Facebook was set ablaze on July 25 after Frank Somerville, a white TV reporter in California posted a photo on his page of him combing his adopted black daughter’s hair with the caption:
So for those of you who think tv can be glamorous, this is how i spent my morning, learning how to take out my daughter’s braids. It takes a long time and a lot of patience!
Within a few days the photo had been shared more than 2,500 times and received more than 12,000 likes.
Somerville followed up with a statement a few days later,
It’s not often that I am speechless, but I am floored by the response to the picture I posted, and by how touching and personal many of them were. To me the picture shows a dad doing what a dad SHOULD do, and loving every minute of it. The birth of my first daughter, and adopting my youngest daughter, are the two best moments of my life, and I feel like the luckiest dad in the world that my family is interracial. I can’t thank all of you enough. And remember CHANGE HAPPENS ONE PERSON AT A TIME!
The picture is definitely touching, and brings to mind Clifton Green, another white father who adopted an Ethiopian girl, and soon became responsible for her hair care.
Ladies, what do you think of the photo?
This was a beautiful picture. It brought tears into my eyes. People with the negative comments, need to find a negative site to blog on. It time for us to accept and get out of this racist mode! I congradulate this father for taking the time to do his daughter hair! Kudos!
My dad did my hair maybe once, but he preferred to clean my shoes and pack my schoolbag. I think my bf would comb his daughter’s hair if he had one, he’s always in my hair
SMH @ the hoopla. We should stop worshiping everything white people say and do…it’s bad for our spiritual health. He doesn’t deserve any pats on the back for doing something he SUPPOSED to do, if he chose to adopt that child. If we insist on commending “fathers” — I’d like to see this much support and applause for black fathers who do the same without any commendations or recognition from black women (as a whole). I guess he got the reaction and fulfillment he was looking for by posting this picture. Let us not go overboard with this as if he’s the second coming or something.
I don’t know if he’s doing what he is SUPPOSED to be doing? How many of our BLACK parents gave us a perm because it was easier to manage? Damage be damned. My mother definitely did. I respect any parent who puts in the extra effort to keep their child’s hair natural. And I do think fathers deserve extra props because they especially had to learn how to do a black woman’s hair. A white man who is succeeding with his daughter’s hair in its original texture should definitely get a shout out. Her hair is pretty long; he’s doing a good job. We congratulate women on this site all the time for managing their hair beautifully. Why shouldn’t we congratulate him too?
I think if the picture was a black man doing his daughters hair there would be th same response. Whether he’s latino, asian or irish people are always moved when a man takes time out from being the stereotypical dad to do “womens work”. I’m black and I lost my father at a very young age and two of my fondest memories are of him styling my hair as a child and teaching me to bake. These things are touching because they take extra effort. It has nothing to do with “white worship”. Trust i would be hopping on that same train if such was the case but this one time i’m taking it at face value.
We both know if it were a black man, he would not get the same response even if he should. Black men do this everyday.
To be fair, most of the “hoopla” is coming from Black people. Hardly any of the comments are from White people congratulating him. I think that says a lot.
I agree, it all boils down unaddressed self-hatred issues and the WHITE Messiah complex. So sad.
I love this photo! I’m a 44 year old Black woman. My Black father raised me as a single father since I was 3 or 4 years old. And he was responsible for my hair at a young age. He didn’t always do the greatest job (see attached, me on the right, 1973…lol!), but he did get better. And to this day, I never, ever doubt that he’s there for me.
I honestly think that this is beautiful. Many black fathers don’t even touch their daughter’s hair so to see this is amazing. Like he said, he is doing what a father SHOULD be doing. Thanks for sharing this!
IVY HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT MANY BLACK FATHERS DONT TOUCH THEIR DAUGHTERS HAIR? HAVE YOU TAKEN A POLL? ARE YOU STEREOTYPING? OR ARE YOU JUST PLAIN IGNORANT? MY FATHER DID MY HAIR GROWING UP. I SEE MANY BLACK PEOPLE ON THIS SITE SAYING THAT THEIR BLACK FATHER DID THEIR HAIR, SO WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR STUPID IGNORANT OPINION FROM? ARE YOU EVEN READING WHAT SOME PEOPLE ARE SAYING. BLACK MEN DO THEIR DAUGHTERS HAIR ALL THE TIME. ITS NOTHING NEW!
Are you going to attack everyone for giving their point of view on this site that is different from yours? Seriously???
YES BRIDGET. I AM GOING TO ATTACK EVERYONE WHO GIVES IGNORANT OPINIONS ABOUT BLACK MEN. YES, I WILL DO IT FOREVER. IF YOU WANT ME TO STOP THEN TELL THEM TO STOP WITH THE NEGATIVE REMARKS ABOUT BLACK MEN NOT DOING THEIR DAUGHTER’S HAIR.
Calm down Connie.. It’s never that serious for all caps. Lol. But I’m saying this off of the men in my family.. My mother has 5 brothers and my father has 4. NONE of them touch their daughters hair, including mine. And I know for a fact among many of my female friends only one of their fathers has done their hair when she was younger. So that was what I was basing my comment on… No stereotyping. Simply based off of personal experience. And don’t EVER question my intelligence, my opinion, or anything that I state. You do not know me.
My husband is white. We’re planning on having children soon and he has taken a very sincere interest in learning about my hair so that he can help with our children’s hair…because they will be OUR children. I think if my husband didn’t want to learn, I wouldn’t have married him. LOL! I think it’s great to see white parents educating themselves and taking the time to learn how to do natural hair. It would be so easy for them to slap a perm on their children’s hair and make them conform to what THEY know, which is straight hair. Loving your child is accepting your child for who they are, and that’s beautiful no matter who it is!
My dad has combed my hair twice in my life. once when i was 6 and again at 10. I hated the styles he gave me but i loved the fact that he tried. I have an amazing dad and this picture brought back those memories. it warms my heart and reminds me never to take a moment with him for granted. thank you for posting it. I pray i marry someone who will love and care for me and my son just like my dad always has.
Is that your dad in the photo? He could pass as your boyfriend.
I was thinking the same thing! You two look like you’re the same age!
NICE!
i love it and commend him. I have a puerto rican daughter and took me forever to learn to do her hair properly, and I am AF. Good on Dad.
Reading these comments makes me realize how fortunate I was as a child to have a father like the one I have. My dad (who is black, if it matters) always made sure his daughters looked presentable from head to toe, even if that meant him brush our hair into a ponytail.
That’s a cute photo. Clogged my throat a bit. I hope to every god listening that i get a hubby who is secure in his masculinity to do ”women’s work” without being emasculated and who will love our daughters so much he wont mind being emasculated for them.
Very loving.
Love it!
Very nice and comforting picture. My dad combed my sisters (three girls) hair when my mom was in the hospital with baby. It was cool because he (dad) was a neat freak. My brother did our hair once too it was a fialure and we had to to school with it. Very good memories though.
I see nothing touching about this picture. Why are people patting this guy on the back for something he’s SUPPOSED to do? Let me guess, it’s because he’s white right? We all know it had been a black father the responses would be totally different. Y’all are so pathetic I swear. And people kill me with this -it brought tears to my eyes- bogus. Seriously get a grip. And FYI, both my black mother AND father did my hair. Please stop acting like it’s rare to see black fathers do their children’s hair.
Shrug. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, so keep it moving. No one cares if you don’t agree with their comment.
Well you cared enough to respond didn’t you?
Good for him. I think we’ve all seen black children who have been adopted by white parents and those kids look a hot mess from the scalp out. So this is a good, scratch that, a great thing.
As a black little girl, whose father was in the house, if my mother wasn’t home, he had to take me to my grandmother’s or aunt’s house to do my hair. Dude could not do it. There could be a few reasons for that. I grew up in the 70′s. Maybe 70′s Dad’s didn’t do those things. Maybe fathers today are more evolved and more interested. I don’t know for everyone, I can talk about my experience. Maybe he just didn’t think that was his job, Mom did hair, Dad taught bike riding. Matters not. The fact that this father, has taken on all the responsibilities that come along with adopting a black daughter, including hair care, is wonderful!
Is it me, why hasn’t BGLH not BANNED this Connie1 poster or least remove her trolling posts. Every time post a compliment about a father putting the effort when they didn’t get the chance as a child she jumps in with insulting them about topic they spoke nothing about.
BGLH please remove these toxic posts. They help no one and no one should be yelled at (write on all caps)
the point of teh author, IMO, is not that he is a white father and he is combing his daughter’s hair. On the large scale nothing fantastic about that.
THE POINT REALLY IS the fact that he seems to have taken the time to learn the intricasies of handling “black” hair. There is no one on this site who would dispute the fact that they will not take their type 4 self and park it in a salon with a white hairdresser who has no experience with her hair type. That hairdresser would pick up a fine tooth comb, would want to blow dry the hell out of that hair to make it more “managable”, would attack tangles from the root etc…well don’t talk about the styling..I shudder to think what a medium sized twist with braids at the root would look like. POINT TAKEN????
The fact is THIS father appears to be ready and willing to learn the do-es and don’t of his daughter’s hair..who knows he may have already learnt that her hair needs loads of moisture, or that he can’t just wash her hair and let it airdry on the way to school. Many a men would have passsed that buck unto their wife or a black caregiver in the area for example.
What we should be doing is hope that he gets it right, becasue it’s obvious what will work with his other “white” daughter’s hair would not work for this daughter. Let’s pray that he continues to handle it lovingly, not get frustrated, and that she has healthy hair for many years to come becasue of the TLC it has gotten.
+1
+1
How cute to see a father doing his daughter’s hair! :)
I just think it’s sad that some people get their panties in a bunch over a picture and make it a racial issue. That’s just utterly stupid. Do people detest this man that much that they must make “Pshhh, that ain’t nothin’” comments? There are bigger issues in the world to argue about besides a white man doing a black girl’s hair. Some people….geez. Smh. Some folk just go too far and don’t know how to be nice. Words full of venom.
Oh wow, I like! I find it inspiring that more men this century are taking care of their daughters’ hair and being proactive about it.