Warning: Proximity to me causes adventures. ([info]karnythia) wrote in [info]sex_and_race,
2007-08-14 14:01:00
"According to Glamour magazine, my hair is a corporate Don't.." Gee, isn't that special? Mind you while my politics and my hair match, my decision to stop using relaxers was motivated solely by the damage the chemicals were doing to my scalp and hair. My mother is almost bald. Guess why? But hey, why focus on crazy things like comfort and health when the key to getting ahead is to coat my scalp in lye (or its chemical brethren) so that I can have hair that almost looks like a white woman's? Except for the part where it doesn't really. And I'm in pain. And my scalp is constantly peeling and my hair requires all kind of reparative mixtures in an effort to keep it attached to my head. Oh, and let's not forget how relaxers smell. Or how much of your life is curtailed by that quest to have straight hair. No, all that matters is that my hair fit a white ideal. Otherwise, how could it possibly be clean and neat? And of course my hair tells the world everything it needs to know about my skills and my education. I can't say I'm surprised, but I am definitely disgusted.

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  • 37 comments

[info]angelsscream

August 14 2007, 19:19:38 UTC 4 years ago

Me too, it makes me sick that it doesn't matter that I'm intelligent or educated but just to make folks comfortable all that matters is doing damage to one's scalp. **headthud** And I know all about the balding caused by lye all too well....just ask me about the time when I was 7.

[info]karnythia

August 14 2007, 19:21:25 UTC 4 years ago

I was 3. Let me guess, someone thought your hair would be easier to deal with if you had a relaxer. And it was, seeing as you didn't have any.

[info]angelsscream

August 14 2007, 19:28:39 UTC 4 years ago

exactly!

[info]angelsscream

4 years ago

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[info]gal_montag

4 years ago

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[info]karnythia

4 years ago

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[info]gal_montag

4 years ago

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[info]shewhohashope

August 14 2007, 19:27:47 UTC 4 years ago

I stopped reading Glamour and banned my sister from buying it back when they published that article about how women love manly men and not pansies who treat women like human beings and don't rape them (I paraphrase).

I stopped using relaxer after lumps of my scalp came off in my hand, but I never really lost a lot of hair.

[info]mendemama

August 14 2007, 19:45:44 UTC 4 years ago

my hair is all broke off

and I haven't had a relaxer since 1997. I think it's the white people. The stress of dealing with them done broke my hair off and it's ain't growing back. My hair started breaking when I moved to Portland, six years ago. Overstated a bit, but I really believe that internalized stress from dealing with racism is doing ALOT to us.

[info]angelsscream

August 14 2007, 19:53:38 UTC 4 years ago

Re: my hair is all broke off

It has been proven that all the stress attributed to dealing with racism is killing us off by studies (then again I'm very skeptical about studies...and everything) but yeah. It's killing us both physically and mentally...

[info]croupier

August 14 2007, 19:52:57 UTC 4 years ago

Good for the folks at Cleary Gottlieb NY for sending out an e-mail mocking this bozo. And like the Jezebel writer pointed out (however obliquely), coding straightened hair as apolitical is just plain wrong--straightened hair is political, because any time chunks of your scalp are falling off in your hand so you can meet a beauty standard, something political is going on.

And dude, I just wrapped up a post-grad program at the future site of the George W. Bush presidential library. I know for a fact that what Jezebel called "Republican highlights" exist, for I have had to stare at them all through the past three years, amen.

[info]animikwaan

August 15 2007, 04:29:22 UTC 4 years ago

straightened hair is political

booyah.

[info]likeawoman

August 14 2007, 20:03:36 UTC 4 years ago

I just wanted to commend you for your neverending ovaries, posting this in [info]feminist. it really is like they're conspiring to miss the point.

I just don't understand how folks can make statements like "Afros are unprofessional" without thinking for a moment that maybe there's something behind the fact that it's black hair that's always coming up as a "problem." I mean, it seems as simple as 2+2, but they just keep on like it makes perfect sense to single out certain sectors based on race without being able to simply acknowledge the racism at hand.

also, I thought your comment... over there... about how white women are often singled out for appearance issues because said issues are coded as associated with POC was really insightful. [info]i_dreamed_i_was said something similar in a discussion of fatphobia and I think there's really something to it.

[info]karnythia

August 14 2007, 20:08:36 UTC 4 years ago

I knew when I posted it that it would bring the stupid, but I've decided if someone doesn't challenge those broads regularly they'll never get it. She and I have discussed the theory (we're friends offline too) and one of the things we've both noticed is that many of the white women that are considered exotic or unattractive or to have "wild" hair have traits commonly associated with WOC. There's a reason slim figures with blond hair and blue eyes is frequently touted as ideal.

[info]likeawoman

August 14 2007, 20:15:29 UTC 4 years ago

aw man, I wish I could hang out with you guys.

I think you're right about [info]feminist though. if there wasn't somebody to stir up and challenge the stupid, they'd just sit around marinating in it.

[info]delux_vivens

August 15 2007, 01:22:57 UTC 4 years ago

you posted this in feminist?

*is amused*

[info]karnythia

4 years ago

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[info]papertigers

August 15 2007, 13:45:45 UTC 4 years ago

I'm impressed by your restraint; I can't read more than four posts in a row in that community before I'm wanting to scream or bite someone, and that thread with [info]conceptual_tea... I don't know how you do it.

[info]karnythia

4 years ago

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[info]papertigers

4 years ago

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[info]rare_exile

4 years ago

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[info]imjustice

August 14 2007, 21:36:46 UTC 4 years ago

a comment

BY ELVISLIVES AT 12:43 PM

It's a sad but true fact. I've worked in corporate America for seven years now, and I've never seen anyone on (or looking to be) the executive track with dreads or afros. Do you know it takes me an hour a day + an average of $40 a week in product/relaxer, etc. to keep my hair looking this white? And I'm only half black! I can only imagine what the 100 percenters have to put up with.

i hope that is meant as satire.

[info]mayhemwench

August 14 2007, 22:05:37 UTC 4 years ago

I read that in Europe before WWII the desire for breast enlargement was very rare because women wanted smaller breasts and would opt for breast reduction surgery. Drawings of "primitive" women that circulated in the media at the time showed them with large breasts, so large breasts were associated with being "primitive". However, after WWII, "primitive" women became eroticized, and so large breasts became erotic and desirable. It's similar with how black women are seen in the US, and how they are sexualized in a way that white women aren't.

I found this comment really interesting, because (at least on the West Coast, I don't know about the rest of the U.S.), small breasts have been becoming more popular in the last 10 years or so. And exoticism of Asia, and of east Asian women, has been becoming more common in the same time period out here. I've also seen kids in the library looking through make-up books to make their eyes look "more (east) Asian."

I'm not saying there's causation; it's more likely a coincidence than anything else. But it's interesting.

[info]mayhemwench

August 14 2007, 22:10:05 UTC 4 years ago

That was a comment in feminist. Sorry, forgot to mention.

[info]fire_fly

August 15 2007, 02:19:18 UTC 4 years ago

Um, BEFORE WWII?? What? There was plenty of eroticisation of "exotic" (i.e. non-white) forms of beauty before then. But maybe they mean none of that was targeted to white women?

[info]___sixtilsunday

August 14 2007, 22:34:02 UTC 4 years ago

part of me discounts it because it's only glamour magazine, but another part is pissed of because i know that's exactly how a lot of people (black, white, whatever) view natural hair.

ugh. this makes me want to scream.

[info]delux_vivens

August 15 2007, 01:24:04 UTC 4 years ago

I wish these omniscient bitches had been around to gift me with their wisdom when braids made it start to fall the fuck out.

[info]gal_montag

August 15 2007, 01:49:35 UTC 4 years ago

Yeah, my hairstyle has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with my fucking genetics or anything.

[info]fire_fly

August 15 2007, 02:22:11 UTC 4 years ago

I think it's telling that a decision to NOT modify your body in harmful ways is taken as a "political statement" while using harmful relaxers would be taken as non-political.

What was that about belittling black folks' politics?

[info]busted_english

August 15 2007, 02:51:34 UTC 4 years ago

I hate you for posting this in feminist. You are officially on the hated list. There used to be so much black love between us... now we are both afro puffs away from hate.

[info]delux_vivens

August 15 2007, 03:35:52 UTC 4 years ago

YOu are always about the hate.

[info]busted_english

4 years ago

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[info]delux_vivens

4 years ago

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[info]karnythia

August 15 2007, 12:10:43 UTC 4 years ago

Oh no, after that IBARW post you and delux made me look at? I owed you.

[info]delux_vivens

4 years ago

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[info]karnythia

4 years ago

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[info]rare_exile

August 15 2007, 23:23:27 UTC 4 years ago

I've been rejected from numerous jobs where the people hiring loved me on paper, and knew from my voice that I was Black - and then never called when I showed up with natural hair. But the only rejection that hurt was from the motherly woman at the Black-owned temp agency who told me I was diminishing my prospects by not getting a relaxer.
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