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The Crowns of Black Folks
Why Black Hair Texture Has Been Added to Non-Discrimination Ordinances BY L’MONIQUE KING QNOTES STAFF WRITER
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s we move towards a more inclusive society additional descriptors of identity are added to our causes for inclusion. In recent years, hair, or dare I say “Black” hair has been part of that fight for inclusion in being added to legislation. Yup, you heard correctly, Black folks actually need legislation in order to show up to school, workplaces, athletic fields and other public spaces with their hair in its natural state. Side note, when Black folks say natural hair, it most often means Black hair that has not been straightened with searing heat or chemicals. Dyed hair that has not been chemically straightened would still be considered natural hair by most African Americans. As of this writing 12 U.S. States have prohibited discrimination based on hair texture. The majority have passed the (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) Crown Act while others have expanded existing non-discrimination Amendments to include hair. Last year (January 2021) Durham and Greensboro adopted Non-Discrimination Ordinances (NDOs) which includes discrimination protection for wearing hairstyles such as braids, dreadlocks or afros. A few months later, Charlotte joined them. Charlotte’s NDO “Prohibits discrimination by an employer on the basis of race, natural hairstyle, ethnicity, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, marital status, familial status, pregnancy, veteran status, religion, age, and disability.” These same protections apply to public accommodations as well. Why is legislation for this necessary you ask? Well, in case you missed John Oliver’s HBO commentary on Black Hair last year, don’t remember all the hubbub about Colin Kaepernick’s mega ‘Fro, forgot about the the high school wrestler whose locks were hacked off by his coach mid game or back in the early 2000s when Carowinds refused to hire anyone with locks; stick around a little longer and keep reading. The article you are continuing to read may very well be the most difficult I’ve written since joining the QNotes family as a staff writer. I work with a wonderful group of folks who are welcoming, affirming and take care in never tokenizing me as I am (currently) their only Black staff writer. Honestly, sometimes it’s a little much – that responsibility of assisting my wellmeaning white male counterparts as they navigate through cancel culture and political correctness. In instances like these, my Double Consciousness (the inward two-ness experienced by Black folks who consciously or unconsciously alter their behavior when in the presence of white people in order not to appear threatening or dangerous) shows up a little differently; meaning I’m not adjusting my behavior in an attempt to outrun a stereotype. Instead, I’m gently providing education and allowing my co-workers who routinely champion diversity and inclusion, to just be – human beings whose misconceptions (of under-
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Corn Rows come in all shapes and sizes. CREDIT: AdobeStock standing or defining cultural attributes) are not malicious or intentional. When I was asked to write this article
QNotes writer L’Monique King in first grade with a “natural” or closecropped afro. CREDIT: LMK Collection
on natural hair (here forward referred to as natural Black hair as the term never seems to be used to refer to those of any other race or ethnicity but Black) I was immediately transported back to my youth. As one who grew up during America’s Civil Rights Era (‘60s and ‘70s) I was reared by a woman with an afro (also referred to as ‘a Natural’ at the time) that grew from close cropped into a massive halo of hair and back again. At seven, I begged her to cut my hair down so I would look as beautiful as her. This was a bit of a challenging undertaking for a mother and daughter with 4C hair. In the 21st century, Black hair is now categorized by straightness and curl tightness. 4C hair is the least straight hair with the tightest coils. But I digress. I still fondly remember an elementary school trip to New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) – a massive and luxurious theater where I had previously seen renditions of the Nutcracker and Swan Lake. During this particular trip to BAM, a lone Black woman took the stage and performed some poems. I was about eight years old at the time and recall being awestruck. This woman resembled my
mother, she looked like me, with her natural short afro, ebony skin and radiant smile. An unapologetic black woman, on stage in a space that generally occupied more white people than anything else was a big darn deal in the early ‘70s. Her poem “To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals” was an ode and a charge to self-love and acceptance. Her name was Gwendolyn Brooks and she was the first Black American to win a Pulitzer Prize (though I didn’t know that back then). Mind you, this was around the same time that actress Bo Derek was being admired for wearing corn rows in the movie ‘10’– while Black women were being discouraged, put down, ostracized and fired for wearing the style Bo Derek co-oped from Black culture. During a 2020 US Magazine interview Derek lamented about the situation, “I get in trouble for it now, I get a lot of criticism for being a culture vulture, that I’m being insulting and even worse, hurtful to African American women [and] that I copied their hairstyle.” Now she can’t escape it, but when the film was originally released, she says, the
