CONTENT WARNING

Please note the essay below contains two counts of explicit language; this is not to offend readers, but rather, to bring readers into the reality of my life in the “developed” society that is America.

PREFACE

My hair texture has been a “problem” since childhood. Whether my hair was in a stretched or unstretched state—and whether I was in America or my homeland—I’ve had to deal with brown-skinned family members who hated my hair, plus numerous beige-skinned persons who made it clear that my “nappy” or hyper-frizzy hair was inferior to their straighter strands. At this stage in my elderly millennial life, I now believe the only beings who have zero issues with my natural hair are G-d and my hairstylist. If you’re a curious intellectual who wants to dive into my hair woes and better understand why hair harassment isn’t about hair, then I invite you to read my essay. Thank you in advance for your reading and reflection time.

1 / Intro

Our hair composition is complex.

Society’s bias against coily hair is not.

My hair does not obey gravity.

It loves to frizz at will.

It becomes poofy when left unattended for 24 hours.

And it grows horizontally (due to the follicle’s flat oval shape), so it has no sex appeal in Hollywood.

In light of this brutal reality, my hair has been policed in America since 1786 A.D.

In 2024 A.D., my hair is regularly regarded as ugly, untamed or unprofessional by many beige-skinned earthlings who supposedly believe straighter strands are superior.

I’ve been fired from a job, harassed by supervisors, profiled by an armed police officer, mocked by peers and rejected as a romantic partner by individuals who’ve concluded that, because G-d and/or my genetic code gave my hair a higher amount of disulfide bonds, I am somehow an inferior being.

Over the decades, I maneuvered social and economic exclusion—executed by so-called progressives and conservatives—by routinely burning my scalp with relaxers; wearing a wig that garnered compliments for its wavy texture; sewing a straight-haired weave onto my plaited hair; sporting braids that slowly thinned my edges; and regularly frying my hair strands at 425 degrees Fahrenheit to attain the perfect silk press in the name of self-hatred.

The humiliation I’ve endured for my natural hair texture—plus my lip shape—from childhood to adulthood ultimately led to my being upset with my Creator. And, I’ve since repented.

To exist in a society where two of the most mundane elements of my human anatomy are relentlessly harassed or assaulted is strange, pathetic and tiring.

Thankfully, I eventually realized that these recurring incivilities aren’t 100 percent about my hair, or my lips.

2 / Pattern: Hair Texture Harassment

In 2018 A.D., I worked with a supervisor who genetically identified as Chinese-Cuban and prided herself on being a progressive Catholic.

This “progressive” fifty-something supervisor—who presented as a beige-skinned, straight blonde-haired, double-lidded and blue-eyed woman—referred to my lips as “cow lips” and my hair as “naps.” She also used the word “nigger” in an attempt to antagonize me.

My experience with this supervisor wasn’t unusual in the region of America I lived in, and was typical of the industry I worked in for years.

I suspect that if this supervisor had been given ample control to dictate how all darker-skinned and “nappy-haired” women should look in the workplace, then she’d mandate that they straighten their hair to avoid being fired.

Interestingly, such a mandate wouldn’t have been drafted because this supervisor actually believed there’s something inherently wicked about non-straight hair.

Rather, this mandate would be executed by a supervisor who is addicted to exercising an unusually high level of control over a human being, because watching their victim’s reaction to harm would offer them a dopamine hit at no cost.

(We see this addictive, unhealthy and malicious behavior in the narrative of European enslavers whose profiles suggest they exhibited narcissistic, sociopathic or psychopathic personalities.)

On the surface, my supervisor was clearly a woman who felt that humiliating a thirty-something darker-skinned woman in the workplace for her G-d-given hair texture was completely normal, if not culturally obligatory.

However, as someone who has engaged in conversations with such individuals—be they family members or strangers—I saw something else at play.

3 / Trauma And Maladaptive Behavior

The surreal accumulation of incivilities I experienced in 2020 A.D. led to my doing a deep dive into trauma and behavioral addictions, as a clear-cut pattern emerged amongst beige-skinned abusers, bullies and harassers whom I’d tag into the Yellow or Red Trauma Zones, regardless of faith affiliation.

Before I continue, I’d like to present the following quotes for context:

• In “Maladaptive Behavior and Mental Health: What’s the Link?,” Melissa Porrey states, “Maladaptive behaviors form throughout life for a myriad of reasons (e.g., anxiety, trauma, adverse childhood experiences),” and this can, for example, lead to a regression of empathy in individuals.

• According to the Addiction Center, “Bullies are also impacted by bullying in different ways. In some cases, bullies are victims of parental abuse, neglect, and harm. In turn, bullies hurt others, as they have learned how to bully people from the comfort of their home.”

• According to Sadia Khan, some behaviors are indicative of underlying trauma if “the response is disproportionate to the scenario; that suggests that there is a preexisting wound.”

   

• According to Jamie Cannon, “Trauma victims can take back some of their personal power by impartially examining their need for control and learning to recognize if this is a potential issue for them. As challenging as it is to acknowledge unhealthy behavioral patterns, it is essential for trauma victims to be able to separate past experiences from present and future ones, along with the behaviors that were formed as a response to traumatic incidents.” 

• According to Creed Branson, “Control issues can manifest in various ways, including perfectionism, rigidity, compulsive behaviors, avoidance, or a need for dominance.”

• According to Gedale Fenster, “All we do is displace people’s energy…If somebody gives you a negative comment, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna dump it on somebody else…The majority of the world—all they’re doing is displacing energy. The guy [who] got dumped last night, he’s gonna wake up [and] he’s gonna be rude to his friend…All people are doing is just dumping toxic energy from one person to another. That’s all people are doing all day long.”

• And, according to Dr. Gabor Maté, “Many of us harbor the seeds for hatred, rage, fear, narcissistic self-regard and contempt for others that, in their most venomous and extreme forms, are the dominant emotional currents whose confluence can feed the all-destructive torrent we call fascism, given enough provocation or encouragement. All the more reason to understand the psychic sources of such tendencies, whose ground and nature can be expressed in a word: trauma…Nobody is born with rabid hatred, untrammelled rage, existential fear or cold contempt permanently embedded in their minds or hearts. These fulminant emotions, when chronic, are responses to unbearable suffering endured at a time of utmost vulnerability, helplessness and unrelieved threat: that is, in early childhood.”

There are numerous ways in which a percentage of formerly abused, invalidated or traumatized individuals of the beige hue can present maladaptive coping behaviors, and I believe one way is rooted in an addiction to humiliate, harm and hyper-control darker-skinned beings at church, at school, at work, in a restaurant, online and so on.

(Thankfully, some psychologists are starting to take note of this pattern in light of the generational trauma that was formed through the diabolical enslavement of brown-skinned beings by beige-skinned persons, which paved the path for skin tone bias.)

Now, I neglected to state some critical information regarding the aforementioned supervisor.

That is, at the time we worked together, the supervisor had mentioned in conversation that she was still being fat-shamed by her mother, who was a professing Catholic. Also, because she had been cohabitating with her boyfriend for nearly 10 years, this supervisor’s mother would remind her that she disapproved of this relationship structure.

As someone who knows what it feels like to be hyper-criticized and hyper-controlled by an abusive mother—a mother who was also hyper-criticized and hyper-controlled by her abusive mother—I don’t believe the supervisor was only being shamed for her appearance or for living with her boyfriend. I believe the supervisor was being shamed by her mother for many aspects of her existence.

I also believe it is unlikely that the supervisor consistently challenged her mother’s shaming practices or attempted to resolve any trauma that may have developed from childhood to adulthood, courtesy of her mother or other caretakers.

(In certain cultures, or household cultures, a woman is forbidden from challenging or talking back to their parent, whether she—an adult child—is 25 years old or 50 years old.)

Therefore, I—and my younger, brown-skinned colleague—served as this supervisor’s convenient trauma toilet, in which she could dump her invisible insecurities and dormant rage. In short, we served as her emotional sustenance, because it’s much easier to degrade or devalue a darker-skinned woman than it is to sit down with a therapist in a transparent tell-all session to attempt to heal from your mother’s longstanding invalidation.

4 / The Proxy Versus The Problem

Off-sourcing your pain to a proxy—be it a darker-skinned woman or a beige-skinned woman with a visible difference—is a rational coping mechanism for a traumatized and hostile person who is afraid or unwilling to come to grips with the reality of their inner turmoil.

If a husband is suddenly addicted to abusing his wife several times per month, because he claims that her dark brown eyes are inferior to his blue eyes—and she defiantly refuses to wear the blue-colored contacts he purchased for her—would you say that the wife is the problem in this scenario?

Is her disobedience the issue?

If the husband lives in a patriarchal region that places a high value on being birthed with blue eyes, is it okay for him to abuse his wife whose eye color is considered “less than”? Would you say that the wife’s eye color is the core problem, and so it’s in her best interest to adhere to the blue-colored-contacts policy?

If your answer is, “No, the’s husband’s abuse is disproportionate to the scenario (to quote Sadia Khan); there could be several reasons why this husband is abusive, none of which concern his wife’s eye color,” then you are correct.

If that’s the case, then why is the default response to my being abused for my hair texture (and my hue) rarely given the same consideration?

If, for example, I were a beige-skinned woman who verbally abused brown-skinned women crowned with coily hair, I might tell myself that my behavior has absolutely nothing to do with the husband who has secretly abused me for 20 years, or, it has nothing to do with a father who invalidated me for decades.

Rather, I’d boldly reason that my abusive behavior is justified, because coily hair and “stained” skin are inherently inferior in the eyes of my G-d—a deity who apparently has beige skin, a non-nappy beard and a British accent, according to 99 percent of Christian films produced in America. 

And then, I’d be grateful that I lived in a Red Trauma Zone, so it would make it incredibly easy for me to spread anti-coily hair propaganda.

If I can blame the state of my zone—or the state of the world—on coily-haired earthlings birthed with brown skins, then as a beige-skinned woman birthed with straight hair, I’d never have to address why the state of my nervous system is a bit off.

I’d never have to process the pain from the husband who fat-shames me, the neighbor’s son who raped me as a teenager, the mother who always called me an ugly duckling and the father who left me in high school.

Instead, I can blame all my problems on “those” people who G-d—again, the beige-skinned G-d with the British accent—cursed for life.

When a beige-skinned supervisor chooses to be verbally abusive and exceedingly hostile towards textured hair, or opts to enact a discriminatory policy that penalizes a darker-skinned employee who opts out of chemically straightening their coily hair, then wouldn’t it make sense to prod the narrative—just a tiny bit—by accurately assessing the abuser’s trauma management regimen?

Wouldn’t it make sense to understand the fundamental wound that the abuser is projecting in an excessively controlling, humiliating or lethal manner?

At the risk of comparing apples to oranges, I consider orange Christmas sweaters to be ugly and unprofessional. (I admit, there is an inner wound I’m not addressing regarding the color orange.) Even so, you will never find me abusing someone for sporting such a specimen in the workplace.

As a brown-skinned woman, I cannot imagine verbally abusing a beige-skinned person because of their phenotype, or even enacting policies that would penalize their straighter hair strands. I cannot imagine myself telling a beige-skinned person that they must perm their hair (or undergo a procedure to pump their lips) if they don’t want me to fire them, or if they want me to cease abusing them with my words for their “unprofessional” phenotype.

However, I will say that, for me to descend to this level, I imagine I’d have to market the reason for my bizarre behavior in a way that conveniences me.

Also, for me to get away with blaming the world’s problems on every beige-skinned girl and woman birthed with a non-coily hair texture—in other words, for me to have an unbalanced reaction to a human being birthed in a phenotype that’s different from mine—I’d have to be in a dark, angry, empty, unsatisfactory, hyper-controlling and hyper-insecure place in my life due to one or more abusive and/or traumatic situations I endured, yet intentionally opted out of processing.

If this were my reality, then the beige-skinned person whom I’m abusing would hold every right in the world to ask me, “Who hurt you growing up? Who invalidated, molested, raped or tortured you as a child or an adult? Why are you making me pay the price for what they did to you? Why are you using me as a trauma toilet and portraying my phenotype as the problem? Why are you nailing me to a cross for the sins of your abuser(s)?”

Yet, most people I know on both sides of the color spectrum don’t go there.

Instead, most readily assume that the War of Hues and Hair Grades is strictly a skin-and-strand problem, versus “a sin problem” (to quote Reverend Karlene Kerr), as well as a trauma problem.

I have conversed with beige-skinned men who wanted to rape me plus beige-skinned women who repeatedly invalidated my appearance. What did both of these demographics have in common?

They desperately wanted to pacify their pain from the empty or abusive situations they found themselves in—be it from living with an abusive parent or partner—by using me as…you guessed it, their trauma toilet.

I am done being the proxy.

It’s high time that a percentage of beige-skinned bullies, abusers and perpetrators admit that the unprocessed pain from their damaged Soul represents the actual problem when it comes to conscious pigmentation and phenotypic bias. But, such a statement is unlikely to happen en masse.

So, when I realized that hostile, beige-skinned women and men were consciously and joyfully using me as their personal rehabilitation center, because they r-e-f-u-s-e-d to transparently process their private pain with Jesus and/or a therapist, my patience for the nonsense of explicit bias was over.

5 / Unrepentant Abusers and Perpetrators Will (Eventually) Reap What They Sow

If trauma leaves clues (to borrow from psychologist Sadia Khan), then bias creates behavioral patterns.

The exceptionally abnormal treatment or disproportionate reaction to my non-threatening hair follicle that I’ve overtly received for 30-plus years lets me know that my hair is not the actual problem; it is the proxy being framed as a problem for decades on end, because there are very few brave Souls like Dr. Gabor Maté who are challenging this centuries-old narrative by speaking to the core causes of harm and humiliation from a psychological and physiological perspective.

Every beige-skinned (and brown-skinned being) I’ve known who used my hair texture as target practice for daily humiliation and harassment had two things in common: unprocessed trauma (often stemming from parental abuse and/or neglect), and an awareness that it’s societally acceptable to degrade darker-skinned women for any reason that pleases their hurt, angry, invalidated or empty Soul.

(I now understand why there are biblical verses that caution parents to raise their child(ren) in a manner that exhibits discipline, compassion, wisdom and love.)

So, it shouldn’t shock anyone that my Jesus-believing, beige-skinned supervisor was addicted to abusing or tormenting darker-skinned women, due to her unresolved trauma from whatever abuse, invalidation or tragedy she experienced and continued to experience in her home or her mother’s home.

Also, my supervisor was aware that, on this side of Heaven, there were zero consequences for her actions, as she resided in a territory where abusing darker-skinned women is rewarded.

In the earthly realm, the social (and psychological) rewards for erasing, stereotyping, othering, excluding, degrading and essentially abusing darker-skinned women are superb in American society, so being surrounded by Jekylls-and-Hydes of beige-skinned persons belonging to various income classes and faith affiliations who are pleasant in public, yet cruel in private has long been the norm for me.

However, from a biblical point of view, there are no rewards for consistently belittling, oppressing or dehumanizing brown-skinned women created in G-d’s image, though millions (delusionally) believe they can abuse G-d’s grace until the end of time, sans eternal consequences.

Call me dumb if you want, but for some reason, I don’t believe that clinging to an enslaver’s mentality is going to be approved and welcomed in G-d’s Paradise.

And so, if I were an unrepentant abuser or perpetrator who humiliated or terrorized darker-skinned women yet claimed that Jesus, G-d and the Holy Spirit are real, then I would be terrified by the idea of divine judgment and justice.

6 / My Response To Beige-Skinned Persons Functioning In The Yellow And Red Trauma Zones

In 2024 A.D., I continue to meet beige-skinned women and men who attempt to make me feel as though I’m an inferior being.

I’ve been dealing with this problem since 1990 A.D.

Instead of calling these individuals racists—that’s too comfortable and outdated—I proceed to interrogate them, or tell them that their behaviors were beginning to mirror a classic case of the abused becoming the abuser.

For example, when a beige-skinned woman delivered a demeaning comment my way, I opted to ask her if someone had ever abused her growing up. She became upset and attempted to deflect, which then prompted me to repeat the question. Again, she opted out of answering the question and proceeded to yell at me about a subject that wasn’t part of the conversation. As a trauma survivor, it was clear that I was dealing with a fellow trauma survivor. And, it was obvious that she hadn’t engaged in any trauma work to address her wound(s), so I ended that conversation.

In another scenario, I told a beige-skinned man that his behavior towards me was beginning to remind me of his abuser. That was met with silence. He has since done inner work to get his life back together, and now, he has a good grip on how his trauma impacted his unwillingness to treat darker-skinned women with respect.

And in another scenario, I told a beige-skinned man to address his maternal wounds with a therapist instead of projecting his issues onto me. (His mother had previously excommunicated him due to his sexuality.) This individual ended up doing inner work to address said wounds and his lack of respect for darker-skinned women.

As you can see, I am no longer playing mind games with beige-skinned women or men who dare to make it seem as though my hair texture is the problem they must work overtime to humiliate or exterminate.

My window of tolerance regarding hostile, beige-skinned persons who refuse to seek help for what ails them is quite low these days, as I’ve dutifully paid my skin taxes in America.

So, I prefer to challenge such individuals by prodding their potential problem areas, because being a consistent proxy for someone’s pain is beyond t-i-r-i-n-g

If I had referred to all of the aforementioned individuals as racists to their faces, that wouldn’t have impacted their conscience, even though under the imaginary race system, they’d be classified as imaginary racists.

Language can evolve within one century or one generation.

Case in point, the term “bitch.”

I’m grateful that Ava DuVernay’s film Origin touches on the reality that terms such as race, racism and racists are all constructs, because whether or not some brown-skinned persons want to accept it, a time is coming when these invented concepts won’t mean anything to anyone who’d qualify as a so-called racist.

This American society is slowly graduating toward pigmentation- and phenotype-based language in preparation for the Deracialization Movement—a movement I’ve been monitoring for years. Also, our phenotypic landscape is rapidly changing, so racialized categories will be irrelevant.

Language that centers complexion versus the construct of race (or racialized identities) is increasingly being used in legacy publications, independent publications, online conversations and as of late, a crime briefer by the New York City Police Department (Timecode 1:12 – 1:14). And, from what I’ve witnessed since 2020 A.D., I believe the deracialization movement will be in full swing by 2035 A.D.

This means that, eventually—perhaps between 15 to 20 years from now—calling someone a racist will be equivalent to calling that person a punk.

Therefore, learning to adopt complexion-centric language in 2025 A.D. and beyond—while being hyper-mindful of a supervisor’s or colleague’s trauma profile—will be of mounting importance in the years to come, as the constructs of race, racism and racists are on their way out.

7 / Outro

Because I knew a bit about my supervisor’s backstory, I understood that I was dealing with a defeated human being who, like me, had also been wounded by life.

The difference between us—aside from our phenotypes—is that I chose to get help for my woundedness when I was nearing my mid-twenties, and, I am not above submitting an apology when I’ve wronged someone.

In choosing to consistently disrespect my dignity, this supervisor showed me that she lacked self-respect and self-awareness. Plus, it seemed that she chose to forfeit her divine purpose—and a much-needed healing journey—to joyfully engage in humiliating darker-skinned women.

To each their own, right?

Now, I’m not a mother. And, I’m not a school administrator.

Regardless, had I birthed a child who bore my phenotype or had I been responsible for drafting policies at a renowned college prep school that housed students who bore my phenotype, then mandating how a toddler, child, teenager, young adult or adult chose to wear their coily hair would be the least of my worries, as I could not rationally justify policing one’s highly textured hair.

As harsh as this sounds, I could care less if said students chose to grow their locs to their knees, or if they chose to crown their hair strands with beads.

I would care more about building the dignity, character and empathy reservoir of all my students, irrespective of their hair texture. That is what a psychologically balanced or emotionally healthy human being prioritizes.

However, there are brown-skinned persons in my family who would forcefully mandate that all brown-skinned girls and women straighten their hair with relaxers to project a “proper” or “superior” look. This cohort of brown-skinned persons were severely traumatized for their existence—and their hair texture—plus deprived of love by one or more wounded caretakers.

Furthermore, these brown-skinned persons either grew up in a predominantly beige-skinned environment that reinforced their inhumanity in multifarious ways, or predominantly grew up in a brown-skinned environment where the construct of beigeness was idolized.

So, when societal programming and unresolved trauma engage in a slow dance that leads one to become an anti-textured-hair tyrant—regardless of your complexion or natural hair texture—that does not shock me.

Oftentimes, when we hurt or (cruelly) provoke a family member, friend, acquaintance, colleague or stranger with our words or actions, this signals that we are not interrogating our wounds and/or our behavioral programming.

Had I told the supervisor, “You’re being racist,” after she insulted my hair texture (and one facial feature), I believe she would have laughed off my accusation or denied that she could qualify as a racist, because she “has Black friends.”

Had I looked into my supervisor’s eyes and asked with concern, “Are you degrading my hair texture, because you’re hurt or angry that your mother still fat-shames you?”, then there’s a decent chance I would have received a response that suggested her heart posture—and not my hair texture—was the actual problem.

To the average person, it would appear that my supervisor degraded me, because she believed my hair texture is “ugly,” “unattractive” and “unworthy.”

However, the reality is, a human being who is attempting to “inferiorize” you due to the shape of your nails, the number of fingers you were born with, the distance between your neck and jaw, the size of your kidney or the type of strands that sprout out of your scalp isn’t someone whose Soul—or mind—is functioning at an optimal state.

An appropriate narrative regarding my supervisor could be that, in combination with biased programming, she was also projecting her pain onto me, instead of processing the volumes of shame trapped in her mind from her mother’s decades-long attacks targeting her body.

In short, she needed an emotional punching bag or a trauma toilet, and what better option than a fellow human body whose phenotype is accustomed to all forms of abuse from “progressive” and “conservative” beings born in a beige hue? Why do the rough work of engaging in a truth-telling session with a therapist when you can easily offload your anger, insecurities, pain, shame and trauma onto me?

Do you notice the difference when we choose an accurate and realistic narrative?

When my (traumatized and self-hating) immigrant parents repeatedly made it clear that I was unattractive when I proudly opted to wear my “bad” hair in its natural state, their rage let me know there was a wound within them—versus a wound within me—that needed to be addressed.

In the same regard, there was at least one wound within my beige-skinned supervisor’s Soul that needed to be tended to.

Unfortunately, using a proxy to soothe pain is what we humans do well; in this case, my skin (a non-threatening organ) and my hair (a non-threatening protein filament) were the stand-in for my supervisor’s psychological malaise. 

The pseudo-humiliation I receive these days for my hair no longer bothers me as it did in my younger years. I state “pseudo-humiliation,” because again, beneath the surface, a hostile or violent behavior targeting my hair texture has nothing to do with my hair texture. Shocking, I know.

Instead, such abnormal behavior is indicative of a wound within the abuser that is willfully being ignored.

To arrive at this conclusion, I had to engage in trauma studies, which led to my detangling the matted strands of European colonization that cleverly conditioned my mind—and the minds of many straighter-haired persons I know—to believe that the shape of my follicle invalidated my humanity.

Once I began researching the significance of my hair texture during the Transatlantic Chattel Enslavement while diving into the science of hair textures and the psychology of bias, it was then that I stopped taking a hostile, beige-skinned person’s trauma-motivated behavior personally.

In doing so, my awe for the richness of my roots and the goodness of my G-d were renewed.

REFLECTION

COFFEE TALK

• What thoughts or feelings did this essay bring up for you?

• What are your thoughts regarding hair, or, what are your thoughts regarding your hair?

• What are your thoughts regarding coily, wavy and straight hair textures?

• When did you first learn you had “good” or “bad” hair, or when were you first told you had “good” or “bad” hair?

• For Brown-skinned Persons with Coily, Wavy or Straight Hair: Imagine you’re a teacher who instructs preschoolers. One day, you notice a darker-skinned student with coily hair who is seated at the playground crying. You approach her and in between sobs, this three-year-old claims she not only hates her hue but also hates her hair texture, because her classmates noted her features are evil and ugly. How would you respond to this child?

• For Beige-skinned Persons with Straight Hair: For some mysterious reason, as of tomorrow morning, all straighter-haired, beige-skinned persons will permanently wake up with coily hair. With all that you’ve learned about coily hair, would you immediately opt to straighten or shave your head bald? Why or why not?

• How do you feel when you meet a darker-skinned woman or man with locs?

• If your daughter (biological or adopted) was being threatened with expulsion from her school due to her coily hair, then as a parent, what would you do?

• Why do you think coily hair has been policed in America—Christian schools included—and elsewhere for centuries?

FEATURED

• Michelle Obama Says US ‘Wasn’t Ready’ For Her Natural Hair (CNN)

• The Story Of Black Hair (Good Morning America)

• When Black Women Were Required By Law To Cover Their Hair (Vice)

• Hair: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (YouTube)

• News Anchor Said She Was Fired For Wearing Her Hair Natural (11 Alive)

• Study Reveals White Women Have A Bias Against Black Women With Natural Hair (YouTube)

RECOMMENDED READING

Coily Hair Bias

• Study Shows Bias Against Black Women’s Natural Hair (Teen Vogue)

Legislation For Coily Hair

• Army Lifts Ban On Dreadlocks (The New York Times)

• Referee Who Forced Wrestler To Cut Dreadlocks Banned For Two Years (The Guardian)

• Florida School Threatens To Expel African-American Girl For Wearing Natural Hair (Essence Magazine)

• The Crown Act: A Jewel For Combating Racial Discrimination In The Workplace And Classroom (Economic Policy Institute)

Chemical Relaxers For Coily Hair

• Thousands Of Black Women Are Suing Chemical Relaxer Makers Over Cancer Risks (NPR)

• What Black Women Should Know About Hair Relaxers And Their Health (NBC News)

• Wait, Were The 90s Hair Relaxer Girls Natural All Along? (Refinery29)

Coily Hair Incivilities

• Stop Asking Black People If You Can Touch Their Hair (Forbes)

• Opinion: Why Is Black Hair Seen As “Unprofessional”? (The Varsity)

• She Was Told Her Black Hair Was Ugly. Now Her Event Draws Crowds To Celebrate Curls (The Detroit News)

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

The Economics of Coily Hair

• The Business Of Black Hair (CNBC)

• The Hidden Cost Of Black Hair (The Economist)

Commercials

• Tresemmé 2013 Commercial (YouTube)

• Vidal Sassoon 1989/1995 Commercial (YouTube)

Photography Exhibits

• Can I Touch It? (Endia Beal)

• Black Rice (The Photoville Fence)

Short Films

• Strong Hair (Foundation.App)

• Define Beauty: Process (YouTube)

Short Docs (Unruly)

• Can Black Hair Ever Just Be Hair? 

• Have You Ever Been Judged For Your Hair? 

• What Can We Do About Hair Texture Discrimination? 

Short Docs (Vogue)

• The Hair Queens Of Chicago 

• Lupita Nyong'o Stars In "Braids” 

• 9 Women Tell The Truth About Life After Hair Loss 

Films

• GOOD HAIR (US)

• Nappily Ever After

• Good Hair: Perceptions Of Racism (OpenLearn) (UK)