What does it mean to have good hair? Is it moisturized, is it detangled, or is it healthy? Perhaps, but for centuries the phrase “good hair” has been used to represent African Americans with rather eurocentric, straight, or “tame” hair.
And this had led to the pervasive idea that curly/kinky or Afrocentric hair is somehow...not good?
The popularization of the movement against this bias is largely due to the 2016 film Good Hair, directed by none other than Chris Rock. The film begins with Chris’s daughter asking him a question that almost all young black girls especially ask themselves at some point; “Daddy why don’t I have good hair?”. The following story line then attempts to shed some light on some of the rather damaging techniques many African American people use in order to achieve “good hair”. Statistically speaking, this pressure to conform is largely present among black women. A study is known as the Good hair study conducted by the Perception Institute back in 2017, asked over 4,000 participants to engage in an Implicit Association Test*. The study concluded that "a majority of people, regardless of race and gender, hold some bias towards women of color based on their hair." Most importantly though, the study concluded that the bias was learned and could therefore be unlearned. Specific findings also include:
1 in 5 black women feel social pressure to straighten their hair for work
Black women perceive a level of social stigma against textured hair, and this perception is substantiated by white women’s devaluation of natural hairstyles.
White women demonstrate the strongest bias — both explicit and implicit — against textured hair.
Other studies have found evidence of this same bias in the education system:
In January 2020, DeAndre Arnold, an 18-year-old at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, was suspended from school for dreadlocks he started growing in the seventh grade in the same school district. He was facing possibly missing his high school prom and graduation. He has since withdrawn from the school district and enrolled elsewhere.
In January 2020, a second student at Barbers Hill High School, 16-year-old Kaden Bradford, was suspended for the length of his dreadlocks. Kaden Bradford is DeAndre Arnold’s cousin.
Today, through social media we have been able to witness authentic black hair being praised in the media such as Ciara’s 2019 Met Gala look (Figure 1) or Solange’s Don’t Touch My Hair music video (Figure 2). However, black hair is still being discriminated against in the workforce and in the education system.
So what now? As stated before, this is a learned bias, so naturally, I want to fight it with education. The colonialist view of good hair and bad hair has warped the black identity for some time now and I feel it’s time to dive deeper into what good hair is. Black hair is not only good hair but it’s complex, it’s strong, and it’s a symbol of power. This bias that has haunted us for centuries must be broken down strand by strand.
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