By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Ph.D.

"The type of black woman who would wear red (hair color) has confidence and style."

The long hidden controversy among African-Americans publicly exploded in November when seventeen-year-old Michelle Barskile in North Carolina was turned down for her sorority's debutante ball. Several weeks later Ruth Sherman, a white elementary school teacher in New York, fled her school after heavy fire from some black parents. The issue for both women was hair. Barskile's offense was that she wore her hair in a dreadlocks style that her sorority chapter deemed unacceptable. Sherman's offense was that she read passages from the book Nappy Hair to her mostly black and Latino students. The parents claimed this demeaned blacks. 

The two women discovered that few things generate more anger and passion among black women than their hair. Some black critics say that black women are in a frenzied search to shed the ancient racist shame and stigma of "nappy hair" ="bad hair" by aping white beauty standards. Others say that, like many non-black women, black women are hopeless captives of America's fashion and beauty industry, which is geared to making them more attractive and pleasing to men. Many black women counter this by saying that they are merely seeking their own identify or "to look better."

"Get gorgeous! Steal the spotlight with this glamorous upswept design."

They are all right. But the great hair obsession among many black women reflects the still deep and compelling need by African-Americans to identify with and accept America's values and standards. The beauty care industry has skillfully fed that compulsion with fantasies of physical glitter and social glamour and turned them into mammoth profits. Hair care product manufacturers have sold many black women on the notion that their hair is the path to self-esteem, success, and sexual allure. A century ago the legendary Madame CJ Walker built a multi-million dollar empire on the premise that black women want to look like white women and that "good hair" is the key to independence and prosperity. 

"Elegance, spiced with Southern flavor begins with a mane awash in a light golden blond shade."

The hair care industry is gargantuan today. In 1996 beauty care manufacturers racked up more than $10 billion in sales, and hair care products by far topped the sales list. Americans shelled out $1.5 billion for shampoos, and more than $1 billion for hair conditioners alone. Blacks bought an estimated one out of five toilet and cosmetic products sold, and one out of three hair products sold. 

The dozen or more black magazines devoted exclusively to hair dwarf that of the number of general interest black publications. The hair magazines are so wildly popular that many librarians are forced to put them under lock and key to prevent them from being pilfered by patrons. The five giant hair product manufacturers, Proctor & Gamble, Helene Curtis, Alberto-Culver, Bristol Meyers, and Johnson & Johnson dominate the hair care industry and are household names among black women.

"A perfect evening entrance begins with a flawless hair design."

The Afro or natural hair look of the 1960's and the braid craze of the 1990's are touted as examples of black women rejecting white beauty standards. They aren't. The Afro style was short lived, always more a chic fad than a revolution in black consciousness, and was tied to style and fashion trends. Today's braided look is even more tightly tied to style and fashion trends with none of the pretensions of the black pride of the 1960's. Even many black women who sport the bald look are fixated on matching the proper clothes, make-up and ear rings with the style. Most soon tire of these hair fads and retreat back to the straightening comb, fashion braids/extensions or a perm. 

The great hair obsession is driven by the painful need of many African-Americans to conform to the dominant values of American society. And beauty, fashion and hairstyles are the most popular and perverse expressions of those values. Barskile and Sherman learned the bitter truth that many African-Americans still believe the fiction that good hair makes you, and nappy hair doesn't.

Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black" (available at all bookstores!)

Copyright 1998 by Afrocentric News.