Women abroad think black American hair is naturally straight??

22 November 2009 ~ 30 Comments

Women abroad think black American hair is naturally straight??

So one of the things I love about this blog is the dialogue between American and non-American women. I saw this comment on the recent profile of Scarlett, a natural in Germany, and it surprised me.

“One time, on the bus, I sat next to a girl and we started talking. She was from Gambia, and I told her I was American. She actually said to me (in German), “But your hair… it looks like mine!” I had heard something similar before. Some people actually think that black Americans actually have straight hair like the actresses in Hollywood or the girls in the rap videos.”

Has anyone else heard of this?? What do you think?

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30 Responses to “Women abroad think black American hair is naturally straight??”

Shanna 22 November 2009 at 7:13 am Permalink

Shoot, a lot of other races in America don’t know what our real hair looks like, even much in other nations.

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Naturally Leslie 22 November 2009 at 9:05 am Permalink

I’ve had White people act really surprised about the fact that most black women have hair similar to mine (sans relaxer) but never a Black person. Just goes to show how good of a job “we” do to hide the natural texture so much so that others have no idea. Then again, a lot of White people assume we’re just brown versions of them anyway (not all but some) much like the Black Barbies tend to look like brown versions of the White ones. I also think it speaks to how disconnected American Blacks really are from “A” Blacks in other countries and “B” Black women in Africa specifically. IDK. Very interesting.

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Alice 22 November 2009 at 9:27 am Permalink

Yup, I’ve had AMERICANS ask me how my hair “does that.” Because they thought it just grew straight >.<

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Matlhodi 22 November 2009 at 10:23 am Permalink

I’m a 25 year old black South African natural and only realized that 80% of African-American’s natural was the same as mine when I saw Lauryn Hill’s hair 10yrs ago(age 15). Yip, I was one of those who thought what i saw on the music videos was the real deal. My friend, who has dreadlocks once saw my blow-dried twist-out on Facebook, called and asked “Why does your hair look American?”lol. In her eyes, the kinkiest African-American hair is the blow-dried kind this side. Very interesting i must say.

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SBF 22 November 2009 at 10:46 am Permalink

Yup, having gone natural just a couple of months ago, I have been astonished by my white colleagues who think I gel my hair or something to make it stand up. I am amused by questions like “how long will it take to grow down to your shoulders. Ha! It won’t do down; it only does up and out (I’m west african and have a classic ‘fro). We have clearly done an excellent job of insulating everyone from the reality of black hair.

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Ari Vee 22 November 2009 at 11:03 am Permalink

I have heard it from white people all the time. This i have to explain that our hair does NOT grow straight. It makes me sad that we are doing a good job at hiding this. But it starts with the fact that a lot of women have been relaxed since 3 so how would they know if we dont know?

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Curly Film Chick 22 November 2009 at 11:45 am Permalink

you’d be really surprised at the images of America that get exported overseas. When I was in Central America (Costa Rica to be exact) a girl asked me if all American girls want to be popular with blonde hair…when I asked her why she would say that she told me because of what she saw on TV. The channel surfing, I realize what type of shows and images they dub into Spanish. So it’s really America who control “our” images of what people see overseas…

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pfirsch 22 November 2009 at 12:09 pm Permalink

Well, I was the one who made the comment the other day. Who knew it would get any attention? If I remember correctly, she had kinky twists and I was wearing my hair in, what I have just learned are called, piggy back braids.

Even before that incident on the bus, while I was taking summer school classes at UNC, and we had to do a group project. I was the only person of color in our group, and the topic of black women and hair came up. Our teacher, the other black girl in the class, and I tried to explain to my group members that a large number of black women have no idea what their natural looks like. They just didn’t get it. At that time, I had been natural for almost a year by then (and I gave myself the final chop during that summer) and T, the other black girl, had a relaxer; so, to my group, they felt like it was just a personal choice, which, on one hand it is, but as we all know, it is not nearly as cut and dry.

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'didi 22 November 2009 at 2:09 pm Permalink

Growing up in Nigeria, even my own mother told me that my hair wasn’t like “African-American hair”, that it was tougher, thicker etc.

Steaming pile of bull crap, IMO.

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Kiarah 22 November 2009 at 2:20 pm Permalink

I was wondering about that after seeing Chris Rock’s Good Hair. I wanted to know just how many people might think our hair just grows straight. I thought that all white people’s hair just grew straight and blonde but I found out recently that they blow it out and flat iron it every morning to get that look and many of them are really brunettes. So it goes both ways. I thought that was interesting.

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KayTee 22 November 2009 at 3:25 pm Permalink

I’ve found the opposite reaction with my hair. Most people, especially African Americans, seem surprised that my hair is so long and natural. I always say “good genes”, and that my hair is blessedly healthy. My fellow sisters, SOMETIMES, come close to accusing me of lying when I say I have nothing in my hair. Mind you, it’s thick – but its also extremely wavy and I don’t do a lot to it. French braids, pony tail .. not too much. When I was younger I’d soooo wish that my hair would go into an afro – but no matter how short I cut it, it just lays flat. Now, in my mid-forties, I just keep the ends trimmed and don’t even color it…I welcome the grey streaks. Anyway … there are 2 sides to this I guess, and for me, I get more disbelief that I don’t perm my hair.

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naturalsystah 22 November 2009 at 3:40 pm Permalink

UK natural here!

Growing up and seeing magazines like “Sophisticate’s Black Hair” and seeing US sitcoms (both of which almost never showed natural hair, esp in the 80s and 90s) led to the impression that black americans had better skills with their hair and that it just grew longer than ours *sigh*. Of course I can’t speak for all black people in the UK, but certainly I and many others I know thought this way…

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Yoshi3329 22 November 2009 at 4:10 pm Permalink

This actually man me feel sick and sad. I almost wanna cry.

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Elodie 22 November 2009 at 7:32 pm Permalink

natural from France

I can remember my mother telling me “American people has good hair”
When I was younger,I knew that african american hair did not grow straight, but it always seemed to be healthy and thick despite the relaxer.
Weaves were done so well that it was difficult for me to see what was natural and what was not…
When I became natural, and I spent more time resding american blogs abou hair, and that’s when I discover how most of the hair seems to be healthy, thick or “beautiful”

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NapturallyHappy 22 November 2009 at 7:34 pm Permalink

Women, mainly black, white and latina, are very disconnected from their natural hair. We’ve all been frying, dyeing and blow-drying our natural hair into submission for so long, most of us couldn’t even begin to consider until recently that there is nothing wrong with our natural hair.

I hope the “revolution” we’re seeing in natural hair is not a fad. I hope women are truly coming to a realization that they are beautiful just the way God made them, with ever lump, bump, curve and kink.

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LBell 22 November 2009 at 8:56 pm Permalink

Quite by accident I recently informed an Australian visitor that most black women’s hair looked similar to mine in texture and that very few women who identify as black have naturally straight hair. The Australian ran down a bunch of celebrities: “Tyra?” Nope. “Naomi Campbell?” Nope. “OPRAH???” Nope. She had no clue! I sent her some links to reviews of “Good Hair” and she was amazed that black women went through so much pain (she said it didn’t sound “relaxing” at all) to get straight hair.

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AfroDeutsch 23 November 2009 at 2:12 am Permalink

I’m South African (now living in Germany), just like Mathlodi I grew up watching American sitcoms (e.g Family Matters, In living Colour, the Cosby Show) and I remember that most of my peers wanted hair like Laura, or wished we had African American hair because it looked so healthy and straight, we thought they didn’t have to relax it, that their hair was naturally that way. Of course now I know better. In my school there was even a conflict between blacks & colourdes (mixed race community in South Africa) because the colourdes said blacks shouldn’t claim AA as kinship because they have more in common with colourdes than blacks. The comparisons went like this they have straight hair so do the colourdes, they can sing so do colourdes.

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lisa 23 November 2009 at 6:25 am Permalink

I’m a black nappy french girl and let me tell you that for a long time i was convinced that blacj american women had their hair longer and straighter than african black women which is a really stupid way of thinking i know that . But it was until a few years ago when i discovered the ” secret” of lace front wigs xD ! Before that like quite a lot of balck women in my country i believed that maybe black american women had white ancestors too or something , weel you know it was part of my alienation too because i simply couldn’t believe that a black woman could have beautiful long healthy hair without the interventin of a “white gene ” lol ! Saying all that i’m smiling , how naive i was at that time , i ‘m really glad i finally woke up ^^ !

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revolution grl 23 November 2009 at 7:21 am Permalink

i’m so shocked that this has happened to so many people! growing up and attending college in the midwest (of all places!) i’ve never had people be surprised by my natural hair. i got more people asking “is that real?!” while simultaneously feeling in my relaxed hair to see if there were tracks in it.

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danniebella 23 November 2009 at 7:21 am Permalink

Yes it’s kinda sad. My friend did her masters in england and she wore a weave for a portion of her time there. And she said that everyone loved the weave(especially the indian dudes), and they thought that it was her own hair. When she took off the weave people were asking her why she cut her hair. And when she told them that it was fake hair, they simply couldnt understand it. And then she told them that Beyonce’s hair was either a wig or a weave they were in awe.

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sewdope 23 November 2009 at 9:08 am Permalink

i had one person make that comment to me before. a white male colleague thought that i got a perm to make my hair curly. hilarious! and kind of sad!

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broadbandette 23 November 2009 at 1:17 pm Permalink

Yes, actually, when I big chopped to a short natural in college one of my roommates, who was white, was surprised to find out that black women actually had kinky hair like black men. She thought a black woman’s hair grew in straight and a black man’s hair gew in kinky. It’s pretty hilarious and sad.

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Amma Mama 23 November 2009 at 8:06 pm Permalink

Wow I read everyone’s comments and some of these stories are funny. It’s very interesting to see what people outside of the U.S. think of our hair..great topic for discussion :-)

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Pat 23 November 2009 at 10:30 pm Permalink

I can relate, my mom is not American. When I was younger I have heard her say black americans hair was thinner, dryer and shorter.

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Amma Mama 23 November 2009 at 10:58 pm Permalink

Pat
Where is your mom from?

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Pat 24 November 2009 at 12:20 am Permalink

well.she’s from the caribbean..Now I know that was ignorance back then. But it goes to show you the mindset of some of the older generation

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asinc 24 November 2009 at 2:09 am Permalink

I had been thinking about going Natural for a few months. The final straw was when I had a conversation with my White neighbor about my biracial (my husband is White)son’s hair. My son has fine, curly hair. My hair is kinky but was relaxed at the time. My neighbor asked, “Where does he get his curly hair?”. I said, “He gets it from my side”. Her surprised response was, “But your hair is straight”. I had to tell her that I ‘straighten’ my hair. I was more shocked than she was! Honestly, I thought that when White people saw my hair that they knew it was relaxed. I never tried to pass my relaxed hair off as my ‘natural’ texture.

That was it. The next week I BC’d. I do not want my son to grow up thinking that the only beautiful hair is straight. I want him to be able to appreciate all textures of hair but especially the wonderful textures of Black hair. I know that I have to be the example for him.

I think it is sad that we feel that we have to hide and change our hair to such an extent that people of other races don’t even realize that Tyra, Beyonce, et al wear wigs, weaves and relax their hair. I hope that more and more women (men too) will begin to accept and love their Natural hair.

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RileyMIl 25 November 2009 at 8:48 am Permalink

LOL. There was this African girl that said something similar. She said from TV she assumed all African Americans with light skin and with different hair were the majority. She was shocked to find out that they were the minority after being in America for a few years.

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