Denise McNair, 11 Condoleeza’s former kindergarten classmate. Condoleeza was reportedly nine when her classmate died in the bombing at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Compared with her classmate, she looks around 15.
Part of that would be cultural. My girlfriend lived in West Africa for several years (was married to a Senegalese fellow actually) and told me that barber shops are ubiquitous and that men are constantly getting their hair cut. This would be in line with what I’ve experienced throughout other parts the Third World; that having straight, neat and short hair on a man is considered (along with at least one nice clean dress shirt-with-collar) a sign of his ability to fend for himself financially and a sign that he’s clean, neat and therefore trustworthy, reliable etc. This is in a society in which personal relationships are very important for people’s business projects, a lot of folks being catch-as-catch can self-employed.
Barbers are also very cheap. A lot of them work outside and have very few and cheap supplies/overhead. You’re paying mostly for labor, which is cheap in that part of (and most of!) the world.
West African women tend to keep their hair up in colorful scarves, partially because of Islam, but in the case of Christians and others it appears to pretty much be the style. I’ve met some friends of my girlfriend multiple times whose hair, come to think of it, I’ve never actually seen.
Now, my girlfriend also works with the West African immigrant community here doing health studies. Specifically she works with the immigrant women, the vast majority of whom have found employment in hair brading places catering to African-American women. It seems that, processed and/or braded, long hair on African-Americans does get brittle commonly enough that virtually any woman you see with relaxed or braded hair much past her shoulders has extensions. (And this is likely employing that woman from Cote d’Ivoire who lives down the street…) I imagine that Ms. Rice’s hair is probably near the extension limit and that you’re unlikely to see it longer.
Appropos of nothing, it occurs to me that James Brown was straightening his hair long after that went out of style for the average African-American male. Very Darth Vader-meets-Elvis at times…
I’m largely familiar with “high yella” through ribald blues songs of the 20s and 30s. A common doubled men’s refrain is “Some crave high yella, but I crave black or brown…” Follow with punchline ending with rhyme with “brown.” Repeat.
monstro, if you’re still reading this:
I wouldn’t the hair-feeling too personally or even negatively. If it makes you feel any better, my girlfriend has her straight blond hair grabbed all the time in Africa. And as One Hairy Caucasian, I’ve had all kinds of Asians stroking my arm hair and tugging my goatee. Once I even had kids surround me on a motorbike at a traffic light for that purpose. It was like “Yay, white guy! Arm hair! Whoopie!!!” Big fun.
I realize this is a violation of personal space and has some ugly conotations in terms of historic displays of “exotic” Africans. At the same time, people who are pretty curious - cliche alert - mean well. It comes out in weird ways some times, but I suppose it’s a pretty basic human thing for a lot of people to poke and prod a visble minority before you can get past that and treat them like a human. Can be degreading but I don’t know that’s the spirit it was intended in.
I wouldn’t go that far. I think “virtually any woman” is an exaggeration, particularly if we are talking about the descendents of African slaves (as opposed to African immigrants). Remember, a lot of us have mixed ancestry. And although relaxers can damage hair, it can aid in the growth process by keeping hair easier to maintain. But a large percentage? Yeah.
Yeah, I know. I know some people automatically think “touching my hair=racist” but I don’t. Who knows? Maybe if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t think twice about touching a caucasian’s head.
Wow this thread is still going strong!
I’d like to introduce a whole new dimension (well to the ppl in here for which this is all genuinely new) to the incredible universe that is black women’s hair:
Weave.
There are stores that sell nothing but bags and bags of hair to be “weaved” into your existing hair. These tracks of hair can be glued or literally weaved in with your existing hair. Some are cheap and fake, some are high quality and when properly weaved, indistinguishable from your natural hair.
One example: http://outrehair.com/
Oh, yeah. It was a real jolt to my sensibilities when I hit my twenties and began realizing just how many sisters weave. It’s unbe-weave-able. Quality has many ranges, and some are much more obvious than others.
