Silly girl. One day, we curly haired peeps shall take over the world, and then you’ll be sorry. Bwahahahaha!
Ahem.
On the subject of the term “black”, a lot of the work I do involves equal opportunites and ethnic monitoring. For the purpose of classification, employees of African origin can class themselves as “Black British”, “Black African”, or “Black Carribbean”. Of course, this doesn’t cover all the bases, but black seems a generally accepted description.
You think that calling dark skinned people black is something that needed importing? That’s stupid, but expected, considering the source.
Ever heard of blackbirding*? You think they imported that word from the US?
On topic: I’m neither black nor curley haired but I find that really dark skinned people of any ethnicity look incredibly sexy with straight hair.
/You’re stupid if you couldn’t detected the tounge-in-cheekness of a post that ended with “the US is the center of the world”.
Topical humour! Today’s cartoon from Candorville.
Cheers!
I, my Anglo-Italian self, have a brilliant and lovely girlfriend of African descent.
I grew up in a community composed mostly of whites and hispanics, and even at college had fairly limited interaction with my black peers. I therefore had little previous exposure to cultural elements common to the African-American community. Our new romance has exposed both of us to new and interesting things; being intellectually curious and difficult to offend, we pepper each other with the most random questons.
We’re both in out late twenties, and she partakes of what must be 95% of the haircare in the relationship. I shave my head bald once weekly; she chemically straightens her hair a few times a year, and maintains it via a weekly flatiron ritual. The combination of routines consititute a hair enhancement process that far surpasses any regular beauty practice I’ve previously witnessed for complexity.
Active in her sorority’s graduate chapter and advisor to the undergrads, I tag along to a broad variety of functions, and am afforded an unusually intimate view into the social world of black women aged 18 to 80. Pertinent to the OP is the fact that of the dozen or so young ladies in the group outing to see Ray on friday night, not a one had tightly curled hair. Some had it straight, some loosely curled, several in an “up” style, even one with a ‘flip.’ Nary an afro to be seen. Previoulsy, at a picnic attended by members aged well into retirement, the predominant syle was a loosely curled perm (generally silver in hue), with only a few more naturally-ocurring heads of hair mixed in.
Based on my sample, it is possible to conclude that in Austin, TX, collegiate, professional and post-professional women of African descent may tend to favor hairstyles which require them to straighten their hair to some extent.
I must be missing something here: so do you consider “black” to be a nationality? Is it possible that the Nigerian woman was making a smart-ass response to a stupid question?
