Yeah, she strikes me as a little too strait-laced (even back when she was a liberal) to have ever done that. Maybe when she was an undergrad in college or something.
Cisco, are you honestly unaware that straightening is the norm for black women in this country? Because it sounded for awhile like you were being argumentative, either because you thought we should respect her hair no matter how she chooses to wear it or because there’s a one in a hundred chance that her hair is naturally that straight. Are you simply unaware that the black women you see with straight hair have had it chemically processed?
Her skin is light enough, though, that it seems unlikely to me that she could ever grow an afro. (Broad generalization alert: please don’t let impressionable minors or overreactionary liberals see the following text.) Based on my experience, most black people with skin as light as hers don’t have hair curly enough to wear that way, possibly due to significant European ancestry.
The piece was specifically about how a white man should go about dating a black woman. One of the other tips was something along the lines of don’t expect to win points by taking her out for dinner to a soul food restaurant. I can’t honestly remember the rest.
The piece was specifically about how a white man should go about dating a black woman. Another tip about hair was don’t touch, for the reason that black people’s hair is a bit more dry and brittle than white people’s hair. One of the other tips was something along the lines of don’t expect to win points by taking her out for dinner to a soul food restaurant. I can’t honestly remember the rest.
I don’t know what pics of Condalezza you’ve been looking at, but she is not a light-skinned woman. Not even cafe au lait or honey colored. I’d say her complexion is about the norm for a contemporary black American woman. Not light or dark, but in between.
Not that skin matters when hair is being considered. Angela Davis is a very light-skinned woman and sported one of the best looking 'fros ever. So did Niki Giovanni. My father is damn-near-white and had a respectable fro. As did my high yella mama, back in the day.
Back in the 60s when it was the “style”, Africans rarely displayed afros. Why? Because most of them couldn’t pull it off. The European ancestry that the majority of black Americans possess is what gives our hair the strength and volume needed for bigass afros. Most west Africans have hair that is much too fragile to style like that, so they make do with TWAs (teeny weeny afros). Even if Condi can’t sport an Angela Davis, she can don a TWA.
Condelezza strikes me as coming from a family that would have disapproved of natural hairstyles. I suppose this is a big assumption to make, but back when afros were in style, many black people–particularly conservatives and older people–thought they were a bit too much. Sorta like how dredlocks are viewed today. 1960s afros were never really a fashion statement, but rather a political one. I don’t know if Condi comes from a conservative family, but I’m betting she at least comes from a mainstream-embracing background.
No, not all black women (people) have curly hair. But compared to your average European or Asian, few naturally produce bone-straight hair akin to chemically relaxed hair. Just like few white people naturally produce the curly hair akin to permed hair. Most have straight or wavy hair. Most black people have tightly to loosely curly hair. Most black women get their hair chemically straightened.
We don’t know what Condi’s natural hair texture is like, but I think we would be safe to assume it is not straight and that her current 'do is not natural. I’m betting Condi does like what a huge majority of black women (plus Al Sharpton) do on a monthly or bimonthly basis. She goes in for a “touch-up” at the local beauty shop, and maybe whips out the hot comb when she has to do a last-minute press conference.
Well…sorry. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. It’s just that I’m a serious WHITE GIRL. And the few black women I aM pals with don’t disuss their hair processing with me much. They look nice to me, have either straight or braided hair (or whatever) and I don’t ask them much about it. Except one time, I did ask this woman if it didn’t give her a headache to braid her hair so tightly, because when I braid mine (or even wear a ponytail) I have to take Advil to go along with my do. It gives me a screaming headache to have tightly pulled back hair.
Anyway, I seriously don’t know what the ethnic differences in hair consistency are. I assume that like other things, they are as varied AMONG ethnicities as BETWEEN ethnicities.
Just to add to my confusion, I work with two white women (and I mean WHITE) who have tight curly hair that’s completely out of control.
That’s why I’m confused. I sort of have a notion that black hair is “different.” And in fact, I know that I can use products aimed at black consumers on MY rather course hair to make it softer. But other than that, why would I know what African-Americans or Asians or Albanians or whoever do with their hair? For all I know, it grows out of their hair the way they show up at work.
Am I really alone in this ignorance?
Then again, I don’t pay that much attention to my own hair, so maybe that’s my problem.
And it really doesn’t occur to me that Condoleeza’s political beliefs are reflected in her hair. I mean, maybe they are…people get mohawks to make a point, maybe she’s making a point too. But hell if I know what it is.
I don’t think your ignorance on the subject (and I don’t mean ignorance in a bad way …just that you don’t know about it) means you are necessarily the whitest white person in the world. It’s just that it’s easy for me, a black person, to take for granted that everyone understands the lives of black people.
If you wanna see how black women’s hair would look if it weren’t for relaxers and hot combs, take a peek at a random black guy’s head. You could do a little exercise and examine 100 black guys to get a nice sample. You’d find a variety of textures and even colors, but I guarantee that almost all of them would have curly hair. I suppose that’s why I’m confused why people are having a hard time understanding. It’s not like people don’t see black people’s natural hair on a regular basis.
As for political statements in hair, black Americans and Native Americans are examples of two racial/ethnic groups that have been forced to assimilate their hair. In the case of black Americans, an afro during the 1960s was just like saying, “I’m black and I’m proud, dammit!”*
*And like everything, there are exceptions to the rule. The poet Audre Lourde, for instance, wore an afro in the 50s, before it was even considered a style, before people even knew who Stokely Carmichael was.
Aside from Sharpton, Michael Jackson is the only other black man I can think of who has straight hair. Jacko’s is obviously treated; there ain’t nothing about him that’s unaltered. As for Sharpton, well, maybe he’s planning on going into televangelism if people ever get tired of listening to his loud-mouthed ranting
Okay, a couple of things. And it’s Friday evening and I’ve been drinking wine, so please, PLEASE forgive me if I stray from the O.P. and the point in general.
You are right. One of my many “bosses” is an African American man. Maybe we’re more of a “sideways” relationship at work, I don’t report directly to him. It’s a weird org chart thing that I’m not quite sure of. But in any case, I never thought about his hair. What if it were to grow out indefinitely and try to be feminine like the women I know? Well…it would be a disaster. It’s TIGHT curly. Huh. Never really thought of this before. He’s a great guy…really into techno-gadgets and teaches me a lot about technology in and out of work environments. (Yes, I know this doesn’t relate…but I saw him today after he’d been travelling for a long time and was so glad he was back that my comments may be a little shaded by this.)
I love Audre Lourde. Even though I’m culturally and ethnically illiterate (having grown up on a farm in central Illinois with no opportunity to meet anyone who wasn’t caucasion and christian) I read “Zami” as a very young child and I just purchased a copy of it so that I could see what I think of it as an adult. (I would NEVER describe myself as anything but a literature FREAK.) It’s marvelous. What does this have to do with the O.P.? I have no idea. But still.
Sorry for dominating the thread. But I just saw this and I can’t let it slide
Whoever wrote that piece is not all that bright. The reason you don’t touch a black person’s hair (unasked) is because it is downright rude. And I’m sorry to say this, but a lot of white people do this to me. I’m not a sensitive person and I never make a fuss when it happens, but I don’t like it. First off, I don’t want somebody’s handprints in my impressionable hair. Also, I’m not a dog or cat, nor is my hair freaky enough that it has to be fingered. It makes me feel weird to have someone touch my hair unasked.
Yep, and I wasn’t trying to be argumentative, it’s just hard for me to understand that almost every black girl I see, from toddler on up to senior citizen, has their hair treated on a regular basis. I’m not saying it’s not true - it very well could be, especially since I don’t tend to bring up hair as a conversation topic very often - but I’ve got a few black female friends that have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Well, a search on the internet for photos has revealed how futile it is to determine someone’s skin color from internet photos. Her skin has always appeared to be on the light end to me, but I can’t say for sure, since lighting on TV could have made it quite different. So perhaps I’ve been misperceiving it (it’s funny how subtle, objectively speaking, differences in skin tone are. People have an amazing ability to perceive very slight differences in human appearance.) But I would say she’s café au lait.
I didn’t realize - does the term “high yella” still have any currency? I’ve only run into it in historical contexts.
Which one is you? Both of you are really pretty. (Note: I’m drunk and gay, so it doesn’t mean anything.)
Is that true? People of purely African descent don’t grow good afros? I had no idea. That actually makes a lot of sense in terms of its political use as a symbol of African-Americanness in particular.
Now here you get zero argument from me. Like I said, I can’t imagine her ever having had an afro, or cornrows, or anything else terribly “ethnic”. She just doesn’t appear to swing that way.
There’s always been a lot of politics surrounding black people’s hair, though I suppose that I only know that because of my own minor obsession with hair. Straightening has been the norm among black women in the U.S. for a long time, and it was also fairly normal among black men during certain periods. There’s a lot of symbolic import in that - straightening your hair makes it more manageable, but it also makes it look more like white folks’ hair. Wearing your hair au naturel became a marker of identifying with the black community during and after the Black Power movement.
The amount of effort needed to maintain long hair if you’re black makes the political/symbolic import attached to hair start to make sense. Either it requires a lot of combing and effort to keep it from getting snarled, or it needs to be kept in a particularly “ethnic” hairstyle, or it needs to be straightened. All of those things are a lot of work, and varying amounts of painful as well. The chemicals needed to straighten hair are very strong bases, and while I’ve never had it done, it certainly sounds uncomfortable. Worse, or so I’m told, is having your hair combed if it’s not straightened. I’ve read stories that centered upon the experience of little girls having their hair brushed by their mothers - it was a long task, and painful.
There’s a lot of symbolism attached to either symbolically conforming to white society by making your hair look more like a white person’s, or rebelling by allowing it to remain in a more natural style. I’m white, so don’t take anything I’ve said here as gospel. But yeah, hair is a complex issue for black women.
I don’t think many toddlers have it done. I imagine the style of braids you see on little girls are probably done in order to save the effort of having to do much to take care of the hair. But yes, the adult women you’re thinking of probably do, unless their hair is short or in an afro.
“Café au lait” is a term used mostly to describe the lighter complexions of biracial people. If I were describing Condi to someone who didn’t know her, I’d say she was simply brown skinned. To say that she was café au lait would mean that she was light brown, like Halle Berry or Veronica Webb.
It’s still around. High yella is still a derogatory term, to be sure, but some people still use it when they are simply describing the way someone looks.
The one on the right is me. We are twins.
And thanks! We aim to please!
My point was that the most impressive, blow-out afros that we tend to associate with the Black Power Movement were beyond the reach of most “people of purely African descent”. But most black people can sport TWAs. (Although some black people, like myself, cannot if they have loose, rather than tight, curls.)
I don’t think this ties into the political symbolism of the afro. In fact, I think it’s kind of ironic.
“Naturals” were common during the Movement and into the 70s, but then dropped off precipituously as we moved into the greedy times of the 1980s, when it seemed like everybody was only interested in going “corporate”.
But natural hairstyles are trendy now, and not only for “rebels”. My corporate sister has locks now, along with my radical-anarchist mother. Neither my twin or I relax our hair anymore, and we don’t we feel any particular pressure to do so.
Because our natural hair is considered so “different” and “weird”, black women are constantly dealing with hair issues. In the 60s, afros were in style but initially only for men, because black women were still subjected to the idealized standard of beauty: that of long, flowing hair. We remember Angela Davis, but she was a feminist before “feminism” even existed as a term, and she was rebellious in lots of ways. Most black women weren’t that brave. It was not a big deal when men started growing their hair long. But it was a big deal when women started lopping off their hair–hair that took a lifetime to grow and groom–only to let the naps fly. Suddenly they were not only saying “fuck you” to white society, but they were also telling men that they would not be subordinate anymore.
It is political not just because it’s hard to care for (because natural hairstyles are actually really easy to maintain). It’s political because almost every black woman–or maybe even black person–has heavy baggage associated with their hair that really can’t match what a typical white person carries with them. The only time I’ve ever cussed out someone was when an unlucky guy made the poor choice of intentionally insulting me about my hair, in public no doubt! For someone like myself who does not look “straight out of Africa”, my hair represents my “otherness”. To besmirch my hair is to besmirch my blackness and to try to take away what I consider a vital part of my identity.
Well, not necessarily. There’s hair that’s so kinky that it’s damn near impossible to pull a comb through smoothly, and then there’s hair that’s curly but not so kinky. And then you have people who are “tender headed”, who are particularly sensitive to pulled tangles, and then you have people who don’t feel a thing. So there’s a spectrum. What’s “worse” or “better” is going to depend on a lot of things.
Relaxers that aren’t properly done will burn you. I still remember the burns I used to get on my nape–owie!! Most relaxers nowadays are “no-lye”, so I imagine they used to be much much worse. But just as bad, if not worse, are the burns you get from hot combs, which I think young kids are more likely to be subjected to.
Also remember that many black women also have braids. And most little girls occassionally get their hair pressed.
