You Can't Touch My Hair

by Phoebe Robinson

  LITTLE RICHARD, 1956, AND JAMES BROWN, 1960s

  Little Richard proves that the hashtag #BlackExcellence extends beyond talent and intelligence and also includes cheekbones so smooth they could also double as slalom skiing courses at the Winter Olympics.

  For a lot of young’uns, when they think of James Brown, the image that comes to mind is his 2004 mug shot, in which he was wearing a multicolored bathrobe and had unkempt chemically straightened hair. This look is known in the black community as everyone’s auntie’s “If I Have to Come Down These Stairs One Mo ‘Gain Because You Damn Kids Woke Me Up, I’mma Call All Your Mamas and End This Sleepover” look. As for Richard, people instantly think of his vocal tics—“Whoo!”—and his appearance in GEICO commercials in the early aughts. But both of these men brought to the mainstream a style that was known as the “conk” (derived from congolene, a hair straightener gel made from lye). Because this look required its wearers to endure its painful process, the do was seen as super masculine and served as a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood for men. And thanks to folks like Little Richard and James Brown, it also became cool. In their later years, they each had their struggles, which dimmed their lights—Richard had financial disputes with his record label, while James began abusing PCP and had several domestic-abuse arrests—but there is no denying their impact on black hair and culture at large.

  DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES, 1960s

  Fun fact: All the fumes from the hair sheen that was sprayed on the Supremes’ hair gave Ed Sullivan a contact high.

  For those of you who are too young to remember Diana Ross & the Supremes, I’ll explain them this way: If you combined the popularity of En Vogue, TLC, and Destiny’s Child, then you’ll have scratched the surface of how big Diana Ross & the Supremes were during their heyday. They were the premiere act of Motown Records during the 1960s, rivaled the Beatles in terms of popularity, and to date, they are still America’s most successful vocal group, with twelve number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And if these achievements weren’t enough, their highly stylized and straightened wigs—ranging from bouffants to bobs and everything in between—were hugely influential on black women everywhere. Similar to how every time Kim Kardashian changes her hair, legions of fans lose their minds, every time Ross and the Supremes changed their look, people would talk about it, minus the whole part where trolls are like, “Hahaha! Remember that time you slept with a dude and videotaped it? We’re going to judge you for it for the rest of your life.” Black women looked to Diana Ross & the Supremes as a reflection of their best selves, which probably explains why throughout the course of the group’s popularity, fans routinely asked them to wear their hair natural. But producer and founder of Motown Records Berry Gordy Jr. worried that doing that would alienate white audiences, so it never happened. Shame.

  ANGELA DAVIS, 1970s

  True story. Whenever I sport an Afro, strangers will ask me all sorts of ridiculous questions, such as the following:

  Dry Cleaner Employee: “Who are you dressing up as?”

  Me: “Uhhh, it’s not Halloween; it’s April.”

  Dry Cleaner Employee: “So, not Foxxy Cleopatra?”

  Me: “Keep my clothes forever!!! Bye!!!”

  Then I race out of the dry cleaners, abandoning my classy Banana Republic sweaters the way baby Penguin was abandoned at the beginning of Batman Returns. Aww, that took a turn. Anyway, the point is these kinds of awkward encounters happen, but thankfully, they are few and far between, because most folks recognize that I wasn’t wearing a “costume” but was just being myself. And I have Angela Davis to thank for that, because she and her Afro are, by far, some of the biggest symbols of black self-love, the civil rights movement, and challenging the status quo.

  Remember in 1994 when figure skater Tonya Harding had her then-husband attack Nancy Kerrigan with a billy club, and Nancy let out that infamous cry of “Why!” that was so good that even Mary J. Blige would’ve been like, “Damn, I need to get some soul like that!” That “Why!” is pretty much how many white people reacted to this era of black pride, and in particular Davis and her ‘fro. The ‘fro became a powerful political sign of the wearer embracing their African ancestry and rejecting long-held beauty ideals. Because Davis embraced her individuality, fiercely bucked against dominant hair trends of the time—often pairing her Afro with a raised fist in the air—and was highly vocal in her quest for gender equality, much of mainstream America viewed her as threatening and aggressive. But to many black men and women, she was a reminder that, above all, they should love themselves despite what society deems to be the ideal. Furthermore, her ‘fro inspired others to sport theirs as a visible expression of their self-love. This newfound confidence in self-expression not only encouraged men and women to speak up about their hair and what blackness meant to them but also to fight for civil rights and other issues affecting people of color. In short, Angela Davis helped usher in a time when the black community had officially reached Super Saiyan levels of confidence (#DragonBallZFanForLife), and since then we haven’t looked back.

  CICELY TYSON’S CORNROWS IN THE TV DRAMA EAST SIDE/WEST SIDE, 1973

  It’s pretty safe to say that Cicely is one of the cofounders of the phrase You mad? after she “shocked” white America by sporting a popular African-American hairstyle on primetime television.

  In 1979, Bo Derek wore cornrows in the movie 10, and as a result, this hairstyle became insanely popular in mass culture. But let’s be real: This was a look that was as common in the black community as Soul Train dance lines. Every black girl who was raised by her mama or grandma had been wearing her hair this way to church, school, and the playground for years, and the first real portrayal of this hairstyle in media came way before Bo. Thanks to Cicely Tyson in the 1973 TV series East Side/West Side, America was exposed to, and quite possibly shocked by, this African-American–centric look. Prior to Cicely Tyson, black women on TV were only seen wearing sleek bob cuts or sky-high bouffants, but Cicely broke the trend and opened up the world’s eyes to what black hair could look like. Furthermore, because she was and still is such a revered actress, the cornrows styling on her was seen as acceptable to mainstream America and opened the door for more black women to wear their hair naturally.

  GRACE JONES’S FLATTOP, 1980

  I believe Grace Jones might quite possibly be the most influential figure for black female beauty. Sure, the everyday black woman is far less boundary-pushing than Jones, but her impact can be seen everywhere. Her pioneering style is all over black women fashion boards on Pinterest; her message of individuality is echoed in the style of left-of-center celebs like Janelle Monáe and Zoë Kravitz; and her “I’m sexy because I terrify and challenge gender norms” fingerprint can be seen on anyone in the mainstream who is androgynous. And there is no better symbol of Jones’s influence than in her flattop haircut, a style that is heavily in vogue today. This traditionally masculine hairstyle (known as the Kid ‘n Play) is a fuck-you in the face of societal standards. It wasn’t meant to turn men on; instead, it was an extension of her artistic expression. Grace, after all, is an artist, something that society conveniently forgets that black women can be. Well, Grace demanded the attention, making it so that people couldn’t look away and instead had to confront, accept, and, finally, be in awe of her art and beauty. And she is the ultimate badass because of it.

  OLA RAY IN “THRILLER” MUSIC VIDEO, 1982

  I’m pretty sure if you look up nailing it in UrbanDictionary.com, you’d see a picture of Ms. Ola Ray rocking this do. Her Jheri curl mullet in this video glistened like a rotisserie chicken at Boston Market. And that level of shine, my friends, is something we should aspire to. I’m talking about glistening like you ought to be accompanied by two sides and a biscuit. #ShineGoals. But in all seriousness, the Jheri curl is generally remembered for being worn by popular black men like the rappers in N.W.A, singers Lionel Richie and Rick James, and actor
s such as Eriq La Salle, so the fact that a woman sported it in one of the most popular music videos of all time made other black women feel more comfortable with adopting this look for themselves.

  AUNT JEMIMA MAKEOVER, 1989

  Aww, Aunt Jemima is cute here! She looks the type of black lady who makes sure to put your Thanksgiving leftovers in the indestructible home of two paper plates because she doesn’t trust that you’re going to return her Tupperware. And she’s right. You won’t.

  OK, it may seem a little strange of me to give kudos to this look, but hear me out. The original image of Aunt Jemina was of an old black lady wearing a jankity head scarf that made Harriet Tubman’s dirty head scarves—which were dirty because she was working the Underground Railroad—look like they were specialty handmade pieces from Anthropologie. That, my friends, is no bueno. The old Aunt Jemima image was an offensive, racist bowl of boo-boo, which is why the 1989 makeover was long overdue and necessary.

  The new Aunt Jemima looks like a black lady whose end-of-the-world survival kit includes bottled water, recipes for her collard greens and mac and cheese, and all her Barry White vinyls. In short, she looks like every black mom in America, and that is a motherfucking upgrade that I shall celebrate for the rest of my days.

  JANET JACKSON POETIC JUSTICE BRAIDS, LENNY KRAVITZ “ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY” DREADS, 1993

  Janet Jackson serves her most “Why are you coming home at 2 A.M. smelling like cheap perfume from Rite Aid?” face. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to master this, to no avail.

  If I could go back in time and lose my virginity to anyone, it would be Lenny Kravitz. Oh, sorry, were you expecting me to say something about his hair?

  I’m grouping Janet’s braids and Lenny’s dreads together because they both fall under the “stay woke” category. For the uninitiated, “stay woke” is when a black person is informed of the world’s injustices and how those injustices affect the black community, and then they let everybody know that they are informed. Sometimes the “I’m woke and staying woke” memo is as simple as a person changing their name to something more Afrocentric, or wearing bow ties in kente cloth. Other times you are clued into their wokeness by the frequency with which they light candles and incense all over their crib like Angela Bassett did in the Buddhist-praying scene in What’s Love Got to Do with It. Or how they continually drop quotes from The Autobiography of Malcolm X when all anyone else in the room wants to do is watch The Voice. But by far, the biggest sign of a newly stay woke person is that person starting to wear his or her hair naturally, especially in dreads or braids.

  Stay wokeness was at an all-time high during the ’90s. During this time, there was a litany of TV shows (A Different World), movies (Do the Right Thing), and music (the entire neo-soul genre) featuring conscious brothers and sistas who were providing commentary on the black experience. And if you want to know what a quintessential stay woke person is, then you don’t have to look any further than Janet Jackson’s character in Poetic Justice. First of all, her lawyer mom named her Justice because naming her “Something Black People Don’t Always Get in a Court of Law” would have been too on the nose. Secondly, she is a poet who does natural hair on the side. Lastly, she sports braids, which any writer during the ’90s will tell you is shorthand for “bitch is an insomniac, that’s how woke she is.” And just as many black women of the ’90s were rocking braids to show how conscious they were, lots of ’90s black dudes were pulling a Lenny Kravitz and wearing dreadlocks. Not only do dreads celebrate the rejection of mainstream beauty standards, but they also have the added bonus of illustrating how spiritual the wearer is (it is believed that spiritual energies usually exit the body through the top of the head, so if the hair is knotted or dreaded, the energy stays in the hair and body). And for those guys who aren’t as spiritual . . . well, they might have worn dreads to attract hot, stay woke black women who would not give up the good-good unless these dudes talked about religion a lot and decorated their houses with black Santa Clauses.

  HALLE BERRY’S PIXIE CUT, 1994

  Although this dream pales in comparison to MLK’s dream, mine is to one day remake the rom com America’s Sweethearts in which Berry and I would take on the Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts roles as rival sisters . . . because that would mean that a bunch of movie studio executives believed that I could ever be related to someone this hot.

  Simply put, this is the “Rachel” haircut for black people. When Halle debuted this, every black lady wanted this look, and then they all proceeded to get that look. Which was great except for one key component: They didn’t have the Halle Berry face or body to match. So while this hairstyle helped launch Halle’s career into the stratosphere and made her the ultimate sex symbol, the rest of the black ladies with this look were still busy shopping at JCPenney and waiting for dudes to call them back on their landlines. But they looked cute waiting, though, and that’s all that mattered.

  MICHAEL JORDAN, 1995

  Let’s all remember Jordan when he was at his best: the pre-Hitler-mustache-wearing days of the 2000s. Seriously, does he have no black friends who would point at the ‘stache and go, “Bruh? Da fuq?”

  MJ had been beloved for quite a while at this point, but the mid-’90s were his peak in terms of popularity. He had just won his fourth NBA championship, starred in Space Jam, and had tons of endorsement contracts. He was killing it. In fact, he was killing it so hard that he was probably the one black dude straight white women could publicly acknowledge that they wanted to bone, and their husbands would two-thumbs-up it Siskel & Ebert–style. And to top it all off, because he had been sporting the bald look during his rise to the top as one of the greatest athletes of all time, he became a style icon that every black dude tried to emulate. And who could blame them? MJ was rich, the epitome of cool, and everyone from Oprah to McDonald’s (corporations are people, too, ya know) loved him. So it’s no wonder black guys mimicked him. OK, maybe part of the reason why some black dudes like my dad shaved their heads is because they were going bald and didn’t want to look like In Living Color’s Homey the Clown. Whatever the case may be, the cue ball look became one of the most popular styles of the ’90s for black men, thanks to people like Jordan.

  ERYKAH BADU, 1997

  If I had to be birthed out of anyone else’s vajeen besides my mom’s, it would be Erykah Badu’s. I just feel like it’s the perfect combo of all-natural Earth Mother nurturing and swag-filled “I ain’t got time for these fools.”

  As soon as Badu rocked her sky-high and colorful head wraps in the music video for her single “On & On,” it seemed every woman of color tried to copy this signature look. The style was radical because it marked a turn away from the bone-straight hairstyles that dominated black hair culture at that time. Badu, along with other neo-soul musicians of that era, including Maxwell, D’Angelo, and Jill Scott, made waves because they openly embraced their natural hair stories. Essentially, these folks helped usher in the next great wave for the natural hair industry, and Badu was at the forefront.

  Badu’s uniqueness was warmly accepted from the get-go, and she achieved massive mainstream success. Along the way, she inspired plenty of women to experiment and embrace their own unique styles—or, more realistically, if they were like me, they simply copied what Badu did until they discovered their own best look. Of course, I never looked as chic when rocking the head wraps; I looked like I was smuggling a Swiffer WetJet, walking out of Target. But that’s no matter, because the important thing is that Badu, like Angela Davis, inspired so many black women to not be afraid to wear their hair any way that they chose.

  LAURYN HILL, LATE ’90s

  There is so much to say about this woman! She’s an icon! A musical genius! Complicated and troubled! Someone who can shoot people in the heart just by singing a few gut-wrenching notes! Above all, Hill is a pioneer: the first woman nominated in ten different GRAMMY categories and the first woman to
win five of the awards in one night. And media loved her—she made the cover of Time and was voted one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People. She did all of this while rocking some pretty bomb-ass dreadlocks, which is absolutely part of the reason why I wore dreadlocks in college. Thanks, Lauryn!

  CHRIS ROCK’S DOCUMENTARY GOOD HAIR, 2009

  Similar to how some white people watched The Wire and felt as though they knew everything about urban life, many white peeps believed they had black hair all figured out after viewing Rock’s 2009 documentary. And, sure, they became well versed in the basics: You’re not supposed to touch a black woman’s hair after she gets it permed; black women will, through the course of a lifetime, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on styling; and black women clutch shower caps in their hands with the same fervor priests do rosary beads in an exorcism movie. I’d go as far as to argue that more than any other movie, Good Hair has educated the masses about black hair in a profound way. But still, that doesn’t mean that it taught people everything. There are many black hair secrets that weren’t covered, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not going to divulge them here either. Not because I fear being murdered by the keepers of the BPSs. Oh no, there are repercussions far worse than taking an eternal dirt nap—like walking down the streets of New York City and every old black lady giving me the stank eye because I opened my big fat mouth about black hair. Besides not being able to remember my log-in password on Seamless, having old black ladies be disappointed in me is pretty much the only thing that can make me Claire Danes ugly cry, y’all.