So I am reading a book called: "The Black Woman's Guide to Beautiful Hair - A Positive Approach to Managing Any Type and Style" by Lisa Akbari
So she stated that one of her eight year old client stated that black women started calling their hair "bad hair" since slavery; to quote:
"...it started way back when the pure black slave girls had true African kinky hair and the little mixed-breed sister had that wavy hair. That is when we started believing that there was "good hair" and there was "bad hair."
Wow, I thought about this statement that this older woman said to Lisa, and it does sound about right. I like this book because she is from the stylist along w/ having natural hair her self from 1977, and she give a program that will produce healthy scalp, which will produce healthy hair. I will continue reading and then give a review of this book, but so far it isn't a bad read.
What do you think about that statement or observation?
I am not sure if this is the case. When I was in college, I took a class called "Psychology of the Black Experience". We were taught that during slavery time, many white scientists created hair charts and experiments that compared our features (including our hair) to that of animals or harsh objects. Our hair was often compared to wool. I believe this is how we started to believe that our hair was less or not "good hair".
ReplyDeleteI guess there isn't one particular origin of the term 'bad hair', you might come across different reasons/places why/when the term originated.
ReplyDeleteSo true, but hopefully we are learning and getting away from that adjective when describing kinky hair. Thanks for stopping by.
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