Cultural Appropriation has been a HOT topic these past few months from Iggy Azalea’s career being subsequently eviscerated to Giuliana Rancic negatively stereotyping Zendaya’s faux locs (patchouli oil and weed. Really?) To most recently, Justin Bieber sporting some dread locs and being accused of appropriating black culture . . . again.

   

     But, the main problem in all of this is every time a person of color is accused of appropriating culture, they go on the defensive. Instead of being sympathetic and empathetic to a community, they come up with many reasons such as “it’s just hair”

     

     Let me make this clear – it is NEVER just hair to women of color. When women of color leave their homes, they are constantly ridiculed from the tone of their skin (colorism) to their hair and its texture. Because of society’s Eurocentric beauty ideals, black girls with light/fair skin tones and loose curly hair are more coveted than their darker skin/kinkier hair counterparts.

 

     It’s not just hair when a white school teacher cuts a little black girls hair (http://newsone.com/380562/teacher-cuts-off-students-braid-in-front-of-class/)

   

      It’s not just hair, when a black weather woman loses her job because she wants to wear her natural God-given hair out.

(http://newsone.com/2867261/rhonda-lee-weather-woman-fired-natural-hair/)

 

     It’s not just hair when a twelve year old girl is threatened to be expelled because she wants to wear her natural hair. (http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word-94)

 

     It’s not just hair when the United States Army, makes rules saying black women need to relax their hair (which is unbelievably harmful and damaging) instead of using protective styles. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/opinion/when-black-hair-is-against-the-rules.html?_r=0)

 

     It’s really frustrating to have to defend/conform to society's standards on natural hair. When I go to job interviews, I go out of my way the night before, to wash, condition, twist my hair, to go under the dryer, and pray that I get a decent twist out in the morning on my way there.

 

     Once, I had my marley twists in (my go to protective style) and I had an interview with a high profile recruiter firm. I was supposed to take my hair out but I decided against it. I have a bachelor’s degree, a pretty diverse resume, I speak well, and I dress for success. Why is that my hair in long twists, renders all that? My dad always says to make sure they can find nothing wrong with me at interviews and I can call BS on that. The way I look at it, when I get the job, I’m going to put my hair in protective styles after the fact, why wait?

     

     Unfortunately, these incidents aren’t rare occurrences in the daily lives of many black women here in America and even the world. A simple Google/Tumblr search will produce countless articles of how many black women and young black children are discriminated for their natural hair. One trend seems to stay the same, the more black women decide to love themselves unconditionally, the more society tries to bring them down.