“Take the kinks out of your mind instead of your hair.”  - Marcus Garvey 1918

In 1918, when Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) group launched its weekly newspaper, Negro World, it refused to run ads for hair straighteners in it, unlike just about every Afrocentric publication of the time.  Garvey provided the aforenoted quote as a charge to those who opposed his stance. 

One hundred years later, we find a growing number of people of African heritage embracing the natural texture of their hair.  According to market intelligence agency Mintel, between 2012-2017, black consumer expenditure on relaxers declined by 36.6% . We are also witnessing growing support for natural hair through social media activities such as hashtags, blogs and vlogs. 

But is this evidence that we removed the kinks?

Many years after emancipation, Caucasian standards of hair grooming continue to be the required look for admission to professional and social opportunities for black women and men. Common Afrocentric hairstyles such as braids, cornrows, twists and dreadlocks are often outlawed in the workplace; labelled as extreme, distracting, attention-getting or simply unkempt. It was not until 2017 that it became permissible for black women serving in the United States Army to wear their natural hair on the job! This included the removal of the army’s ban on dreadlocks. In some situations where Afrocentric hairstyles are not outlawed, black men and black women have come to realize that if they do not “fall into the Caucasian standard line” they will not get ahead.  For instance, in some corporate America settings, where it may be viewed politically incorrect to issue such decrees, black women, for example, often only find out they were being unfavorably judged for the “ethnic” hairdos the day they show up to work with bone straight hair and are greeted compliments.
In more recent headlines: 

• A Florida first-grader was denied entrance to a private school for having dreadlocks.   The school cited a rule in its handbook. 

• In Jamaica, the birthplace of Rasta, a child was barred from enrolling in school because she had dreadlocks. The Supreme Court of Jamaica had to intervene for the child to gain admittance. 

• Also, in Jamaica a story headlined “Grooming rules remain! - Principals say discipline in school important for an orderly society” was published on August 16, 2018 by the Jamaica Gleaner. In the article, Dr. Elaine Cunningham, who heads St Hugh's High School is quoted saying the following "The girls wear their African hairstyles. Sometimes it is a little unkempt, and I have to tell them to brush it up to make sure it is not too wild. Some wear the 'Chiney bump' (Jamaican hairstyle). I don't particularly like it, but it is a means of their expression." 

There are numerous anti-natural black hair stories in different parts of the world that have made it into my social media feeds in recent days, all from places that claim to be progressive and inclusive. In some instances, as with the stories coming out of Jamaica, from places whose populations are predominantly of African descent. All this is evidence that there is still significant pushback against Afrocentric hairstyles; that wearing one’s hair in styles amenable to the way it naturally grows opens one up to accusations of being “unprofessional” or “unkempt” and has become grounds for dismissal or expulsion in some venues. 

So why are we here today? 

The policy of one school that sent home a student with dreadlocks states:

Hair must be clean and neatly combed. For boys, length should be above collar, mid-ear, and above eyebrows. Hairstyles should be appropriate and consistent with good grooming and in no way a distraction to instruction. Fad hairstyles featuring different colors, unusual figures or designs cut in the hair, or ponytails on boys are not acceptable. Hair styles which are short in one area and long in another are not acceptable. Hair styles which draw attention to the student or cause them to stand out are not acceptable. Caps and hats are not to be worn inside the buildings.

There are so many misconceptions in this school’s policy, but the catch-all that encompasses almost all comfortable and convenient Afro hairstyles is “[h]air styles which draw attention to the student or cause them to stand out are not acceptable.” That sentence alone gives a school’s administrators utmost discretion in deciding on a personal whim whether a child, with, for example, bantu knots may be sent home. Policies such as this one promote ideas that are not true or that are outright biased in nature. And, if nothing else, these policies reveal an embarrassing fact: in the Afro Caribbean community, we have held on to the standards of beauty from our torrid colonial past. 

What can we do differently to improve the situation?

1.      Many fallacies about black hair are propagated by black people themselves. A significant number of black people have internalized through socialization that their natural hair is unacceptable. We can reverse that by changing the way we describe hair within our community. Particularly to our children. We can start by eliminating the use of certain expressions when describing hair.  This should include:
        Good Hair – it suggests that others not of the perceived “good hair” quality are bad. Our hair comes in different hues and textures. I get that for look and management one certain texture is preferred over the other by some people. However, a personal preference does not make one texture good and the other bad. 
        Kinky – suggests that it is freakish and unnatural. (Think of the few other situations in which the word “kinky” is used, if you disagree.)  Black hair is versatile, and to think that hair is only beautiful when sleek and straight is a ridiculous notion. There is not just beauty in black hair but also tradition in the styles themselves. Whether it be worn, bantu knots, braids, short fros, big fros or dreads, it is natural and beautiful and should only be described in those terms. 
        Nappy – the word itself has its origin entrenched in slavery when black hair was compared to    the naps of cotton. Some proponents of the word have argued that our use reclaims the   word. However, when an 8-year-old girl without the maturity or the confidence to understand     the proposed inherent reclamation hears her hair being described in such terms, it may have a   detrimental effect on how she perceives her beauty.  The same may be true for a boy. We see     this in the wave culture obsession. 

2.      While I recognize that institutions – schools, corporations and so on – have the right to prescribe a dress code, we should hold them to the standards on inclusivity and diversity to which many of them lay claim.  We can start policing our institutions. Review the current dress codes and request that racially biased standards be brought up for review and discussion with recommendations for revisions that are racially all-encompassing.  

3.      Where we have the opportunity to elevate and celebrate black beauty we must not shy away from doing so. I spend considerable time swiping through social media pages or watching music videos (two of my favorite pastimes) and I have found that even in our own community we do not celebrate men and women with Afrocentric hair as we should. We see it in media groups based on the people they photograph or the images they choose to share. We also see it showing up in music videos. Individuals who are in the process of evaluating themselves may get the wrong message when representations of themselves are not present or celebrated.  To counter this, I simply do not follow pages that do not present me… in my entirety. 

To borrow from the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., “I have a dream that … children will one day live in a [world] where they will not be judged by the color of their skin [or the texture of their hair], but by the content of their character.

I think; therefore I am...Naturally Appropriate!