I know that it probably seems weird that in the midst of all of the other terrible stories in the news today regarding race (trust me, there are a lot), people may ask “why is a white man is talking about black women’s natural hair.”
Thanks for asking!
It’s because hair is a gateway to understanding how we perceive the world, which is then a gateway to understanding how a system can be tilted against black people. If we begin to unpack what these little preferences reveal about ourselves, we can see how together we are a part of a system that hurts people.
An article published by Duke Fuqua School of Business titled Research Suggests Bias Against Natural Hair Limits Job Opportunities for Black Women, is summarized as such:
Black women with natural hairstyles were perceived as less professional, less likely to get interviews.
This article describes how they conducted the experiment, which basically put people in charge of granting an interview based on a profile. When a profile’s picture was black women with a natural hair style, marks for professionalism were lower. In another experiment, “two groups of participants evaluated the exact same job candidate, who was a Black woman. One group saw a photo of the candidate with natural hair while the other group saw her with straight hair. The group who saw a candidate with straight hair rated her as more professional – defined as more polished, refined and respectable – and they more strongly recommended her for an interview.”
This article correctly draws the conclusion that black women still face discrimination in the work place, and will be held to a different standard based solely on their hair. Black women will feel pressured to spend a lot of money making their hair look a certain way, money that white people, largely, will not be expected to spend.
What I thought was interesting about this study is that each individual who evaluated a profile had an idea of what professionalism looks like. And I can assume that if you were to ask each individual if they were racist, they would say no, and in fact they may not display any characteristics of racism in the rest of their lives. However, when their powers combine into a racist Captain Planet, we see that something more powerful is formed:
Systematic Racism
We’ve all heard the “I’m not racist, I don’t see color,” and maybe you believe that (you shouldn’t), but did you ever think about hair?
Jeremy P. England 