huh? How was that NSFW?
I disagree with Nzinga on the politics of black hair, but that’s not a secret since we talked about this subject a while ago in a past thread.
I can’t say that most black women are consciously trying to mimic “white hair” when they straighten, but I will say that there’s such long a history of blacks not accepting their natural hair because of social pressures to conform to the Euro aesthetic that it’s a big of stretch to think that today’s trends have nothing to do with past motivations. To say that black women back in the day were driven to straighten out of self-hate, but now they straighten because it’s a fun and cool thing to do…that doesn’t compute. That would be too coincidental. That’s like saying that although the skeletal features of a chimpazee’s leg are similar to a human’s, they don’t share the same evolutionary origins.
Most black women straighten their hair because that’s what they been told they need to do. This pressure is enforced by their peers, their parents, and a society that prizes long, flowing hair. Even though more and more black women are bucking this pressure by wearing their hair natural, a lot more do not because they, in many ways, see wearing their hair straight as the prefered default. It is more in line with what they’ve been taught is pretty and desirable. And also, many are under the impression that their natural hair is next to impossible to manage (even if they’ve never managed it before because it’s been straightened since childhood). So they straighten it because that’s what they’ve been taught they have to do to get hair that can easily be cared for.
I have first-hand experience with this within my own family and community. When I first told my mother that I was going to stop perming my hair, her reaction was of dismay. “What if it’s bushy?” she asked, as if she was talking about a medical condition. My father also raised his eyebrows. You would have thought I told them I was going to drop out of school and live in a nudist colony. Even within myself, I felt like I was making a brave move by not straightening my hair anymore. I didn’t even know what my natural hair texture was like because all I really knew was the straight stuff. There was fear associated with letting my hair be its natural self. This is not the kind of struggle that women in other American ethnic groups, by and large, have to go through.
I would be more inclined to believe that black women are straightening their hair purely out of fashion or whatever if I saw 1) more of them wearing natural hair and 2) if I didn’t see so many women with straightened hair that looked horribly damaged and jacked up. It seems that a lot of women would rather nuke their hair to pieces rather than consider leaving its natural state. That tells me that its more than just fashion and the desire to “explore the array of hair styling opportunities out there” going on here.
Why do you think “No Niggers No Jews No Dog” signs are urban legends? It’s extremely disturbing and repulsive but very real. There seems to be a market for this memorabilia so counterfeits are common.
The hair oil is an example of how African Americans tried to disguise their appearance. Bleach cream was another common cosmetic used by blacks.
Ah, I agree. When I was talking about exploring the options open to black hair, I was talking about the braiding, dreding, weaving, knoting, sculpting kind of looks that don’t look like white hair even a little bit. I’m in Chicago, where you almost never see plain permed black hair anymore. Some of these techniques may require straightening as a step, but it’s not the finished product.
In quoting elmwood, I didn’t repost the links in his post, because then I might be accused of doing the very thing that I was complaining about.
I suppose I could’ve reposted the links with “not safe for work” around them, but there was no need; I only quoted elmwood to put my post in context.
btw - click on the link. You’ll see what I mean by not safe for work.
not safe for work
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/traveling/grid/16.htm
not safe for work
Like aliens, Santa Claus, and the prospect of universal health care in the United States, we went to believe.
See this previous thread, where “No Dogs or [ethnic group]” signs are discussed. The conclusion was that generic Jim Crow-era signs (“Whites use this water fountain, blacks that one”) were common, but the really hateful stuff was extremely rare, if non-existent.
FWIW, Jews were never subject to Jim Crow laws. We’re talking about Georgia , Mississippi and Alabama, not Nazi Germany. There was the usual discrimination in the day (restricted country clubs and resorts), and the Klan didn’t exactly think too highly of them, but otherwise Jews were just as assimilated and accepted in the community as anyone else. I’m saying this as a Jew: to put the level of discrimination Jews faced in in the pre-Civil Rights era on the same level as blacks would be trivializing what blacks experienced.
I understand that Jews were not subject to Jim Crow but that doesn’t mean anti-Semitism wasn’t blatant in the backwoods south. My husband grew up in the South, on the North Carolina border. He vividly remembers signs that read: You are now entering Klan Country and Nig** beware – Don’t let the sun go down and catch you in town*, something to this effect. He said there were several roadside billboard size signs in small rural towns designed to evoke fear.
Thank you for the link. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus that the signs are urban legends. Unfortunately, the signs are very real.
To add a personal anecdote, I also have a Jewish last name. The Klan hates Jews as much as black folk. I do agree it was much easier for Jews to assimilate than blacks.
Nope, still don’t see it. As far as I know, “Not safe for work” on this board has always meant nudity and X rated sexual content, not decades old advertising (or attempts to look like it.)
Those models look white to me.
Those are called “sundown towns”. Some other minorities, including Asians, Native Americans, and Jews, were also barred from sundown towns at night.
You don’t think that some of those links would cause at least a raised eyebrow or two if a coworker or boss saw them? I’m sitting in my school’s computer lab and it made me uncomfortable. Regardless of what NSFW means or has meant in the past, I don’t think it is a stretch to say that such a warning is applicable here as well.
I think that was the point. They’re meant to be black, but they’re depicted as very light skinned.
When you have eliminated racism, you can straighten your hair if you want to.
Tris
Exactly. On a product marketed to black people. To convince them it would be better to look white.
Inner Stickler, IANAMod. Neither is Mijin. If **Mijin *thinks the post should be reported, then s/he can click the little red triangle in the post. But to use NSFW in a new and different way without clearly defining terms made me wonder what s/he was talking about - if there was some nudity/sexual or mature content I missed in the links.
No, I don’t think it’s NSFW, but it doesn’t matter what I think any more than it matters what **Mijin **thinks, really.
*From the glossary in ATMB: “NSFW or NSFWP – “Not Safe For Work” or “Not Safe for Work Place” refers to material that is of a mature nature. This could apply to sexual content, bad language, adult situations, depictions of violence, etc. In other words, if your boss happened by and saw you looking at this instead of working, he/she would NOT be pleased. Generally, we require that such sites NOT be reachable by an accidental click: if you want to deliberately go there, you can cut-and-paste the URL, or there can be a two-click barrier.”
OK, I really didn’t think that my initial polite request was going to be a subject of debate…
Two responses to your post come immediately to mind, WhyNot.
Firstly, did you actually read the definition of NSFW that you included? “This could apply to sexual content, bad language…”. The last time I checked, the N-word was still considered bad language, and therefore arguably the link I mentioned straightforwardly fits the definition of NSFW.
Secondly, did you actually read the definition of NSFW that you included? The list of examples is terminated with etc and then the explanation: “In other words, if your boss happened by and saw you looking at this instead of working, he/she would NOT be pleased”.
They’re clearly implying that you should use your common sense on this.
(For me, though, their wording implies that anything that doesn’t look productive is NSFW; they should say something like “…your boss happened by and saw you looking at this, at your desk, in your lunchtime, …”. But that’s beside the point)
Finally though, let me re-iterate: it was a polite request. I’m not saying anyone should be chastised for not sharing the same understanding of NSFW as me.
I know we have been over this before, but this topic happens to be one that I see a lot in the media (black women wish they had hair more like white people), but have not noticed this is true in my real life dealings with black women, so I do take it upon myself to label this a myth.
I am going to draw lines of distinction, and some people may not like those lines, but they exist, and I feel they need to be acknowledged if we are to discuss this honestly.
There are two kinds of ‘natural black hair’. One kind is considered very kinky, and one kind is the kind of hair that looks like a grade common on the offspring of a mixed race couple, which is more of a looser cork screw. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call the kinkier stuff ‘black hair’ and the looser curled stuff ‘mixed hair’.
I notice that women with mixed hair find it hard to believe that black women may actually not want to have mixed or white hair. It’s like, they just couldn’t believe it.
If a white woman tans, no one says she wants to be black. The tan doesn’t look like black skin at all, it looks like tanned white skin.
If she perms her hair to be curly, no one says she wants black hair. They just say she wants curly hair, because it doesn’t look black at all.
If she gets her lips inflated, no one says she wants black lips. Even if the effect does look like black lips sometimes, no one believes she wants black lips.
But no one can believe it when I say that black women do not want white hair.
I think it weird that people that are raised in black ghettoes believe the same thing that the white media pushes when they should have seen different with their own eyes. Black beauty cannot be denied, regardless of the propaganda pushed. If we sell out to the media, we may strip our beauty…but if you enter the ghettoes at the ground level, you will see the resistance to the propaganda.
Let’s take big butts for example. If black women are sooo susceptable to the propaganda that has been pushed on us, (white hair superiority), then explain why the black girls in the ghetto covet huge butts!? Crave large thighs and hips…tell me why I know tons of girls with complexes because they have been told they have a ‘white girl booty’, which means flat. Could it be that in spite of the propaganda pushed, we know, in our guts, that we are beautiful? Our men respond to us in a way that makes us know it. Their natures rise when they see our huge negroid lips, our big round bottoms, and we know we are beautiful regardless of what this society says. And boy does society have much to say. ‘Badonkydonk’ was a term of admiration. Yes it was. Black men said it in reference to women with huge behinds, and they said it in compliment. Imagine my surprise (not actually surprised at all) when I saw the word used in a commercial by a white women who was stating that she would get one if she ate some fattening food. I assure you, she didn’t mean it as a compliment. But we are beautiful, still.
There was a time we had to prove it. In the 70s,we wore huge afros to make a statement. The media may not tell the story as well as old photos, footage of old 70s concerts in Detroit…there was like 80 percent of all females wearing straight up afros! We don’t have to do that anymore. (Although I do). We can now be free to where our hair in all of the amazing styles that we can dream up, and the same people that mock us are the same people that will put our street looks up on their runways in NYC and Paris in some ‘modified’ form. I notice your location, You with the face. I visited Baltimore and D.C. last summer and noticed that there are even more women rockin’ the fro and dreads and twists than there are in Rochester! (and we got a lot.) Harlem represents, Manhattan…it is just all over the place. And the girls that don’t go natural are ok. If white folks had never set foot on the continent of Africa, I guarantee you, you would see all sorts of styles in black women’s hair, including straightened styles. All kinds of African people have traditionally worn their hair in ‘altered’ states.
It is important to get the message to mainstream society that black people struggling in the ghetto are not a self hating people. We are a proud people! (shout out to Raisin in the Sun, and a special shout out to P Diddy for delivering that one line in an Emmy worthy way). We have had to battle some serious oppression, hard times, being mocked, laughed at, put down, under represented, misrepresented, but through it all, yes we are beautiful, and we do know it.
deep breath I am not deluded. I know for a fact that ‘good hair’ ‘bad hair’ has been an issue in the black community for a long time, for good reason. We were taught that nonsense. But in 2008 things are changing and are changing fast. And I love it.
I was just trying to support the idea that NSFW is a valid warning for a variety of subjects beyond simple nudity. I apologize if it seemed antagonistic. That was not my intent.
I imagine it varies. The kids in my class when I was little wore cornrows, though, I learned it from them.
No, my hair is thick, wavy, and kind of fuzzy. I suspect that I would wind up with an aureole of fuzz around my head!
I’m certainly willing to believe that black women don’t want white hair. (Actually, when I learned something about black hairstyling from my college roommates one year, I was rather envious. So many options, and it stays! My hair just does what it does, without reference to my preferences.)
Mijin, while I appreciate your concern, I suspect that you would have received a better reception had you not tried to play the “Moderator” card.
Beyond that, I am afraid that I think you overreacted. Note that each of the pages bearing “offensive” material carries the logo “Ferris State University” and that each bears the title “Jim Crow museum of racist memorabilia.” It should not take anyone more than two seconds to see that the photos are not glorifying Jim Crow or its icons. Given that the very first link in the thread is to the same website, displaing thumbnails of the same images, no one should really have been shocked to discover that elmwood’s link (to the same site) would have been larger depictions of the same images.
[ /Modding ]
Put aside the mixed haired/white haired folks-projecting-negative-ideas-about-black-hair-onto-black-women, for a second. I know this is a belief of yours, but I honestly think this belief is what is making you biased, not anyone else. Not trying to be confrontational, but this an example of poisoning the well.
Because everyone knows few people are trying to be black. Being black has just about always been considered bad. Slavery, Jim Crow, and all of that. So that’s not the first thing people think of when they see whites tanning.
Not all black women want white hair, true. I don’t and I’m not saying they do. But I rather frame the question this way: Do black women, by and large, embrace the kinky hair that you call “black”? Have they been conditioned to shy away from kinky hair in favor of a texture that just so happens to simulate the very same texture of hair associated with the same ruling establishment that told them their hair was ugly for hundreds of years? I don’t expect you necessarily answer these questions, but I hope you see that the issue is not as simple as “do black women want white hair”.
It’s funny you bring this up, because I happen to believe the “black folks love big butts, etc.” to be an overstated myth. Plenty of black women hate their physiques and are subject to the same pressures that white women are subject to. And plenty of black men chase over the skinny frames and think thick women are fat.
But I believe the reason you don’t see us fretting over our bodies the same way we fret over our hair is because curves are not as big of a departure from the American standard of beauty as is kinky hair. Big butts and tits have always had their fans, even when Twiggy was all over the place. And also, it’s no small thing that hair is much more amenable to modification. You can’t change the size of one’s ass as easy as you can straighten your hair, so you might as well accept and love that ass because it ain’t going nowhere. With hair, you can press it, you can perm it, you can put in a weave, etc.
Well, no one is saying otherwise, are they? I think we can say that black women, by and large, have good self-esteem about their looks. But that acknowledgment doesn’t mean kinky hair isn’t stigmatized in a way that has no racial component to it.
I’m glad, too. Things are changing, and the change seems to be moving exponentially. I think what’s going on is that the more women that wear their natural hair proudly increase, it has an cascade effect in the community and people feel more comfortable taking the leap of putting down the hair straighteners.