7 Things White People Don’t Understand About Black Hair

October 18th, 2011 - By Renay Alize

Black hair in any state can be down right fascinating. Whether it’s silky, straight and draping or kinky, coily and wild, or something in between, our hair has the ability to shape shift like nobody else’s. Nobody has hair like ours. So it’s no surprise when people from other races have tons of questions about our hair and the way we take care of it. They’re honest questions and if asked in the spirit of genuine curiosity, I don’t mind educating someone about black hair. Which is why I’m taking the time out to educate non-blacks about a topic that’s so near and dear to our hearts and our minds: our hair.

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  • iHM

    Well, I’m not white but I’m not black either and I call shenannigans. Washing your hair once a week is dirty. It’s simple logic. If you don’t wash something, it will get dirty. Imagine not washing your own body for an entire week. There’s no excuse for it, even if you had some kind of condition that made your skin dry out. You’d just use extra strength lotion. You can’t deny that it gets dirty and smelly if you don’t wash it, it isn’t magic, it doesn’t protect itself from getting dirty. It just dries out. Some people act like that’s the end of the world. Wash your hair every 2 or 3 days and just replenish it back with some oils. Or just don’t wash your scalp as much and try to wash the ends. There’s no excuse for not being clean as long as you can afford soap and water.
    Also, oil isn’t bad for anyone’s hair, it’s just that if you’re European or otherwise have straight hair, you’ll need to rinse the oil out after treating your hair. Hot oils and conditioners are good for everyone, not just black people. It’s just that black hair can absorb the oil without needing to be rinsed out, the rest of us can’t do that.

    • maggie

      Sounds good but no cigar. Washing black hair every 2-3 days and putting back in the oils has more of a stripping effect on hair strands than washing it once weekly and putting back in the oils. Also, manipulating hair so often can create a stripping effect especially with kinkier hair that can get easily tangled if you are not gentle. Plus, who wants to dip their hands in oil and moisture every 2-3 days only to finish the product every 2 weeks?

  • TRACY

    all blacks DO NOT HAVE THE SAME TYPE OF HAIR
    A myth that non-black people think is, that all black people have the same hair texture and grade of hair AND that’s definitely NOT TRUE. I am dark skinned black with soft spiral curly hair, very fine hair t, relaxers and straighteners damage it (half native American indian and white grandmother). BUT I can wash it every other day if I keep it natural. If I am straightening it then I have to be careful, , only straighten twice per month.

  • Mike Smith

    Well first your man is black! Those are fighting words for a black woman. Just like we went to an interracial home for dinner, and a black woman scrawled “White Bytch” on the mirror.

  • The Mztress

    Thank you sooo much! I loved ‘Good Hair’ too it gave me a lot of information! I LOVE the versatility of styles available for a Black woman’s hair. :D So creative and artistic, like sculpture <3 I can't imagine the patience it takes to sit there for hours on end either. Ladies, you have my admiration! -and I totally relate to having your hair touched by strangers – dyed mine lots of different colors. People can be SO rude!

  • Goddamit!

    You cant have it both ways! Either black people are the same as white people, or they are different!

  • Cody

    I’m white, but I have many black friends. I completely agree with all of your points, and I loved how you go about this in such a relaxed, professional, and some lines, funny way. My friends’ hair range from straight, silky, short, curly, just about everything. But they all wear them differently, and beautifully. Anyway, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed and appreciated this. Oh, and you could not be any more right about touching people’s hair. It is the most disrespectful, irritating thing a person can do. I also feel some people can be mentally handicapped when it comes to recognizing fake hair. Some people can be so oblivious. I, nor anyone else in my family, at least that I know of, has used fake hair. But really, how can you not tell? Thats just the issue with some people, they can so easily be blinded by their own stupidity.

  • Helen

    It’s sad to see how women are pitting themselves against each other. Natural black ladies’ hair is a thing to be celebrated and embraced. The euro-centric culture we live in has made every effort to stomp out that kind of hair and now it is time to reclaim it. Just as it is time for women to get out of the male-centered culture we live in and stand up for female comradery. Look what females of all races to do themselves to try and fit into cultural beauty norms. It’s sad and disgusting.

    Then look on this board. Look at the comments. You’ve got white women proclaiming “I’m not like those other DUMB white women, I know about this.” You’ve got black women calling white ladies’ hair “dog fur.” NO ONE IS DUMB AND NO ONE IS COMPARABLE TO A DOG.

    Ladies! Ladies! Why are we attacking each other? If everyone just used their words to explain how they feel when they are treated in a certain way, this wouldn’t happen. I grew up in a heavily diverse area and when i went to sleepovers, my black classmates used to love to play with my hair. I hated it. I hated it so much. I never did anything to my hair because it held no interest for me. So having a bunch of people doing my hair at a party was probably my worst nightmare. So you know what I did? I said I didn’t appreciate my hair being touched. That’s all. People fussed with me a bit and then they dropped it. People are and always will be interested in whatever they don’t personally have, because it’s new and different to them; this isn’t somehow a unique trait to white people.

    Black people, however, have it way harder than almost anyone else, I believe. Simply because of this euro-centric culture. Even though all hair is different, even between people of the same ethnicity, black peoples’ hair seems to fall the furthest out of euro-centric norms. They have been harassed, belittled, chastised and degraded because of how their natural hair looks. As white people, especially, we need to understand and remember this whenever we make a comment about a black persons hair. Yes, we are all people. Yes, we are all one. However, everyone has been affected differently in this life and all people need to be aware of that. What may seem like a relatively benign question about a black woman’s hair to you may carry the emotional baggage of a history of negativity regarding their hair that you are not aware of.

    Ladies, all ladies, please. Just be considerate and aware. I want women to feel good about themselves for the first time in history. We get so much sh*t as women from our male-oriented culture that the last thing we need to do is add to that negative female experience for ANY woman by our actions as women. (To the lady, “Lucky” down a bit on the board: It hurts me to hear my hair referred to as “dog fur,” too, ya know?)

    We’re all women, let’s make each other finally feel good about that.

  • Jamie

    I’m Native American and white people love to touch my hair because it looks like a horse’s tail (yes, it is that coarse). The only time it doesn’t drive me crazy is when my developmentally disabled students do it, because they don’t know any better. But, please eurocentric people, ask first!

  • HateIsPoisonToTheSoul

    Searched for answers regarding grey hair texture, saw this topic and clicked on it just out of curiosity. Soon realized that this thread is more about HATE and less about HAIR.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/maggie.kaseska Maggie Kaseska

    I would like some information please my daughter is 15 now she’s mixed and had natural curly black peoples hair type. So we relaxed it and now I’m trying to find a way if there is one to help her hair grow long cause she hates her hair and gets nade fun of at school kids call her chucky as in the doll cause thats what her hair looks like …Please help if you can

    • maggie

      Tell your black man to have the black women in his family help handle his daughter’s black hair.

  • Ltlibra

    If black hair is the driest,why would we need to wash it every three days? If so,then our hair needs to hold on to as much of its natural oils as possible…in other words….take it down a notch on the washing.

  • http://www.neogami.com/ Neogami

    I found this article very interesting, and the comments even more so. I’m white, and always found AA hair to be fascinating. It’s beautiful and anyone born with it is lucky to have it’s texture and volume!

    I agree fully with the no touching thing, #1. No one should be touching anybody whether it be their beautiful black hair, or their pregnant belly, or a soft looking sweater. It’s just plain rude.
    I’ve grown up in Toronto, and here we are very multicultural. In elementary school my best friend was Chinese, and now many years later my best friend since high school is West Indian. I’ve learned so much from them, and others whom I’ve worked with, about different cultures and enjoy learning about other people. I don’t think anybody who’s asking questions about you in earnest means any offence, I’d like to think they’re just curious. I even ask my West Indian friend about her hair all the time. It’s so thick and long that if she puts it in a bun it’s the size of a very large grape fruit, while mine would be more like a small kiwi fruit. It’s just fun to learn new things! :D

  • Allenabradley

    There is no 1 size fits All beauty regimine. I have 2 sisters & we all have different hair needs. Unfortunatly I always hear in this (long hair circle) these competitive statement comparing how much they wash their hair in comparison to how much other women do. Its no1′s buisness as long as you have good general hygeine you should wash your hair when it “feels” like you need to.

  • http://www.facebook.com/SayyidinaFaith Aisha Shamwell Perkins

    It needs moisture…not dirt. I rinse my hair every other night with clean water…i only shampoo once a week….btw my hair is natural…

  • Proudnaturalista

    Let me say, kudos to you for wanting to truly understand hair textures so utterly and completely different from yours. Part of the reason we cant get along is because we refuse to take the time to get to know eacth other.

    Now, a great deal of what you erroneously percieve as anger is actually hurt and frustration.

    You see, as has been explained previously, blacks in america have been vilified, demonized and marginalized for quite some time as a justification for treating human beings as chattel and regarding same as 3/5th of a person.  Both overt and covert racism is still prevalent today in schools, hiring practices, and housing. Certain ugly stereotypes are perpetuated, applied to an entire group without regard for socioeconomic status or education then exported to other countries by the media.  What has this to do with hair you may ask?

    Everything.

    Since YOU directly benefit from the constant message that eurocentrism is best and that anything that deviates from it is less than, dirty or just somehow unacceptable the reaction seems strange. This psychological warfare begins very early, is deeply embedded in american society and affects us as blacks. From the time we are very young, our own families view straightening hair as a rite of passage and to make our hair more “manageable”.

    Later we are subjected to ridicule by other women’s uninformed comments (some here on this site for example), and in the dating pool sometimes rejected by our own men because they too have been indocrinated against the textured hair that grows out of the scalps of women that resemble their mothers. A great deal of our culture and the knowledge to bring our beautiful, coily, curly, wavy kinky hair to its shining glory had been lost to us. Thankfully, some of it is resurfacing online. Youtube, curlynikki and other sites are instilling a sense of pride in our non chemically altered hair.

    So dear Cat, since you may have a black daughter and yes the world will view and treat her as black make no mistake about that, I think it is great for you to be curious, acquire the skills to care for her hair and to arm her with the knowledge that her hair is beautiful.

    All the best to you and yours.

  • Chack50496

    There is no such word as “complected”.

  • Kellee

    And also the touching thing is universal, I’d say. Even my cousin touching my hair makes me mental!
    Touch your own hair, no one else’s!!

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