1. Hair

For those of you who have been pregnant, think about how violated you felt when someone, especially a stranger, touched your belly without your permission. Think about how it felt for everyone and their mama to ask when you were due and ask any number of intrusive questions. If you responded to this rudeness with anything other than a smile, you were most likely dismissed as a crazy hormonal pregnant lady. That lasted about six months of your life, give or take.

Now, imagine if on a nearly daily basis for your whole life, someone came up and touched your hair without asking as if it was there for them to touch when they wanted. Or imagine constantly having people comment on your hair and question you at length about what it feels like or how hard it is to take care of. Or imagine being made to feel like you belong in a zoo based on how people are petting you and exoticizing your hair. If a black woman speaks up for herself or comments on how rude this behavior is, she is dismissed as an Angry Black Woman.



On top of the touching, the stares, and the questions that can make a black person, especially younger girls, feel “othered,” they are barraged with images of a beauty standard that does not include them. When was the last time you saw an ad for black hair care products on TV? When was the last time you saw an ad in People or Vogue? Pretty much never.

Imagine if you showed up to work or school with your hair styled in a natural and cultural way, and you were told your hairstyle was banned and you needed to change it.

Imagine if this was a battle you had to wage nearly every of your life.

It's not just black hair that is misunderstood.

Navajo females wear their hair in a special bun called a tsiyeel. The hair is folded over in half and then in half again and then wrapped in white sheep's wool spun into yarn. This is not ceremonial. It's a daily life thing.

Here we have a ref making a Navajo girls basketball team take out their tsiyeel because the strings that hang from it posed a danger. But he ordered them to put ponytails in. How waist-length hair flowing free in a ponytail is less hazardous than short yarn hanging down, I don't know.

A young boy with a traditional Mohawk was kicked out of school for an inappropriate hairstyle at a school called Arrowhead Elementary.

Bonus reading:
Why natural hair matters in race discussions.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-woman-asked-hillary-clinton-213400993.html