Listen, I know that straight hair is “for” white women and millions of black women endeavor to such every day. But when white women get any of the hundreds of haircuts that American black women have created and cultivated because we’ve had little choice, it just annoys me. When it comes down to it, black women tend to have shorter hair – ours is more prone to breakage thanks to dryness and all of the crazy chemicals we use, and that is why things like stacked curls and pencil curls even exist (not to mention the advances we’ve made with hair weaves, which y’all are free to dabble in if you like). We do a whole lot with a little bit of hair and I believe that many styles work to combat damage we’ve done to our tresses – for example, no one can tell me that the first swoop bang wasn’t meant to hide edges that have been burnt out by too many perms. And these white women born with straightforward wash n’ go hair just chop all of that white privilege off and throw away what black women pay good money for at the hair store? It’s just not right.
