someone talking about “good hair” be prepared to also hear about somebody’s half-Cherokee great grandmother with hair so long she could sit on it. 'Cuz “good hair” can only come from non-black ancestry, don’t you know?
I am honestly having some serious ignorance fought!
You with the face, I believe I was the one that said I am proud to have nappy hair. I meant, to have kinky hair…the kind that could get nappy! I wouldn’t want any other kind of hair.
This was not always the case. In my youth, I wanted straight hair. All of my peers did too. That has changed a lot! I know lots of woman that want natural hair now, and many woman tell me when they see my fro, “I wish I would not have ruined my hair with chemicals! You got a head full of good hair”
Which brings me to “good hair”. It is true that in my community, it was often used to refer to wavy, silky hair. However…any time a child had a “HEAD FULL OF HAIR”, be it kinky or otherwise, it was often considered good hair.
Have you never had that experience, you with the face? Have you never seen a head full of healthy, natural black hair referred to as ‘good hair’? In my community, it was often said by woman that had ruined their own hair with chemicals.
I think that it is important for me to educate people on this topic, because I think there is a myth out there that most black woman want “white people’s hair”. Not true in my experience.
Most of us still struggle with accepting our natural texture…but it is more involved that wanting “indian hair” .
And I maintain strongly, that pretty little black girls, and their mamas too, thrive in the inner cities of America, sporting afros or pig tails all poofy and full, and they are not called ‘nappy headed’. In my experience, that is reserved for hair that is unkempt, or “peasy” as we sometimes call it. Or we would say, “you need to comb your kitchen,” cause the back of the hair was always the first to tighten into tiny, 'peas". Hm. Brings back memories of childhood.
My ignorance has been fought, though, cause I didn’t realize that other black woman considered all natural hair to be nappy! And I also didn’t know that it used to be a law that we had to cover our hair in public!
I think it’s racist, because as you with the face pointed out, it’s not actually descriptive of the women he’s describing, who mostly have straightened hair. If their hair isn’t actually nappy, why is he using that phrase to describe them? Because they’re black, and “black people have nappy hair.” Even when they don’t. Assigning a trait to someone solely because of their race strikes me as manifestly racist, particularly when the people being described do not actually possess that trait.
Miller, I do understand this now. And You with the face has enlightened me very much on things I never knew. My head is still spinning about black woman having to cover their heads! I appreciate the information.
Well even in that sense, it’s not a stretch to see how nappy and kinky go hand in hand, right? Your hair can get nappy, because it is kinky. If it were straight, no one would call you a nappy-headed ho, even if it was a tangled mess.
The tide fortunately is changing with regards to the anti-kinky stigma within the black community. It still exists, but it has lessened. Time will tell whether the current trend is just a phase or if it represents a true change in attitude. I’m optimistic that it does represent something more than a new form of fashion, because a lot of people are not doing it just because it looks good.
There’s “good hair” and then there’s a good head of hair. When I was coming up, if a kid had a healthy head of hair that was kinky, 9 times of 10 it would be straightened with heat or chemicals. It was rarely just left alone, to be its normal kinky self. Its textured had to be altered so that it would look acceptable. It was never called “good hair”. Maybe thick. Maybe healthy. But it was only appreciated because of the aesthetic potential it had when it was long and straight. It was never called “good hair” with envy.
Nah. “Good hair”, in my experience, is and was only used to described the naturally straighter stuff.
As a young child, I had a head full of natural hair and now, as an adult, I have natural hair. I’ve always had people compliment it, but no one has ever refered to as “good hair” without implying something specific about its texture first and foremost. Not having “good hair” is a common excuse used by black women when justifying the continued use of chemical relaxers. I’ve been used as an example as a woman who can “get away” with wearing natural hair, I guess because I don’t have the type of curls commonly refered to as naps. I have corkscrew curls. (Which I didn’t know until I stopped straightening. Which means I was afraid of having nappy hair that I didn’t even have.)
I’m not a stranger to that observation, either. The fact that such ruination is so prevalent is telling all in itself, right?
I think a lot of black women have been trained to fear or despise their own natural texture. It’s a great unknown for a lot of them, because straightened hair is all they know. My mother starting relaxing my hair when I was 10 and I continued the habit well until undergrad, thinking that if I didn’t, then I’d have an ugly, undesirable mess on my hands. Yes, I thought my natural hair texture was going to be an ugly, undesirable mess. Even though I had pictures of myself as a child with cute afro puffs, I couldn’t imagine having big puffy hair and still be a sexy attractive adult. When I told my mom that I was not going to straighten my hair, she tried to discourage me with scary assurances that my hair would be big, bushy, and unmanagable. Like those are the absolute worst things hair could possibly be!
So it took some amount of courage and self-reflection on my part to put down the creamy crack (as monstro calls it) and embrace what I was born with. It was not just as simple as me just wanting to change my hairdo. I had to put down some mental chains, so to speak. If I had to bet my life on it, I’d say most black women who have made the choice to wear their hair natural undergo a similar thought process.
All that is a long way of saying, six on one hand, half a dozen on the other. Whether black women are trying to look white or whether we’re just unwilling to wear our natural hair texture out of fear/habit, what you get is the same thing: a lack of self-acceptance. So I think calling it a myth is more inaccurate than not. I don’t think the straight-is-best preference is something that has no historical basis to it.
I disagree. It happens all the time. And even if they aren’t called “nappy-headed”, they face so many pressures to straighten that it amounts to the same thing. Compare the numbers of women wearing their natural hair with the numbers who do not. I don’t know where you live, but where I do (DC metro area), the number of women with straightened hair greatly outnumbers the naturals.
Glad I was able to do some fighting of the ignorance. It seems as if our experiences are different, and that’s taught me something as well. The politics of black hair is something I’ve done a good bit of reading about. It’s a subject that is deeper than apparent to the eye.
This is pretty surprising to me, especially since you’ve mentioned before that you live in the Rochester area. Apparently we move in different circles, because amongst the people I’m around, good hair is still straight/wavy hair. I’ve never heard anyone call nappy/kinky hair good hair.
Woah, Rochester? I’m from Syracuse, so it’s definitely not regional, unless regions are now spaced about forty miles apart. This has to be a class thing. Nzinga, what was your family’s general financial status, if you’ll forgive me for asking?
I don’t mean to argue, but where I live, (Rochester, NY), and where I frequently travel, (NYC) having a lot of well maintained healthy kinky hair is complimented. I don’t mean to imply that all of my black sisters have shaken the chains of anti-black beauty propaganda and are ceasing to relax their hair.
I am saying that I am surprised that a huge cloud of fluffy natural hair does not get valued in your community. That is sad. Around here, I can’t make it to the corner store without getting complimented, “Lord, girl, look at that head full of beautiul hair! When I was younger, I had hair like that!” This usually comes from a woman with a weave in her hair, covering a broken, split-ends relaxed hairdo.
And lots of brothas, “I love that natural look, queen. You sexy as hell with that.”
Mind you, most black men are more likely to go after the girls with long, straight weaves! But there doesn’t seem to be any negative comments about girls with afros.
I think I shall start a thread on this. I am now very curious as to how many black people equate kinky hair with nappy hair.
Little late to the party, here, but as an owner of a dome that is currently short, has been a ‘fro, locks, braids, cornrows, bald, even conked - let me give my non-Black friends on the board some advice:
[ul]
[li]Don’t ever use a pejorative to describe a Black person’s hair. Unless they’ve got straw in it or something.[/li][li]Don’t ever, ever touch a Black person’s hair without asking. And I would be really careful about who you ask, if you must.[/li][li]Terms like “nappy” and “good” or “bad” hair are off-limits. You don’t get to talk about Black folks’ hair this way.[/li][li]Most of this applies to Black people who don’t know each other as well.[/li][/ul]
My sister and I have shirts that say “happy to be nappy,” sort of a reclamation of the term that’s been used to denigrate our natural hair state. (It made more sense when I had the 'fro and the the 'locks, though.) Nappy, unless used in a group of conscious, Afrocentric types, is generally a pejorative. If your mama refers to your head as being nappy, it ain’t a compliment.
To the Imus situation: this is another example of a White guy trying to be “edgy” or hip. He knows enough to know the phrase but not enough to know that it’s off-limits. Drives me crazy, like when White guys put on a Black “accent.” (Robin Williams does this a lot, and I fucking hate it.)
You reap what you sow. I’ve listened to Imus, and I get the sense he was the prototype for Stern when he was younger. Now he’s trying to establish an air of credibility, and with that comes responsibility. He should know that the history of women’s athletics, and Black women has been filled with stereotypes about their feminity and appearance. Even if he used the Queen’s English and said, “I say, those women are highly unattractive and have unbecoming hairstyles,” it would be offensive.
Listening to hip hop radio and using a phrase or a term which you yourself have not researched and understood is stupid. I think that’s what Imus probably did. Did he use that particular phrase to cause an intentional insult to Black women? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did not take that approach. But he is either harboring some seriously racist and sexist views, or is arrogant to not perceive that he was talking out of his depth.
My gay friends, and Jewish friends, for example, use a lot of slang and Yiddish, respectively, to refer to other people in their communities. I don’t use those words, because I don’t always understand what they mean, and even when I do, I respect that these are likely in-group terms that others outside of my group of friends might think shows overt familiarity, which most groups with a history of oppression don’t appreciate.
“Nappy,” like our other favorite word, “nigger,” is one of those words that you should use at your peril. If you have friends that are cool with it, or you have been granted a Ghetto Pass® by a Black friend, keep in mind that this permission is with those people only. I’ve been Black all my life and I am not going to drop those words into conversations with Black folks that I don’t know.
Should he get the boot? Sounds like he has a history of pulling this shit, so if MSNBC steel-toes his ass, I’m not bothered. He’ll get a job elsewhere.
Maybe. Things are changing now, but my family is solidly middle class, and in suburbs of WNY, and my experiences haven’t mirrored **Nzinga’s **. Actually, I’m letting my hair grow now (it’s natural) and my parents are pretty bothered by it. My dad did have an afro way back in the 70s and my mom’s hair is natural now, but she has “good hair” that’s waist length so it’s okay. :rolleyes: There is definitely more exeptance now than there was though.
Your perspective might be different if you go to the midwest or go down south (that’s where I’m from). NYC is not representative of the mindset at-large. It’s not conversative enough.
As Prince says:You could cut off all your hair, and I don’t think they’d care, in New York. All the critics love you in New York.
My very first understanding of racial differences came as a result of kinky hair. My hair is curly as all heck. If I wash it, comb it, and towel-dry it (and use a heck of a lot of conditioner) it falls into six zillion Shirley Temple spirals. When I was a little girl, I begged my mother to put my hair up like Lakeesha’s.
Lakeesha’s hair looked something like this . Adorable, no? Enviable, to my white-ass self.* I even directed my mother to the afro-care section of the grocery store, inquiring if this stuff would get my hair to look like Lakeesha’s. I was sorely disappointed. Sometimes she would have lots of cute little plastic barrettes! I wanted those!
I’ve never really been a fan of the artificially-straightened hair or the incredibly elaborate styles some women get when they get rid of their kinky hair. To me, it often looks less natural and flattering than it looks lacquered and uncomfortable.
I’m curious – is it all right for me to say ‘nappy’? (I don’t tend to, at least not seriously. I might tell a friend to get her nappy butt over here, but that’s different, innit?) Is it not okay because I’m white? Is it okay because my hair looks pretty nappy pretty often, especially during weather changes? Would it be okay if I was the half-(B?)black girl I look like?
Then again, who knows. I do look just like my mother with darker hair, but I’m the only one in my very immediate family with the curly gene. People would routinely ask me and my mother if I was half-black, sometimes in less… polite ways than others. The story about the day I brought my baby pictures to class, including photos of my parents looking proud, makes me grin whenever I think of it. Major highlight: the “You’re WHITE?!” revelation from a girl I’d known for five years…
Ah. You with the face, I haven’t spent much time down south at all. I am intrigued as heck by our conversation today. I will hijack no further, but will start a thread about this when I get off of work.
I’m in NYC now; I’m from Syracuse, also from a ghetto, and think I wasn’t clear, sorry about that. I wasn’t disputing the natural hair trend (or entering that discussion) but wondering about the difference in your experience of the term “good hair” and “nappy” and mine (and face’s and Omega Glory’s). I just think it’s an interesting little linguistic tangent.
Whenever I hear someone say “nappy”–whether they be black or white–I catch myself listening extra hard to figure out if they are using the term to disparage or whether they are using it in a value-free manner. The only people I see using “nappy” in an unloaded manner are those who embrace nappy hair by wearing it natural. Everyone one else–again, be they black or white–will have their words run through a seive, if I’m in the audience. And if I’m in the mood to argue, I might pipe up with a “what’s so wrong with nappy hair, huh? Nappy hair is beautiful, too!”
Since the word has baggage to it, I’d advise using other words unless you’re using using it in a complimentary manner (“I like nappy hair”). Kinky, bushy, afro-like, or curly get the point across just fine, and probably won’t offend.
Ensign, I just want to clarify that I am familiar with the term “good hair”, and realize that in the black community in America, it is used to refer to silky, fine hair.
I am trying to let people know that these same people often refer to lots of thick healthy hair as “a good, thick head of hair”. We are a people of contradictions, it would seem to someone outside looking in. But when you grow up around it, it becomes so easy to understand.
