In recent pictures it’s clear Angelina Jolie hasn’t taken the time to learn or understand the long and painful history of African-American women and hair. If she had I can’t imagine she would continue to allow Zahara to look like she has in the past few months. Photos of Zahara show the 4-year-old girl sporting hair that is wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a “hot mess.’’ Allison Samuels of Newsweek
This post is dedicated to every little Black girl that has been going along living her life freely when she encounters a fully grown Black woman spouting vitriolic hateful criticism because the little Black girl isn’t wearing the same shackles that are hanging around the neck of said fully grown Black woman.
Apparently Newsweek ran out of things to report in the middle of a massive economic meltdown, a war in Afghanistan, and the rapid devaluation of the dollar, and decided to do a hit job on Zahara Jolie Pitt called Zahara Jolie-Pitt and the Politics of Uncombed Hair. You MUST read this ENTIRE article at Newsweek. Allison Samuels tries to argue that the Earth is flat. With NO facts in support of her delusions. She has a very narrow and delusional idea of what”well groomed” hair looks like:
Any self-respecting black mother knows that she must comb, oil, and brush her daughter’s hair every night. This prevents the hair from matting up, drying out, and breaking off. It also prevents any older relatives from asking them why you’re neglecting your child and letting her run around looking like a wild woman. Having well-managed hair is not just about style, it’s about pride, dignity, and self-respect. Keeping your daughter’s hair neat is an unspoken rule of parental duties that everyone in the community recognizes and respects.
Hair that is nice, neat, and cared for also gives African-American girls the confidence that they can fit into the world at large without being seen as completely different.
BWHAHAHA Are you reading what the heck you’re writing? Combing, brushing and SLATHERING you hair every night is a sign of pride dignity and self respect? NO, its a sign you’re jacking up your hair. Where did you get you hair styling expertise? Don King and Al Sharpton? Oh yeah right, you got it from Media Take Out’s comment’s section. To support her broadside of a Black toddler, Ms. Samuels relied on such reliable sources as the comments section of Media Take Out. Are you serious? Media Take Out? Even the people who comment on Media Take Out don’t take MTO as seriously as Allison Samuels did.I mean would a White reporter try to pass off the comments at the National Enquirer as credible commentary?The reason why our hair is breaking off is because we do to much to it.
Its disgusting. She’s four years old and Allison Samuels is gunning hard for this little Black girl.
A few years ago when actress Angelina Jolie announced she’d be adopting a 6-month-old girl from Africa, I had mixed emotions. I’ve always thought Jolie was one of the flyest chicks in the Hollywood game, but interracial adoptions can be a tricky thing no matter how fly you are…
Up until recently, Angelina Jolie seemed to be doing a pretty decent job with Zahara Jolie Pitt—providing essential and expensive medical care, purchasing land in Zahara’s native Ethiopia with the plan to build a health center, providing a life of adventure and opportunity. Wonderful things indeed, but lately it seems Angelina has taken a page out of Tom Cruise’s book—and it all comes down to Zahara’s hair. Allison Samuels
All in all Newsweek made Black people look STUPID! There is NOTHING WRONG with Zahara’s hair being “wild.” Is it clean? That’s all I need to know because I see many a Black girl with her hair fried and dyed and pulled tightly into pony tails. I see their damaged little ponytails and breakage along the hair line because their Mama’s are styling their hair to conform with someone else’ beauty standard.I see them squirming in the chair while their Mama’s try to COMB their hair. I didn’t have it as bad as this little girl, but it was pretty dad gum bad.
I have what is called “thick hair.” I’m also “tender headed.” I know this because I have NEVER sat in a beautician’s chair for the first time without hearing them lament about my “thick hair.” I’ve also endured the PAIN of Black folks idea of “styling.” I’m now au natural, not because I was trying to make a political statement, but because I was taking water aerobics and in a battle between the relaxer and the chlorine, my hair lost. When my hair lost, I truly won because I stopped relaxing it, switched to cornrows and then did the big chop.
Now I keep the $1,200 + dollars a year I was handing to the beautician, not to mention my TIME! But that’s not the best thing about my “unkempt”, “wild” hair. Let me let you in on a naughty secret… today I walked in the rain. Yeah. it rained today and I walked outside. Even though I had an umbrella with me, I left it in the car. I no longer rule my hair and my hair no longer rules me. In fact, yesterday somebody at Wal-mart screamed across the parking lot “I love your hair!” Same thing happened Saturday. No Comb involved! On an escalator, in an airport restroom, in the frozen food aisle, in the check out line at Whole Foods while peppering me with questions about shea butter, I run into Black women of various hair dimensions who celebrate the same freedom even if they aren’t privy to it. I’m comb-free and loving it. When I was picking out my fro everyday, I ended up with split ends until someone at my natural hair meet up said “STOP”. It was a revelation. You mean I shouldn’t try to get it in a perfectly round fro every day? Nope!
This was a really LOW BLOW for Newsweek and they should be ASHAMED for targeting a 4 year old child for this type of public ridicule. You can’t discern ANYTHING about Zahara’s family life based on her hair. Angelina might be listening to the same hair styling advice I now follow which is to LEAVE YOUR HAIR ALONE! Your hair doesn’t want to have you exercising dominion over it everyday! Allison Samuel’s attack on Zahara says more about Ms. Samuel than Angelina Jolie’s parenting skills. There are a lot of Black “traditions” that don’t need to be passed along. Show of hands for all the Black women who had their ears singed as children behind a hot comb. Chemical burn survivors? Where you at sisters who remember the pain to the too tight rubber bands. Who up in here has heard the oh so familiar sizzle of the curling iron? Who has run from the rain, skipped a workout because you didn’t want to sweat your hair out, or been stuck seething at a beautician for washing you hair throwing on some conditioner and leaving you sitting there for three hours while you have to endure the sales pitches of various “merchants” who meander into he shop selling tapes, magazine subscriptions, pecan candy, jewlry, purses and pork chop dinners? Why would you wish that on a 4 year old.
Real talk, just as this little girl’s hair in this YouTube video was used as a guise to abuse her, this feigned concern about “culture” is a guise to strike out at a toddler. Why? Zahara Jolie Pitt INFURIATES many of you, not because of how her hair is styled, but because little Zahara is FREE! Free from the pain, free from the misery, free from being shackled to a hair salon where she dedicates an entire day’s pay and her entire weekend sitting in a chair waiting her turn. It infuriates you that she’s not walking around with YOUR BAGGAGE. All this FAKE worrying about Zahara being in touch with her cultural heritage is a smoke screen, what you really want for Zahara is to share YOUR PAIN. Leave her alone. If this country is good at anything, its giving Black women various complexes about how they look. Zahara will be encumbered soon enough.
Samuels says that Black women’s hair is “painful”, but she never indicated WHY. maybe its painful because generation after generation of young Black girls go through the same horrific ritual carried out by women like Samuel. The heat, the chemicals, the burning. The complaining from older Black women about our hair being “thick” or “coarse” of heaven forbid if we are “tender headed.” As if having sensation in the scalp is some kind of affliction. I’m sick of this mess! If I read one more article in a mainstream publication about Black women and their neurosis about hair, skin, butts or anything else…. We’re not doing any kind of exploration as to WHY we have these neuroses, but merely act as hand maidens who reinforce these cultural mores’ without challenging them. We retell all of our childhood horrors and struggles, without sending a clear message to young Black women that THEY DON’T HAVE TO STRUGGLE. Instead, we want to indoctrinate as many Black girls as possible into the “system.” Fooling them into believing that if they can control their hair, their walk, their clothes, and their men, that they will have a better life, when in fact, we set them up to be MISERABLE, which is the way some of you want it. Misery loves company. This isn’t exploration. Ms. Samuels is an ENFORCER. Zahara’s freedom is breaking the rules, so Ms. Samuels is attacking a FOUR-YEAR-OLD to keep her in line and it ain’t pretty.
I think a Newsweek commenter said it best:
How pathetic…the author of this article is upset because Jolie and Pitt aren’t doing a good enough job of projecting a centuries old hair-inferiority complex onto little Zahara. Oh my God, horror of horrors – the child might actually grow up thinking her hair looks good just the way it is! She might actually be free of the pathological need to straighten, relax, restrain, or otherwise tame her hair, and we can’t have that CAN WE? The author should go into therapy and leave little Z alone. Newsweek
I agree, this article is PATHETIC. I just wrote about a similar phenomenon with Michelle Obama for the Guardian.
On another note…
Dear Editorial Decision-makers,
The next time a Black writer pitches you a story about Black women’s hair, skin, noses, butts, or any other body part, you have my permission to say “NO!” If they call you racist or challenge your commitment to diversity, refer them to this post, by which I immunize you in advance from such charges. Why? because we’ve hit our Black woman hair neurosis quota for FY 2009. We’ve officially jumped the shark. Tell them to find something else to write about like…gender inequity in Black institutions or who the heck is paying for Reverend Al Sharpton to go gallivanting around the country with Lisa Raye or why is it the Black community seems to care about little Black girl’s hair but turn a blind eye when much older men and boys in the community have sex with them . Yeah, I said it!
Hey Allison, check out le coil, it just might give you a heart attack. Hat tip Angel on Fire.
153 comments ↓
Amen and Amen! This whole hair argument is a smoke screen attempt to keep from digging deep and really examine what’s going on ….and then again, it’s just plain tiring. I’m amazed at folks in the BC, who will argue about this as if their lives and very existence depended on it. Jeez!
How pathetic that Samuels probably spent years in college just to write such senseless articles as this one. After seeing a pic of Samuels I am curious as to why she wrote the article, her hair looks like she doesn’t do much to it, why she gotta bother Z about her hair.
With all the bald edges I see walking around BW clearly haven’t mastered hair care either.
I think black folks need to really re-evaluate child rearing. It is more important for a kid to grow up healthy,safe,happy,stable,education a priority, (travel if possible) than to walk around looking dressed in the latest fashions. Many black children are well dressed and emotionally broken. The obsession that even poor folks feel they must buy designer clothes is used to mask bigger issues.
Wow! Just, wow! That it’s coming from a black woman is even more wow – even though this line of thinking isn’t anything new. It still shocks to actually read this.
Sigh…
I think you said it best when you stated: “Zahara Jolie Pitt INFURIATES many of you, not because of how her hair is styled, but because little Zahara is FREE! Free from the pain, free from the misery, free from being shackled to a hair salon where she dedicates an entire day’s pay and her entire weekend sitting in a chair waiting her turn. It infuriates you that she’s not walking around with YOUR BAGGAGE.”
PREACH, Gina!
This was a great read! Delicious! lol.
If this kind of attitude (your attitude) can be embeded in all (most) BW, we’d be very far along.
Not only is Ms. Samuels wrong about everything she wrote she is also wrong about the Jolie-Pitts and them being aware of how to care for Z. Brad Pitt created a uproar in 2006 when he made the comment below.
“For white people who might be having a little trouble with black- person hair, Carol’s Daughter is a fantastic hair product. We got it for Z. Now her hair has this beautiful luster. And it smells nice, too.” — Brad Pitt, Esquire Magazine, 10/06
So it seems they have educated themselves about black hair and are allowing this cute little girl to be free with her wonderful natural hair.
Allison Samuels has been writing many a hack piece putting down black women and girls for Newsweek. Zahara looks fine in that photo but I had seen earlier ones that made me wonder if they were trying to style her hair with ponytails that wouldn’t fit, etc. I’ve also read from some black women that they needed to relax her hair and that has horrified me because she’s far too young for that. Also she’s not African-American and I hope they continue to shield her from a few of the neuroses that we have.
Citing MediaTakeOut, Bossip and TheFabLife as part of empirical evidence to support a Newsweek article is disturbing in and of itself. That last paragraph in particular reeked of self-hatred. As an African woman who has been natural for 16 years, I can assure Ms. Samuels and anyone else, that even in its most healthiest state, Zahara’s coils will stand up straight, tall and proud, on her head. We are not in Angelina Jolie’s bathroom, we don’t know what she’s using, people should not make assumptions. In short, everyone should just leave this little girl alone.
Great post…I’ve been there and refuse to let my daughter become one of those little girls with twelve thousand ponytails and barrettes. Moisturizer and oil are just fine enough for us. When she becomes old enough to pay for her own mistakes, I plan to explain to her the difference between her edges and hair and those of her classmates and why I skipped the “Just for Me” texturizer kit. I know she’ll thank me.
Wow. This is a great post and it really forced me to CHECK MYSELF!
I have to admit, there are plenty of times when I’ve seen Zahara and have lamented the fact Brad and Angelina seem clueless about what to do with her hair. I can’t imagine a little girl not wanting to do new things with her hair, but maybe Zahara is different. And by new things I mean little girl styles–afro puffs, conrolls w/ beads etc. However, my concern over her hair is barely a passing thought, so it’s hard for me to understand how Newsweek can dedicate and entire article to dissecting a child’s hair.
I also agree that there is a sentiment that unless she’s indoctrinated into having “hair issues” and experiencing pain, she’s not having an authentic “black experience”. I didn’t have my first relaxer until I was a grown adult. I don’t have bad hair memories, because my mother didn’t FIGHT with my hair. I learned that hair should never painful. After I relaxed I was overwhelmed by the amount of pain, money, products, time and limitations associated with maintaining healthy chemically treated hair. I went back to being natural a few years ago for the ease.
All of these “black women and their crazy hair” articles are starting to drive me crazy! They all seem to divorce black women’s hair practices from the larger context of white supremacy. There’s no deep discussion of the beauty industry, workplace politics, the media and most importantly the privilege that comes with straight hair. It’s as if black woman woke up one morning and decided to torture themselves for generations because they felt like it! It also leads to people feeling justified in making all types of superficial assumptions about relaxed, natural and weaved sisters. Unless you’re offering any new information, please get out of our scalps!
The Mediatakeout, and Bossip references, is she out of her mind. The my only journalism experience was in the HS paper and even I know not to do something like that. She could easily walked in her neigborhood salon and got a couple of legitimate quotes. She was being lazy and probably wrote this rant in Starbucks or something. A lot of times folks write crazy stuff on those entertainment blogs to get a rise out of folks. Mediatakeout and Bossip are complete jokes to their own readers, people go there for a chuckle
I AM STANDING UP AND APPLAUDING.
First, let me say I googled for pictures of Jolie’s kids and to be fair, her white child’s hair was uncombed in all of them too.
I am a survivor of the pigtails-so-tight-I-couldn’t-sleep hairstyles from childhood, the dreaded hot comb in my teens, and finally the nuclear hair relaxers in my twenties. I am now also FREE and love my hair, no matter what other people think.
I can comb it, straighten it, wave it, weave it, braid it or dread it up and it’s nobody’s DAMN business but my own. I’m sick to death of this ridiculous ‘concern’ over black women and our hair!
Thank you, Gina! Enough already with the hair neuroses. Where do we get this idea that black hair is the only hair that doesn’t like being made into something that it’s not? I hear white women complaining about having to wash and style their hair daily or twice a day, that their hair is limp, too fine, won’t hold a curl, reacts to weather conditions, won’t hold a style without gobs of hairspray, is hard to color, breaks and thins out due to coloring, etc., etc., etc. This all stems from this “worship” so many black people have of caucasian/asian textured hair, as if having that textured hair would suddenly solve all our problems vis-a-vis white society. Enough!
“Samuels graduated from Clark Atlanta University in 1988 with a B.A. in Mass communications.”
RED FLAG #1
“She is a member of the Association of Black Journalists,”
RED FLAG #2
“Big Sisters of America”
I believe it is called BIG BROTHERS big sisters of America and has a partnership with Alpha Phi Alpha but none with a black sorority. They also work with Messence on some bogus mentoring program with actor Hil Harper and his “letters to a young brother” book. NOT IMPRESSED.
“and a past member of the UCLA Black Studies Department Board of Directors.”
LORD HAVE MERCY.
“She is currently a contributing editor at Essence Magazine”
The #1 enemy to ALL African-American women.
“and an entertainment correspondent for National Public Radio’s “News and Notes” show.”
CANCELED.
She is no different from Sharpton – using black people and our “issues” to land cushy jobs and titles with whites. I am so done with these people.
Wellll…I guess I’m different, and will probably get jumped on by the majority of commentors, but – while I agree with Gina’s outrage over this author using a 4 year old child to judge anything having to do with physical appearance and makeup (children should be free and never subjected to the personal issues of adults), I do understand the authors concerns, although VERY poorly voicing her opinions.
I have to agree with her however, that in many cases, adoptive white parents obviously don’t know what to do with our hair. And thus, they totally neglect it. And yes, I have seen soooo many black children who have been adopted walking around with their parents with unhealthily-dry, unkempt, matted hair – not a good thing at all. ANd yes, it’s just as bad as seeing kids with overprocessed, dried out relaxers in their hair – not cared for is not cared for period!
To be fair to the author, she did NOT say that little Zahara’s hair should be fried, died, and laid to the side! She didn’t say it should be chemically relaxed, blow dried, weaved out, or dyed blond or something. Basically, she’s just saying to keep it up – take care of it! Show some concern for your adopted child as you would for any other child – that’s how self-esteem is instilled! If you don’t know how to do it, read a book or ask a friend, or someone.
Can anybody say T’Keyah Crystal Keymáh? She wrote a book on natural hair and her hair is Shiny, health, kempt, beautifully styled hair.
Black women have always historically shown care for our looks, our bodies, our health, our hair.
To be Black and have our hair does NOT mean to be unkempt, ugly, or unattractive. I think another form of indoctrination and self hate stems from the idea that to be Black means to be unkempt, less than a women – why should Black women be any less likely to enjoy making different beautiful styles of our hair? Or wearing hairdos that enhance us rather than degrade us? I mean come one! Matted dry hair does not enhance anybody. There is nothing wrong or anti-black with having well-groomed hair.
I wear my hair natural and have many friends and family members who wear theirs au naturale as well, and it is beautifully kept up, kempt, clean, and STYLED.
Beautiful braids, cornrows (sans extensions), two-strand twists, french braids, shiny locks, Afro-buns (i don’t know how else to describe it – natural hair pulled back off the face with a band and the back is fluffed out afro), flat twists, Twisty fros, etc. And no, we don’t all have to do a Solange Knowles and cut it ALL off, we can wear short, medium-length, or long hair and still rock fly naturals – cleanly, neatly, and in myriad of styles.
Black American women are allowed to be neat and upkept AND wear styles, right??
I think this is the point the author was trying to get across, albeit badly. She’s definitely lining her pockets by commenting on the hair of Black females and is out-of-line for commenting on a child’s hair in major publication, period.
Another great post. My hair is relaxed an I still feel the same fury over Allison’s article. The daily oiling comment really got me. She didn’t even make a curory mention of supporting natural hair that is well tended to or anything. If she really wanted to inform people why didn’t she go to a natural salon and ask what should be done to natural hair on a child, if anything, to keep it well conditioned, etc.
On a related note, I always thought you had to comb or pick your hair daily even if it is natural. You learn something new everyday.
I also hope that Youtube video was turned over to child services. That woman was not even attempting to comb or brush that child’s hair. She was just whacking at it as if to punish the child for having the hair she has.
“Black American women are allowed to be neat and upkept AND wear styles, right??”
WOMEN are allowed to do whatever the hell they want to. ZJP is not a WOMAN, she’s a freaking pre-schooler. And as the parent of a pre-schooler I say I’d be damned and double damned before I’d hold my child down and put her through having her hair “fixed” every day and torture her into thinking her hair is a goddamned birth defect. Tell her she can’t play in the sandbox or get dirt in her hair like other four-year-olds because her hair has to be “fixed.” It makes far more sense to let this child’s hair be free so that she can play like other children instead of being shackled to some outdated Jim Crow bullshit about how our hair should be restrained let it revert and show the world that African hair gets puffy. I call bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Stop the insanity now. Examine the pathology and see it for what it is. Remnants of slavery and madness that we torture our children this way. Just because we’ve always done it this way and it’s part of black culture doesn’t mean it is something that should be continued. It’s sick and fucked up to the back teeth. African hair is coily, frizzy, woolly, cottony and yes NAPPY and there’s not a damned thing wrong with that. Just who the hell are we hiding our hair from? Nobody but our own crazy ass selves.
@lena nice preemptive deflection.
First of al, I challenge your definition of “kempt”. Zahara has every right to wear her hair free flowing as the next child. I se many a non black child with unrestrained hair.
If you want to attack interracial adoption then have that conversation, but don’t hide behind a ltle girl’s hair.
Second, I’m calling BS on all of these “dry” hair lies. I hv coarse hair. It’s not “shiny” again, you’re adopting a WHITE definition of hair health based on the specularity of hair.
You can cloak your criticism in concern, but at the end o the day you want Angelina to beat her child’s hair into submission. You want her daughter to have a complex. that’s not neglect that’s outright abuse.
Girl this is should be required reading for all black women, teens and girls.
Oh…I need the info on the local meet-up. I’ve been natural for going on 6 years and I’m loving it.
@bee no, you don’t have to pick it every day. You can “fluff” it. The less you manipulate the hair the better. I haven’t had nearly as many knots and tangles when I comb it when I wash it.
I’ve been natural for eleven years. The only time I used a comb was after I washed it, otherwise I used my hands to fluff it out. This business of ‘getting a comb’ through our hair is another one of those shackles left over from slavery. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to any of these geniuses that maybe it’s not our hair, it’s the implement? African hair was not designed to be combed, at least not with the European implement we know of as a comb. And a brush is the worst thing for breaking your hair off at the root. Our hair does not need to be whipped into submission, that’s why so many black women are convinced their hair doesn’t grow. They’re trying to conform to an aesthetic that has nothing to do with our hair texture. My hair is midway down my back and I don’t do anything to it at all besides washing and regular conditioning.
Another thing: This intense, neurotic drive to physically torture our daughters in order for them to be considered ‘acceptable’ to society comes from the same hellish attitude that our sisters across the pond have (those who hold their daughters down for another form of mutilation).
Beauty should not be painful or cause a deep sense of shame in oneself. The choice isn’t between dirty, unkempt hair and darn torture. There are plenty of options for a pretty little black princess, including letting her little cloud fly free. I’m all for afro puffs myself.
@Gem
“If you want to attack interracial adoption then have that conversation, but don’t hide behind a ltle girl’s hair.”
Huh? I am in no way attacking interracial adoption. Not even sure where that came from. I didn’t think my comment pointed to anything regarding adoption. But I do think people who adopt interracially need classes on haircare for Black people. What’s wrong with that?
“First of al, I challenge your definition of “kempt”. Zahara has every right to wear her hair free flowing as the next child. I se many a non black child with unrestrained hair.”
Double huh?? I didn’t say her hair couldn’t be free-flowing. Who said anything about putting anyone’s hair in bands, etc. I mentioned afros’, twist, etc.That’s all unbound. I just said kept up and kempt – meaning neat, unmatted, clean.
“Second, I’m calling BS on all of these “dry” hair lies. I hv coarse hair. It’s not “shiny” again, you’re adopting a WHITE definition of hair health based on the specularity of hair.”
TRIPLE huh??? Obviously, we think differently about Black people’s hair. I’m not talking about texture when I say dry – I have coarse, thick, very kinky hair as do many people I know. Dry hair is when I see matted, unhealthy, DULL hair – To me, most black people I see have shiny, tight coily hair, a sign of health IMHO. I didn’t say “silky”, flaxen, etc. Shiny just means healthy hair – like when the term “glowing” skin is used. Now I’m really confused – Black women TRULY have hair issues! I know the reasons why, but truly sad we haven’t moved past this.
“Second, I’m calling BS on all of these “dry” hair lies. I hv coarse hair. It’s not “shiny” again, you’re adopting a WHITE definition of hair health based on the specularity of hair.”
And just the final, mid boggling HUH????? I want Angelina Jolie to beat her hair into sunmission? Not usre how you arrived at that conclusion when I just pointed out all of the beautiful ways black women wear our hair naturally. BTW, my hair is 100% au naturale and unstraightened and I have traveled all over the world with it this way – rain, shine, sleet, snow – no weaves, extensions, or dyes, etc. One day, if i feel like it, I may straighten it out, or try some other style, but don’t feel like it now. Black women have that right.
I think my comments made it pretty obvious that I don’t want this little girls hair “beaten” into submission or anything else. I just think that there is absolutley nothing wrong with having pride enough to take care of one’s hair. Clean, neat, combed, not unkempt, unmatted.
People treat their animals better than they treat Black females – It’s sad that even dogs are groomed to be neat and given vitamins to improve their hair health.
wow…”no comb”…maybe it’s the implement… and not the hair”…I’m natural too and learning something new everyday.
I also have 2 girls (4 and 11) who I’ve chosen not to perm. Which is part of the reason why I decided to go natural…and I too LOVE it and the freedom it brings. But oh how the HEAT IS ON from some for me to “relax” my girls’ heads. Especially the older one. It’s like being natural is “unnatural”. Totally backwards. My prayer is that even more woman will decide to go natural so that the “industry” will put more focus and finance on products that will enhance our natural hair (as far as conditioners and moisturizers)…so it won’t be such a manhunt to find quality products!
pardon..i meant Angelina Jolie beating Zahara’s hair into submission – want that? NOT
Pardon my typos….I meant to use this quote..
“You can cloak your criticism in concern, but at the end o the day you want Angelina to beat her child’s hair into submission. You want her daughter to have a complex. that’s not neglect that’s outright abuse.”
And just the final, mid boggling HUH????? I want Angelina Jolie to beat her hair into sunmission? Not usre how you arrived at that conclusion when I just pointed out all of the beautiful ways black women wear our hair naturally. BTW, my hair is 100% au naturale and unstraightened and I have traveled all over the world with it this way – rain, shine, sleet, snow – no weaves, extensions, or dyes, etc. One day, if i feel like it, I may straighten it out, or try some other style, but don’t feel like it now. Black women have that right.
@Roslyn Holcomb
“as the parent of a pre-schooler I say I’d be damned and double damned before I’d hold my child down and put her through having her hair “fixed” every day and torture her into thinking her hair is a goddamned birth defect.”
Didn’t say or imply that either.Definitley did not imply that anyone see their hair as birth defects – it sounds to me like this is how YOU may have come up thinking. I didn’t and don’t. My hair is good as it is. And it’s 100% natural.
But again, there is nothing wrong with natural neat, clean kept up hair (and styled too if you like it or like your child to have it – styled, not tortured) just as there is nothing wrong with brushing our teeth or taking a bath – but I guess that’s white/European too?
Great post! I hope that Allison Samuels gets the chance to read the comments in this post.
My mother kept my sister and my hair clean, oiled and conrowed most of our young lives. It was not until I was a teen that she let me make my own hair decisions at which time I caved to “society’s” concept of what my hair should look like. So thus my love affair with the creamy crack!
BUT – now I know better and a year ago I started my transition to natural but finally that was taking to long so I opted for the big chop. Now my hair & I are free and I love it!
Let Z and her parents work out her hair “non-issues” now. Society will get their claws into her soon enough.
How dare she?! That’s it. I’m convinced that the only way to raise a healthy, confident Black child in the United States is to keep them away from ignorant, unconscious, self-hating Black people. Unfortunately, this is the vast majority of Black people in this country. Your child will eventually encounter these people. But those sick pathologies will not be a part of their psyche and they will question it.
You are correct: She is angry that this child refuses to conform to HER standards of beauty and become a card carrying member of the cult of pain.
And for the record, African -American girls will NEVER fit into the mainstream just by virtue of who they are. The only way to win that game is to NOT PLAY AT ALL!
Wow. Good post. I didn’t read the whole original article, but I get the idea. I have to admit that I have some concerns about non-african americans not taking the time to learn how to style their aa children’s hair (which was discussed once on Khadija’s blog), but I see that that was not the main topic, and AA girls should not be indoctrinated, harmed (through our ‘hair care’ methods) or used to address adult topics. Thanks.
Oh, I wanted to add that I agree with the lamenting about the latest rash of bw hair trauma stories, especially those that pick bw apart, reduce us down to our hair, bodies, etc., and those that aren’t written with the proper critical analysis, or for our benefit.
Ugh! Gina I grew up like many of us did having my hair pressed and pulled into the tightest ponytails that you could imagine. It was tiring and hurt like hell.
My daughter’s hair at Zahara’s age and younger was curly and of a texture that would allow for hair accessories to slip off without any effort so to me it was an EASY decision to not deal with accessories for the hair unless we were taking pictures. I had a fun loving kid who loved not having to sit still for her hair to be “kept” on a daily basis and there were no hair accessories to stretch and break off her beautiful hair.
As she got older her hair grew and the texture became thicker and although different from before it was just as beautiful. We started styling in ponytails that didn’t pull at the edges, twists, braids and other times loose. The key is to care for you child’s hair based on their hair and not what someone else thinks is best. I don’t see the problem with HER PARENTS letting Zahara’s hair be free of the hair accessories as long as her hair is clean and she is happy.
Sometimes I think that we force our kids to have to endure the same damaging stress and struggle because we did when they shouldn’t have to. People need to give it a rest.
I would also like to add that many people have been very critical of the way that Will and Jada Smith’s kids wear their hair. Jaden’s hair is “too long for a boy” and “needs to be cut.” Willow “always has in braids.” So what! You just can’t win! Anything slightly out of the shaved low for boys/straightened with a million barrettes for girls will be criticized.
Just like we bathe, wash our clothes and brush our teeth…we also groom our hair…that’s all people are trying to say…not Zahara needs a press and curl or relaxer or tight cornrows/pigtails…just groomed.
Wear it free that’s beautiful but you also need to wash it and put some Carol’s Daughter vanilla leave in or healthy hair butter on it….regardless there is no excuse for any child white of black walking around with matted, dry hair. it reflects poorly upon the parents black or white.
I’m ecstatic that Malia Obama is rocking her twists for the world to see that WE CAN AND WILL wear our hair in its natural form.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Anyone who has ever gone to the black hair message boards know how they love to tear into Angelina for “not doin’ that chile’s hair!!” I never had a problem with Zahara’s hair because it is clearly cared for. IT IS NOT MATTED! which tells me that someone is making an effort to take care of it. Honestly, I hate to see little black girls with the pony tail so tight that there eyes are slanted, or their edges are gone. I feel so bad for them because I know first hand how painful it is to get your hair that way.
Also, as someone pointed out in the comment section in the article, not every black woman, or white woman, has a hair complex. Angelina certainly doesn’t seem to have a complex because she’s sported every length of hair from super short to super long. If she passes that “it’s just hair” attitude on to Zahara, I think Zahara will be all the better for it.
I wish those women with hair inferiority complexes would stop trying to drag the rest of us into their insecurity. For some people, it really is just hair! If it keeps my head warm in the winter its served its purpose.
“But again, there is nothing wrong with natural neat, clean kept up hair (and styled too if you like it or like your child to have it – styled, not tortured) just as there is nothing wrong with brushing our teeth or taking a bath – but I guess that’s white/European too?”
Are you really suggesting that this child’s hair is not clean? Are you really suggesting that it’s not kept up? By who’s measure are you deciding what’s appropriate for SOMEBODY ELSE’S child?
“Definitley did not imply that anyone see their hair as birth defects – it sounds to me like this is how YOU may have come up thinking. I didn’t and don’t. My hair is good as it is. And it’s 100% natural.”
No, I didn’t come up that way, but I’ve certainly seen plenty of little black girls with their head covered in a bunch of braids and plaits and I know it takes hours to do that. NO CHILD should have to sit still for hours so that they can adhere to someone else’s standard of what’s neat. Black hair fluff, it puffs for the love of God that’s what it does. And? Who’s to say that there’s something wrong with it and it has to be ‘done?’
There’s nothing wrong with Zahara’s hair people are not used to seeing childrens hair in it’s natural state and i hope Angelina and Brad don’t listen to this mess that this sad writer is writing. Zahara will grow up and be a happy child while the women and girls that look like her won’t understand why she’s able to accept herself as she is and don’t give a damn about what someone else say about her and they will be out trying to find things to put in their heads to fit a desciption of what others think they should be.
Allison and the people she works for is a hot mess . I’m sure there are things she may do as a black woman that her bosses wouldn’t accept and would think that she is a hot mess for doing.
I hope the Editorial Decision makers get your message:
Why is it the Black community and Allison Stupid seems to care about little Black girl’s hair but turn a blind eye when much older men and boys in the community have sex with them .
Allison Stupid was probably a victim herself and her mother turned a blind eye like most mothers and fathers in this situation.
Ms. Samuels needs to sit down with me. I’ve been wearing my hair like Zahara for YEARS and hey, my hairline is in the same spot it’s been since I was three. I wonder if this “writer” can say the same thing.
@Roslyn Holcomb: “Are you really suggesting that this child’s hair is not clean? Are you really suggesting that it’s not kept up?”
My comments were all made general to the topic of black hair and it’s upkeep based upon the article that was posted and some of the comments of the article author, as posted to this blog.
As I said already, I do not believe in judging baby children on adult topics, especially in public forums that they may see one day in the future – it’s not right or fair, so I have not and will not give any opinion on Zahara’s hair at all. I gave generalized comments on issues I hear, see, and experience everyday in the black community.
My comments were based on general observations that some adopted children obviously do not have caretakers who understand our hair. Period. Point blank.
“By who’s measure are you deciding what’s appropriate for SOMEBODY ELSE’S child?”
I’m not deciding anything for anybody, I gave an opinion, just like everyone else in this forum. I gave my opinion on black hair and upkeep, you gave yours. Are YOU deciding that it’s not appropriate for somebody else’s child to wear rubber bands, barretts, braids, plaits, relaxers, hot combs, etc just because you have voiced your opinion on this? I doubt it and I think it’s silly to level such a ridiculous accusation.
I know that hair is a sensitive topic for black women because of our experience, so I’ll just leave it at that.
BTW most women on MTO in their avi they usually have relaxed indian weave remy hair or an actress with european featured hair.
I always thought Zahara was gorgeous and well-taken care of.
Allison just wants to pick on Angelina and is using Zahara to do it.
FTR, when my hair is natural, it is shiny.
Amen Gina on that one!
Start attacking black girls as young as 4 and wonder why we have messed up kids!
@Sarah “Just like we bathe, wash our clothes and brush our teeth…we also groom our hair”
THANK YOU for clearly articulating that. EXACTLY. That’s all I’m trying to say. I tend to be way too wordy, and that’s when the controversy sets in.
I notice no one said anything about Zahara having one of those little designer handbags. I think it was Hermes or LV
and for the last time hair folicle police, GROOMING does not mean combing.
I suspect that my hair is cleaner that al of yall with grease, pomades, toxic sprays, perms, finger waves and weaves.
clearly her hair is combed or it would be in knots. Just admit you want to yank this baby’s hair into 17 ponytails to suit your own narrow minded perception of aceptable black hair styles.
MTO BOSSIP AND MOST OTHER SO CALLED BLACK WEBSITES ARE BREEDING GROUNDS FOR HATRED TOWARDS BLACK WOMEN.Which is why this reported is a dunce for even reporting anything from those sites in the first place.What self respecting black woman would take those hateful anti black woman comments and right an article about them justifying what her biggest haters have said about her.The self hate truly runs deep in some of these women.
What i’ve noticed is that black people get very upset when you don’t help maintain the status quo of black women and girls feeling inferior to all other women and having self hate issues.God forbid you do anything out of the ordinary like actually like your own hair texture.They hate that kinda thing so they’re quick to try and put you back in line.You being a seemingly happy innocent child does’nt matter they have to keep you in line and oppressed as well.
I think one of the GREATEST truths that black women and girls need to know is that there are many people that have an invested interest in our failures,in the destruction of our self image,in our lack of self esteem and self respect,in our sicknesses.When we lose many people have something to gain from it.Even if it’s nothing more than a false sense of superiority.Our haters hate us for profit.Just like the woman who wrote this trash about little Zahara.
I sort of hear what Lena and Sarah are saying about some white adoptive parents sort of throwing up their hands and thinking they are in over their heads when they can’t get their black adopted children’s hair to conform to their white standards. They then opt for doing nothing to the hair not even basic maintenance. I also worry that those parents possibly throw up their hands and fail to guide their black adopted children in anything related to their heritage, good, bad or otherwise. But like was said, interracial adoption is another topic altogether.
Now getting back to the topic at hand, I don’t think anyone can make the assumption that Zahara’s hair is neglected as a noted above based on what we see of her in pictures. The only thing we know is that it is free, full and naturally curly/kinky. It seems that alone, that lack of conventional style, is what sparked the Newsweek article. There is no indication that the hair is matted or dirty or that she has a dry cracked scalp. Those things would indicate neglect, not the lack of a conventional black kid hair style.
Can we drop the white parents adopting mantra. Y’all say the same thing to white people with biracial children, their own blood children. Black folks stop frontin’ like y’all teach your children racial pride anyway.
Wow. I didn’t know that Zahara’s hair was that big of a deal. She’s cute
Leave that girl alone. I have to address something here. I wear my hair relaxed, but I relax my hair once every 3 months, and I use the proper procedures when relaxing like using a scalp protectant, and neutralizing. I also cut my ends, moisturize, like ALL women should be doing. I have my edges, and I have really thick hair. So please stop demonizing women with a relaxer. We have healthy hair too because there are alot of us who take care of ours. There is no such thing as “easy” hair. It’s how you care for it. I don’t down nappy hair, and would like to see more of it because black women don’t just come with relaxers, weaves, and bi-racial hair we come in many other forms. We are diverse and don’t need to be stepping on each other like the woman who wrote the article did. I see women up in here acting the same way she did, just towards women with the weaves and the relaxers. I don’t know who wrote that article, but I would love to sucker punch her face in. She has no business making a little girl feel like crap because she does not have to have her hair up everyday.
…who the heck is paying for Reverend Al Sharpton to go gallivanting around the country…
Do you really want to know? Well, you’ve got to follow the source, the giver of the money, and the money link started here in the early 1990s: http://ex-iwp.org/ Is Michael Hardy still his attorney? Whether yes or no, you will see how Hardy came to be affiliated with Sharpton if you check out that website, for the group detailed in that website is where Hardy had his start.
“based on the specularity of hair.”
Hah, you’re such a 3d person!
@Reese: thanks for the reminder–I thought the name Allison Samuels looked familiar…if/when we get our own Gitmo, she can be thrown in solitary confinement in the, ahem, journalism wing. (Maude knows we don’t need *other* black folks spreading the anti-Black vitriol. And just who the hell would cite MTO, Bossip and their ilk for a story, anyway!?)
Zahara looks fine to me overall, reminding me in turn to take it easy on my daughter’s hair (sure I do it once or twice a week, but no need to inadvertently pass down bass-ackwards hair traditions, right?)
I’m beyond tired of the “black hair talk” myself…I think I’ll go ahead and give the natural another whirl in the new year. Thanks, all.
I can’t believe the people that are in here saying crap like “I see where the writer is coming from”!! REALLY??
This woman, and all of her apologists, are sickening to me. How dare you judge a parent’s abilities by how “well” YOU think their child’s hair is combed.
As a homeschooling mother of a 3 year old with a one year old in tow I would be damned if ANY person dared suggest that I “threw up my hands” when they see my child in all of her TRUE glory. I spend more time WITH my child, not ON HER HAIR. And she is neat, clean and very HAPPY. Just like ZJP appears to be.
Black folks are something else, I swear. 75% of us can’t even get married before having children yet we all have opinions about black women and our hair.
How about we focus on creating normal, healthy, supportive relationships with people of the opposite sex before we engage in rampant sex without condoms. All this talk about hair and “we” as a community in America are in shambles.
This article is a hit piece on black children and the women who raise them – primarily BLACK women.
I am so done.
That baby’s hair is groomed, clean-looking, and healthy-looking. And her skin is beautiful, too.
I just finished reading Samuels article and all I have to say is it reads like a hit piece. It was sad- I ended up feeling more sorry for her and the people quoted than for Zahara.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Zahara’s hair- it looks beautiful! In fact I wish my hair looked more like hers. Zahara is a beautiful little girl who will probably grow up to have a lovely healthy head of hair- healthier than I bet Samuels’ is. Samuels was so obviously (and I mean OBVIOUSLY) projecting her own hair issues onto Zahara and her adoptive parents. I really hope the Jolie-Pitts don’t take the discussions in the media about Zahara’s hair seriously- they probably don’t but still.
As an aside, I think the discussion we’re having here is great and important. I’ve also learned a few new things about hair care here today.
I omg this just got home and saw the you tube video. That mother and her video shooting accomplice should be reported.
@Lena and others
First of all, just because Zahara is African doesn’t mean her hair is tightly coiled like mine.Everyone’s hair is different. What works for you and your family might not work for her. There are people in the same family with completely different textures of hair.
Second, Zahara is Ethiopian and if you are familiar with people from countries like Eritrea, Somalia, or Ethiopia, you know their coils and curls aren’t always like those the people of West Africa or sub-saharan Africa. Cornrows and braids might not stay in her hair. Use of elastics may result in breakage.
Finally, (and unrelated to the previous two points) the shine you and your crew go on and on about is the result of grease, oil sheen or silicone based oils. Those things just weigh your hair down. I have a big, thick nappy afro and its not going to shine. I don’t expect it to shine. Hair like mine isn’t going to. Its clean and conditioned and wild. A little like Zahara’s.
- I don’t know what’s crazier – The Newsweek article or everyone’s reaction to it…
- The child’s hair does look a hot mess – a pick and a headband wouldn’t hurt – but Samuels clearly has her own issues to deal with and it would be nice if she didn’t write like she was writing for all black women.
- shrugs not sure what the big deal is – I don’t beleive in having any child walk out the house looking like they stuck their finger in a socket – but I’m not Zahara’s momma and while it occasionally makes for good coffee talk – the strong reaction from Samuels and everyone else seems to suggest that black women truly have deep seeded hair issues that aren’t going away anytime soon.
clearly her hair is combed or it would be in knots. Just admit you want to yank this baby’s hair into 17 ponytails to suit your own narrow minded perception of aceptable black hair styles.
*rolls eyes*
There are plenty of hairstyles that don’t require 17 ponytails or ponytails at all…it’s about neat…not acceptable (as some perceive) standards of blackness.
This discussion reminds me of how far we have to go until we can believe in our own beauty.
One more thing….
Out of curiosity if a grown woman walked out the house with her hair all over her head like Zahara’s would we think that was “okay.”
Would it be freeing or would we think she needed to do something to it (do something does NOT mean pressed or permed)?
Would we expect that woman with her “wild and free” hair to be employable?
NEAT does NOT equal permed, pressed or ponytailed it just means NEAT.
Neither extremes of this argument work…they are both extremes from folk who have too many years of unreconciled hair issues.
I have wild and free hair and a PhD and surprise, surprise I have a job. And I work in corporate America. And I’m in management.
I have wild and free hair
Id be curious to see your definition of “wild and free.” My mother calls my Godsister’s hair “wild and free,” though its hardly that…it’s just a curly fro.
“wild and free ” means whatever I say it means. Why are you trying to define another woman’s hair. that’s the problem.
wow to you saying we can’t get and keep jobs. bwhahha how about some of us are creating jobs.
@JJ are you the author of the article?
Im curious as to what your definition of neat is. Zahara is obviously a clean, happy, free spirited child. Why is it that white girls can wash their hair fluff it out and go about their buisness and no one will see a problem with it. But a black girl can’t with out black people like you complaining on it not being “styled”. You prefer ur kids hair restrained, angelina prefers that her daughter embrace her and love natural curls.
“wild and free ” means whatever I say it means. Why are you trying to define another woman’s hair. that’s the problem.
wow to you saying we can’t get and keep jobs. bwhahha how about some of us are creating jobs.
*rolls eyes*
I see your inability to read and comprehend is till in full affect.
I didn’t say you couldn’t get or keep jobs…and you’re right wild and free is whatever you say it is…hence the reason I ASKED what she meant by that…pointing out with the example of my mother and my Godsister that what one woman’s consider wild and free other’s do not.
TO ME my Godsister’s curly natural hair is NOT wild and free – it’s a neat curly afro…I don’t know what Monica considers wild and free.
TO ME Natural does NOT equal wild and free – it means natural.
And I’m so glad you FINALLY discovered natural hair. I’ve been natural for years and currently rock a Cesar and had an afro before that and rocked the cornrows before that.
So why you’re extolling the benefits of your new discovery, I’ve been living them for many years now…big whoop.
I know you’re itching for an argument with me, but save it for when there is something to actually argue about.
My hair was wild and free from 1998 to 2005 when I locked it. I would get in the shower, wash my hair, shake it out, put some moisturizer on it and go. Most of that time I worked in various government agencies state, local and federal. My hair looked more or less like this photo depending on the humidity (I live in the Deep South), and no one said diddly to me about it, indeed I got plenty of compliments.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Afro_2_cropped_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
Ros nice hair!!!!
@Gem: “Just admit you want to yank this baby’s hair into 17 ponytails to suit your own narrow minded perception of aceptable black hair styles.”
I just don’t know where you’re coming from with this. It’s mind-boggling that you think this is what people are saying.
@JJ: “*rolls eyes* There are plenty of hairstyles that don’t require 17 ponytails or ponytails at all…it’s about neat…not acceptable (as some perceive) standards of blackness.”
JJ YOU ARE SO ON POINT!
If I read one more thing about our hair, I’m going to scream!!!!
Our hair shouldn’t even be the topic of discussion. Our hair is the most versitile anyone has ever seen. Hell there are people who wish to have hair like ours where they don’t have to wash it on the daily and keep certain styles to last for weeks or even months. To hell w/ those who don’t like it.
I hope Angelina doesn’t listen to the naysayers and leave the child’s hair as it is. Trust me when I say that little girl does not care about her hair, she’s happy that she has two people who love and care for her, and siblings to play w/. Let the child be. If she wants her hair permed/ have extensions by the time she’s 16 that’s her business, until then let her enjoy her childhood hair-worry free.
@Roslyn Holcomb:
I think that picture looks nice! Her hair looks healthy, has shine, and is abundant to me. That’s what I call a “wild & free” type hairdo, kinda Erykah Badu-ish. I personally attribute that look as more artsy.
For myself, personally, I am not into the wild & free look because I’m a little more conservative than that – I rock mine natural but in cornrows, flat twists, 2-strand twists or untwisted and pinned back.
I don’t think it’s a hairdo for little kids, however, anymore so than a china cut – just too old for them and not a style a kid should wear (IMHO).
But I think that pic looked good.
@Roslyn that’s a curly fro…my Godsister has similar type of hair and style…shrugs…I don’t consider that wild and free…but like I said women can decide their own definitions of their hair.
thanks CHRIS ROCK !!! WTH my hair looks like baby z and i am 40 damn years old and i work in corporate america i have psoriasis from YEARS of relaxers and perms hell my mamma permed my hair when i was 4 years old !!! sad !! sistas unite, I am no longer a slave to the beauty salon products that the white man is the master of !!!
Monica
You’re right everyone hair is different even within the same family. May i also add that Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia is part of Sub-Saharan Africa.
I have a problem with Zahara’s hair and some white adoptive parents do not take the time to learn how to do textured tresses properly. Some mothers of interracial daughters, just cut the child’s hair off instead of combing the hair and having a natural regiment for the hair texture.In a way, I think Angie maybe trying to send “us” a message on the sly if you ask me(hmmm).Black women have been held down by the torturous chains of hair slavery for centuries and I hope.. sighing… one day we will overcome the mental abuse.
Oh, Madonna gets Mercy’s hair braided and I think that is so cute on her. I don’t have a problem with Zahara’s hair texture and I do not advocate relaxers for children either.
There is a difference between styling and torturing. Just because a little black girls hair is styled, it doesn’t she was tortured to do so. It’s not fair to make assumptions about Zahara, but it’s also not fair to make assumptions about other black girls too. I had my hair styled all the time as a child and it was not an awful experience. I looked forward to getting my cornrolls and choosing my beads. I’m sure Zahara will want to rock different styles one day, if she doesn’t all ready. If we suggest that styling a black girls hair is automatically a horrible experience, we’re just adding to the all the existing black hair myths out there.
Many white children wear their hair wild and free, because they don’t have much hair to style in the first place. Often they’re form of early styling is a haircut. Black hair is very versatile and lends itself very easily to styling. All the white girls I grew up with were always raved about the cute little styles I would rock as a kid, because they’re hair couldn’t do that. I’m sure more black girls are likely to keep their natural hair if they can see all the cool things it can do. There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that white adoptive parents AND BLACK PARENTS spend more time learning about how to care for our hair. I grew up in a nappy family. Nappy mama, sister, grandma, aunties, cousins etc. There were no natural websites and youtube videos when I grew up. All the natural hair care info I read about now, for the most part, is stuff I grew up learning. It’s made me realize how many black people and BLACK HAIRSTYLISTS know absolutely nothing about how to care for our hair. We need a mass black hair education movement, not more of these “black woman and their wacky hair” articles.
You don’t have to comb black people’s hair everyday (I comb mine about once a week), but you can if you choose. I used to comb my naps all the time as a teenager to rock a different look for school. I used moisturizer and the right type of comb and got busy. No pain, no breakages, no drama. Zahara’s hair can be styled without drama as long as someone who knows what they’re doing does it. However, Brad and Angelina have enough money to hire her a personal hairstylist if she chooses, so this whole article is pointless to begin with.
These mafia hit pieces are coming fast and furious. It’s NOT/NEVER okay to attack a black CHILD with ugly, RACIST B.S.
I laugh at all these sideline, do-nothing ‘pseudo-writers’ who sit around obsessing about black women and children’s hair and bodies. Zahara is living it up as a child with a wealth of child-appropriate experiences on the daily while too many other kids are bumping and griding to Single Ladies. Zahara speaks three languages (English, French and Amharic) and has been all over the world. This is another example of ‘when the checks stop coming’ because when there’s nothing else to say, they fall back on the permanent punching bags: black women and children. I am so sick of this b.s.
This self-hatred continues to keep us sweeping up the bottom. We hate everything about ourselves and everybody else profits off whatever they can make to ‘fix’ us.
It’s so sad that a lot of us don’t realize how beautiful we are AS WE ARE and allow these sharp shooters to continue to cut us down. Is the perm industry in financial trouble? I wouldn’t be surprised if these hit pieces that we’re seeing all over the MSM and the internet are sponsored by perm/chem manufacturers now that natural hair blogs are sprouting up and offering alternatives to what’s out here now.
These people PROFIT off what we don’t like about or can’t deal with about our curly/coily hair and then they systematically SHAME us about our being “unkempt” so that we can keep them in business.
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ZAHARA’S HAIR! Thank you, Angelina Jolie, for embracing your child’s ethnicity and culture and allowing her hair to just ‘be’ curly and free. Newsflash: coily, curly, kinky hair DOES NOT ‘lay down flat’! You can’t really, clearly tell if hair is ‘moisturized’ from jpegs on the interet. Damn.
some of you ppl with you hair agendas are intentionally obfuscating the point of the post and the article.
Zahara’s hair IS styled. You just don’t like the style. Maddox has a blonde mohawk, where isyou hand wringing over him? Shiloh’s bangs are pretty long and she almost never has her tresses restrained.
some of you see wild and uncombed. I see a little girl with a freestyle like her other three siblings.
You’re LYING when you say her mother doesn’t know “how” to combe her hair because she’s worn pigtails and puffs before.
She’s 4. She’s entitled to be fotloose and fancy free. If that bothers you, the you need to find other things to ocuy your time.
I’m not EVEN trying to hearall these attacks on interracial parents via hair folicle. The fact that tha’s your barometer of parenting skills is a reflection on your own. Pluuuueze. They could turn that argumen back on us.
Are you listening to yourselvesN Hire a “personal stylist” for a fou year old… not a tutor, but a stylist because we must maintain the aceptable “apearances” at all times. Your life can be MESSED UP, as long as you look “good.”
not a tutor, but a stylist
Hence one of the reasons black kids are only doing slightly better than 1st generation Latino kids. And I notice that no one ever said anything when Z was always photographed eating those Cheetos.
NO ONE IN THIS COUNTRY IS GOING TO LOOK AT THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND TAKE PARENTING ADVICE FROM US.
Hp,
Those countries are considered the Horn of Africa. They are comprised of ethnic groups who as Arabic as well as African.
You know people from the Ghana, Congo and Kenya generally look different and have different hair textures compared to people from Ethiopia.
@JJ
“The child’s hair does look a hot mess – a pick and a headband wouldn’t hurt”
Strickly a matter of your opinion. I think it looks fine. Good thing the child’s mom doesn’t wait for her child’s look to be pleasing to EVERYONE before she leaves the house. Otherwise I suppose she’d be a complete hermit.
“Out of curiosity if a grown woman walked out the house with her hair all over her head like Zahara’s would we think that was “okay.””
Such an unfair statement since everyone knows what looks good for a child may not look good on an adult. Would a grown woman walk out of her house with hair barrettes and pig tails? NO…but it’s fine for a child. Hell, my 11 year old doesn’t even wear the same styles as her 4 year old sister. What matters is what looks good, and age appropriate, on the INDIVIDUAL.
As amazing as it is to see black women so caught up in the styling/hair care of a 4 year old child, I’m also amazed at the “eye-rolling” and general level of rudeness of a certain poster directed at the blog host. That is not cool. Perhaps that poster should focus more on her own manner (or lack thereof) than on the hair of a 4 year old girl (who at age 4 is already doing better in life than most black people).
@Sandra – stick to things you know about..please…my “relationship” with the blog is as it has always been – heavy doses of sarcasm and eye rolling tossed both ways.
Last i checked GEM was a big girl and can fight her own battles.
Strickly a matter of your opinion. I think it looks fine. Good thing the child’s mom doesn’t wait for her child’s look to be pleasing to EVERYONE before she leaves the house. Otherwise I suppose she’d be a complete hermit.
And now I’m going to roll my eyes at you…since everyone on this topic is stating THEIR OPINION…I’m glad you think it looks fine…I don’t.
Fin.
This is sad. I’ve seen other people attack Zahara’s hair too. I really hope that her parents don’t decide to listen to these people and fry her hair.
Also Allison Samuels is a hack from way back.
Okay. Are you seriously trying to suggest that I’m placing hair over a child’s well being!?
The point I made with the “hire a stylist” comment was that the author of the Newsweek article seemed to suggest that Angelina needed to learn about black hair to take care of Zahara’s hair. Those children have an army of nannies and if Angelina was that confused and concerned about doing Zahara’s hair she could just hire someone to do it. Hence, the author’s whole premise was pointless to begin with. THAT was my point.
This is not some kind of battle to me. Zahara’s “wild and free” hair style is not some kind of revolutionary act or proclamation. She’s a child. I wear my hair wild and free all the time. I live in NY like most of the ladies on le coil. I see sistas like that walking the street everyday. I don’t find it repulsive, wild, and crazy or anything of the sort. I never said her hair was ugly, dirty, matted or anything like that. She’s beautiful as is.
The reason why I came back to discuss styling options is because we shouldn’t be replacing one set of black hair care myths with all new ones. Styling one’s hair in various looks does not have to = torture. Our hair can do many things and there’s no reason we should not fully realize that if we choose. We shouldn’t criticize Zahara’s hair style, but we also shouldn’t berate barrettes, ponytails, cornrolls, hair grease etc. No one here is the hair god. Everyone’s hair is different. Yet somehow, even in our natural hair state, we still can’t seem to accept those differences!
Furthermore, I don’t need to make any thinly veiled attacks about interracial adoption. Interracial adoptions and multiracial families are a non-issue for me and have been a part of my life since forever. Also, nowhere did I say that hairstyling is the barometer of good parenting. I’m not sure if you’re implying that I am a bad parent or I had bad parents, but I am not a parent yet and I have phenomenal parents.
I remember reading a quote a while ago where Brad Pitt referred to the trouble they were having caring for her hair and how much they loved Carol’s Daughters products. It’s not strange to suggest that they, like many parents may need some additional information to care for our hair and may feel limited in what they can do because of the way our textures have been vilified.
The author refers to the “painful history of black hair” and my point is that it doesn’t have to be that way and we need to stop casting black women’s hair as some sort of “problem”. One group says it has to be tamed, while the other says that it has to be set free. It has the ability to be however we want it to be.
If I have a hair agenda it’s this: black hair is versatile and limitless and it does not have to = angst. Period.
If I have a hair agenda it’s this: black hair is versatile and limitless and it does not have to = angst. Period.
Amen!
“Our hair can do many things and there’s no reason we should not fully realize that if we choose.”
I’m not sure about this comment. Even a casual googling of pictures of this child shows her with her hair in many different styles including twists and afro puffs. I haven’t seen cornrows, but that might be a texture issues. Some hair simply won’t hold cornrows and she seems to have a fine hair texture. From what I’ve observed of the child’s parents they seem to be very laid-back in their attire when they’re not in professional mode. They seem to dress their children similarly. It’s not like Shiloh is running around looking like Suri Cruise while Zahara is dressed like the little match girl. This is the style and culture of that family and I can’t for the life of me understand why some nitwit at Newsweek seems fit to impose some other belief system on these people. Seems bizarre to me that with all these little black girls running around with traction alopecia and hair burnt off from relaxers that their BLACK mothers put on their hair, we only seem to get upset over the relative few WHITE mothers and how they do their children’s hair. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I see far more of the former than of the latter. To me it smacks of bullying. Allison Samuels wouldn’t dare write such garbage about a black mother, but she feels free to attack the Jolie-Pitts because of their race. I think it’s ridiculous.
The child’s hair is a hot mess. Sorry it is. She needs to do something with it. It looks unkempt and wild as hell.
@Iman: “If I have a hair agenda it’s this: black hair is versatile and limitless and it does not have to = angst. Period.”
THANK YOU!! Please say it again and again!
@Gem: I’m surprised. Stop replacing one set of negative stereotypes with another. I had good hair experiences as a child. I loved when my mother and grandmother would do my hair – it always sent a little tickle down my back when they were braiding my hair, and I would get so comfortable that I would fall asleep right there while they were still styling. And I had all kinds of little cute-sie styles.
And to fall back on the “race card” and falsely claim that people are addressing/attacking interracial adoption just because they pointed out what they and others have seen regarding hair is beyond pathetic.
Since interracial adoption seems to be your main focus, maybe you’re the one with the problem with it and are trying to rectify it in your mind by vilifying others? That’s unfair and simply not right.
Well “Miss Thang”, perhaps to you her hair looks “wild as hell” an unkempt but that is really NONE of your business. And doing “something” with it may be what the Jolie-Pitts have actually done. You know, oil it, brush it and send the child on her way. Some people think that is ENOUGH for a CHILD.
And what does “wild as hell” even mean? It’s not restrained and held back? Just because you think that children should have the added burden of having their hair restrained to fit into some “stlye” doesn’t make it right.
Gina, you are so right. A lot of these commenters are simply JEALOUS of Angelina and Brad’s choice to let their child be free. They wish that they had the guts to let their children be free of the shackles or that somehow had the guts to let THEM be free.
Zahara seems to have two parents committed to her and her siblings (for now, this IS Hollywood we’re talking about) and is living a life of extreme privilege. The fact that she has all of that AND a “wild as hell” appearance pisses these folks OFF. They are JEALOUS of a CHILD. Yes, even the writer, Ms. Samuels, is jealous of Zahara. And other women like her (young and old) who are saying “F U” to the enslaved minds that still think black hair is ugly when it’s not “styled”.
Nothing scares folks more (white or black) than a black woman who decides that she is not inferior to anyone. Because if a black woman actually thinks she’s worthy of being treated with respect and dignity and god forbid finds herself attractive AS SHE IS then who will be left to take care of everyone else and make them feel good??!!
Zahara isn’t even in the running to be ANYBODY’s mammy – not by a long shot. Chances are she’ll grow up thinking she is on the same level as any other woman in the world. Good for her, the fewer black girls that are indoctrinated into servitude, the better.
OK, I just read the Newsweek article. It’s filled with oppressed, limited, intolerant, self-defeating thinking that the author is attempting to project onto Zahara. In short, it’s one big exercise in stuck on stupid.
@lean you’re surprised ? that someone who runs a blog called What about our daughters? would have a very negative reaction to a bunch of fully grown women circling a child and publicly deriding her hair? Surprised that when we read all these stories about murdered and abused Black girls, you would pile on an otherwise happy 4 y.o.
That you would imply that any hairstyle not involving restraints is unkempt. That you would generalize natural haur as matted dry and un professional.
That I wouldn’t back down you would be surprised? No you’re not surprised you can’t win your argument you want to take personal shots at me. BRING IT!
I’m not four years old and I’m not as stupid as you want to try to act. If this no big deal, why do you keep returning to the comments section? What’s your agenda? To make sure Zaraha gets her soul beaten down as much as possible so she meets your standards?
Surprise my arse.
So the question is which is worseM having wild hair or being attacked at 4 years old.
“And I had all kinds of little cute-sie styles.”
Yep, some of us are into cutesie styles and some of us are not. Some mamas like doing that, and others don’t. I know my daughter wouldn’t sit still for fifteen minutes, let alone the 45 minutes to an hour it would take to do her hair in a cutesie style. And that’s okay. Other little girls enjoy it. It would appear, just from photos that her parents prefer a more laid-back lifestyle. I can certainly understand that given that their career requires them to spend so much time glammed up that in their free time they prefer not to do so much. It would similarly appear that the Cruises have a different outlook. My point is, that’s okay. This notion that somehow just because she’s black Zahara has to have her hair “done” is just absolutely absurd. Frankly it’s been my experience that little girls would just as soon put sand and mud in their hair, as to have it in a cutesie style. And since playing in sand and mud is a developmental issue I’d say I’d prefer that to how cute a little girl’s hair is. She’s got the rest of her life to fret over her cuteness (or not), but for right now, just let her be a child.
To Roslyn Holcomb:
Your hair is absolutely beautiful.
@ Roslyn
To be honest with you, I don’t follow a lot of the celebrity news that pertains to children because most of it is mean. I’ve only seen on Zahara rocking her fro. If you read my first comment you’ll see that I checked myself and said that I can’t assume what she likes and that in all honesty her hair was barely a passing thought for me.
The point of the statement you referenced was not about Zahara, it was about the fact that we all have hair choices and the more information we have on caring for our hair, the better we can exercise that choice. Articles like the Newsweek piece do nothing to help that cause. The reason why I took an interest to this post in the first place is because it actually made me reevaluate my original assumptions little girls and their hair. I also took an interest in this post because of the Newsweek’s author’s “painful” quote. The Newsweek piece is part of a continuing trend where mainstream publications paint black women’s hair as some sort of burden. There’s no new information, no new research, no discussion of context, no real interviews etc. I’m sick of these types of articles and I want to share the good news that black hair is not a burden or a problem and it doesn’t have to “painful” as the author suggest.
@Gem: “That you would imply that any hairstyle not involving restraints is unkempt. That you would generalize natural haur as matted dry and un professional.”
Again, I never said that or implied that natural hair is matted, undry, or unprofessional. I said that unkempt, uncared for hair is dry and matted. Unkempt, uncared for hair is not a good thing to me. And at no point did I ever categorize anybody’s hair as unprofessional. Now you’re just flat out lying. Wow…its gotten to the point that you’ll just make up anything to win your argument?
And how many times have I said that MY HAIR IS 100% NATURAL and looks good. So obviously I think natural hair is a darned good thing – styled, or unstyled. i, however, prefer styled and well groomed.
“Surprised that when we read all these stories about murdered and abused Black girls, you would pile on an otherwise happy 4 y.o.”
Another ridiculous lie. As I already mentioned several times, I’ll give no opinion on a 4 year olds hair at all. Period. I did not nor will i pass judgemnent on Zahara’s hair or any other 4 year olds hair. Not a single word i wrote disparaged that little girl. Tell the truth and stop writing for sensationalism yourself.
Go back and look at all of my posts and show me anytime where i ever disparaged a child’s hair. You obviously have me mixed up with someone else.
Are you off your meds, sister? Because your response to me saying i love natural hair that is clean, neat, healthy and shiny vs. dry and unkempt is WAY over the top. Girlfriend, calm down and maybe work on your own self esteem about your new experience with natural hair and you wouldnt have these over-the-top reactions to my posts that obviously show i love natural hair.
And as for your “Bring It” statement, all i an say is utterly ridiculous. Sorry you’re feeling so insecure about your own hair to the point of seeing red and becoming hysterical and irrational.
obviously, roslyn and gem just want to argue. roslyn, did you not see my comment regarding the picture you linked to? i thought it looked good!
as for gem, well…we all have a bad day i guess…
Roslyn
You stated, Allison Samuels wouldn’t dare write such garbage about a black mother, but she feels free to attack the Jolie-Pitts because of their race.
You are right I can’t imagine Allison Stupid writing some hot mess of an article about Will and Jada’s children because she know better. Jada would give her a verbal smack down and she knows it. Theres no way in hell she would say something like this to anyone that she doesn’t know out in public either. They’ll give her a physical smack down and she knows it.
The same things goes for u as well Miss Thang. I dare you to say these things to people you see in public when they don’t fit what you want them to be or what you think they should be.
Monica
Those countries are considered the Horn of Africa but the Horn of Africa is also part of Sub Suharan Africa. The only countries that are not part of Sub Subharan Africa are the northern countries.
“The Newsweek piece is part of a continuing trend where mainstream publications paint black women’s hair as some sort of burden.”
This we can certainly agree on. Frankly I want the world to stop examining us period, we’re not zoo exhibits.
I’ve seen pictures of ZJP over the years for a couple of reasons; my own interest in adoption and a couple of boards I used to be on regularly posted pictures of her so I’d see them there. I also regularly read the tabloids. Interestingly enough, as it pertains to the kids the articles in the tabloids are typically much kinder than this hit piece in the “respectable” Newsweek.
“Your hair is absolutely beautiful.”
Actually, that’s not a photo of me, I put up that picture to show how I used to wear my hair. I need to digitize some of my old pics before I locked.
“I’m not four years old and I’m not as stupid as you want to try to act. If this no big deal, why do you keep returning to the comments section? What’s your agenda? To make sure Zaraha gets her soul beaten down as much as possible so she meets your standards?”
And there it is Gem.JJ and Lena come off as the biggest haters and no matter what they say my eyes and the eyes of many others don’t lie.I see NOTHING wrong with that little girls hair.Nothing about it looks bad or damaged.So why all the extra drama and argumentative attitudes about something that is a non issue.Oh I forgot JJ and Lena have got a hidden hater type agenda.Typical.
Gem, I commend you for even letting them comment on this site.You’re better than me.
Here are some recent photos of Zahara, which includes her sister Shiloh.
The first photo, where Z is stepping out of the van, shows how radiant she is: big, beautiful smile, and big, beautiful, healthy hair. You will notice, as a few have stated here in the comments, that their parents seem to let them freely express themselves, for her sister, Shiloh, is dressed, from head to toe, like one expects a boy to be dressed! Zahara is the one dressed all girly, and that includes here hair.
http://www.pittwatch.com/angelina-jolie-goes-shopping-with-zahara-and-shiloh/
Girl…you are on fire!!! Love the comment asking why we care so much about little black girls hair but not about old men sleeping with them. It is really about control of our little black girls…controlling how they look, dress, what they think about (or about themselves) and how they relate to men for the benefit of men.
And there it is Gem.JJ and Lena come off as the biggest haters and no matter what they say my eyes and the eyes of many others don’t lie.I see NOTHING wrong with that little girls hair.Nothing about it looks bad or damaged.So why all the extra drama and argumentative attitudes about something that is a non issue.Oh I forgot JJ and Lena have got a hidden hater type agenda.Typical.
Someone is speaking above their pay grade and clearly can’t read and comprehend.
Lena CLEARLY stated that she won’t make ANY comment regarding Zahara’s hair…and if you actually read her posts instead of running to defend the blog owner – who clearly can handle herself – you’d know that.
I made the comment that I thought the child’s hair looked a mess BUT the Smauels’ piece was out of line and I’m not the child’s mother…so it’s not my call how Z’s hair should look.
Clearly Lena and I both have natural hair…so this isn’t about natural hair. I’ve also pointed out I don’t consider natural hair “wild and free” nor to buy into the idea that styling a child’s hair is “torture.”
I for one wouldn’t send my child out the house with Z’s hair or dressed liked Shiloh…I beleive children should leave the house neat and presenatable and that means hair “done” – that doesn’t mean “17 ponytails” or relaxed or pressed…and can mean a NEAT afro and a headband..or twists or cornrows…whatever.
But that’s me – I recognize other folk feel differently – but the attack on this blog for any woman who doesn’t beleive a child should leave the house looking willy nilly and thrown together under the guise of “freedom” is just as bad as the hit job Allison Samuels pulled in Newsweek.
I’m not sure why you think that me defending Gem is a bad thing.Sure she can do it for herself but seeing as though she has defended many black women I think it’s the least I can do.I try to” reciprocate” sue me.
I don’t care about your hair being natural or not.This is about your disrespectful attitude i.e trying to parent someone else’s child.That child doesn’t seem neglected or anything else.You should learn how to “naturally” mind your business.
Zahara’s hair is fine. It’s not a “perfectly picked out afro”, why does it have to be? She’s not interviewing for a job. She’s out and about, with mom…and she’s four years old. Her hair is clean, looks moisturized, and is probably softer than my hair, at this moment.
Allison Samuels was out of line, out of order, and just…out there. No excuses, and if she “could have said it better”, then she should have…as a journalist. She knows how to write, right? So, I expect her communication skills to be above average. Shoot me.
Leave Zahara alone.
Oh…and another thing (sorry): What if her hair STARTED OFF “nice and neat”, but during the course of the day, “living” got to it, and with it being “nappy” and all, it decided not to “lay down nice” like straight hair. So, what’s the solution? A “pick-out” every 15 minutes, to keep it perfectly shaped…on a 4 year old? Or, she’ll look “thrown together’. Wow.
So, if only straight hair can be worn loose and free, and nappy hair must be “controlled”, under any and all circumstances, then just say that.
Just had to say too that the video is damn ridiculous…
t
his is about your disrespectful attitude i.e trying to parent someone else’s child.
*rolls eyes*
I’m not trying to parent anyone’s child but my own.
What part of I’m not the child’s mother…so it’s not my call how Z’s hair should look. did u miss?
Reading and comprehending is fundamental.
She’s only 4 years old, I think her hair is fine
@truth p.
“I forgot JJ and Lena have got a hidden hater type agenda”
Wow…who knew that saying having neat, groomed natural hair would make me and others with similar comments into the anti-christ with a hidden agenda to destroy black girls?
Obviously you all don’t know anything about my history commenting on WAOD.
Really sad that some of these posters can’t see past their own self-hate.
@Gem: And BTW, at no point did I ever say “it’s no big deal”. Also not sure who’s posts you are reading. I think it’s an interesting topic – this is why i keep coming back to this blog. I have no agenda and have been commenting on WAOD for a very long time now.
Thanks for breaking it down to them, JJ. Reading and comprehension is soooo fundamental.
People, go back and read my blog posts before giving your knee-jerk reactions based off of the incorrect and falsified statements of some.
Just because you want to use your nazi tactics to try to force everyone to have your opinion on black hair doesn’t mean that they will work – I still have my opinion, you have yours. And none of it was negative or EVER directed at Zahara, so stop the lies.
This is silly.
I wasn’t aware that Allison Samuels was allowed to physically examine Zahara’s hair. How else could she claim that the child’s hair is “unstyled, uncombed and dry.”
Her article does smack of bullying.
I can’t understand people commenting about black hair being versatile yet refuse to accept the style that her own mother has chosen. Is it because the style doesn’t fit your particular criteria?
My brother’s hair looked the same way when he was her age and now his biracial son’s hair looks the same way and I defy anybody to tell me his hair is not being properly cared for.
Mediatakeout, Bossip and TMZ are the internet’s version of cesspools.
errr, some of you who are fawning over the braids and cornrowed styles of Madonna’s daughter, Mercy James, fail to realize that over time all those tight hairstyles and wool extensions are eating away at her hairline. Yes, the texture of Zahara and Mercy are different, but, I think it is because of the Jolie-Pitt’s handling of their daughter’s hair that Z has a full hairline. Probably the stylist Madonna hired for her daughter’s hair was yet another black woman with the same hair complex we have embraced for centuries. As much as I hate commenting on the styles of other people’s children, what Madonna is doing for Mercy’s 4b-textured hair is not the best. Some of the styles are waaaay too tight, pull at the hairline, and honestly, no toddler needs wool or extensions in their hair. Hey, but Mercy James is wee little thing, so beyond that, I won’t comment any further.
Just because our hair is versatile, does not mean we have to always have it styled or have to try a million and one styles before we hit age five. Also, surprise people, our hair can get by without a comb – just need some water and your fingers and you’re good to go. Everything else is just extra. I’ve personally noticed that my hair has grown healthier and longer without the need to pull at my hair line or daily combing. Seems like Angelina may have to school a couple of black women on the fact that hair, people, is just hair. And that a four-year-old has no business imbibing the hair complexes that some of us older folk have.
Oh, and Z’s hair is not matted or dry. Just curly and mineral-oil-free. Pitt admits to using Carol’s Daughter products and honestly, folks, you do not have to oil your hair every single day. That’s just not clean. I bet in the next couple of years, many of the haters will be fawning over the amazing head of hair Z will be sporting.
I had to scroll up and look again at the picture, just to make sure that I’m looking at the same one that everyone else is. How is this not groomed? It’s a tidy, symmetrical little afro cloud. There is nothing that looks unclean to me. I don’t understand this argument.
MY hair is usually wild and light-socketish (picture 1980’s diana ross natural). This? Not so much.
BTW I don’t knock grown women who choose relaxers, weaves, etc. I have done both in the past. It looks really good on some people. I am TOTALLY against chemicals and hot combs on children though.
The child’s hair is clearly clean. She looks happy. The parents praise and use Carol’s Daughter products on her hair. They have praised the product as a God send. She looks healthy & happy. I am supposing considering their finances they have prolly took the girl to a stylist who is comfy with curly hair and got advice. None of the kids seem to have a set kind of look – not the boys or the girls. Now, yes, I think a headband would help a bit, but other than that – she looks healthy & happy. The parents can look like something from the Woodstock era at times so no, I am not surprised the kids are allowed to be so free. The parents live under a lot of constraints due to the constant scrutinizing by press they receive so I am supposing that they want their kids to feel like it is ok to just be themselves. Z is one of their kids, you can definitely tell she is loved, and they live their life being healthy, happy and free. The only thing I would suggest is maybe get her a few headbands other than that, let her be free & let her be loved.
*Rolls eyes right back at JJ*.Reading is fundamental but reading between the lines is even more fundamental.Thought you knew.
To lena and JJ:The hair doesn’t look unclean or damaged and there shouldn’t have been an issue about a non issue.I’m not buying what you’re selling.You seemed a little too iritated from the very begining about the issue.I percieve that you two are the individuals on this site with the self hate issues.Zahara’s hair is no different from many of the women that I see that are natural.If you don’t like her hair style so what.She doesn’t need to wear a headband or anything else to look what YOU call presentable.Those kids are seen walking through airports and down random streets they shouldn’t have to dress up for that.When I see them they always have on t-shirts and pants.Big dang whoopty doo.Get over it.
When I first began wearing natural, I attended a family event with my hair in a bantu-knot out style with a headband. And my mother’s reaction to seeing my natural hair was so viscerally negative: “Look at you with that NAPPY hair…you didn’t come out of my belly looking like THAT”…as if I’d come out of her belly with a perm or a weave(she’d never had any thing to say about those styles). This experience does not begin or end with me and my mother. MANY women over thirty have had experiences such as this, where they have consciously AND subconsciously passed on their negative perceptions of their own natural hair texture down to their daughter and to their grandchildren (if it’s not checked).
My point is that as black women we have been endoctrined to believe that our natural coily/kinky hair is BAD. And black american women (and people in general) have historically tried to distance ourselves physically from our African ancestors…beginning with our hair, which also happens to be one of the easiest to manipulate. I believe this is another reason for the negative responses to seeing a child with natural hair “running wild in free”. We may sometimes even over-use barrettes and beads in our effort to distract the eyes from the kinky texture of the hair.
I guess for me, and based on my own experiences, the negative connotations associated with black kinky/coaurs hair were more blatant and thus easier for me to see, so that I can TRY MY BEST to break that cycle that I KNOW has gone on in my family for generations, and not pass it on to my daughters. Thus I want them to LOVE the hair that God put on their heads FIRST. Can you imagine how difficult this is in a society that values every OTHER hair texture above ours? But still I’ll press on.
And while I share this as my own personal experience, I know that is not just my own. If it were, conversations like this and articles like the one written in Newsweek would not exist. Nor would the movie OR THE TERM “Good Hair”. And many, many, many, many more black women would stop chemically altering their natural hair texture (or wearing hair from the heads of OTHER women…which is a WHOLLY different texture than their own).
MANY women over thirty have had experiences such as this, where THEIR MOTHERS have consciously AND subconsciously passed on their negative perceptions of their own natural hair texture down to their daughter and to their grandchildren (if it’s not checked).
I meant to write that “THEIR MOTHERS have…” above
@LaJane
Quote: “I always thought Zahara was gorgeous and well-taken care of. Allison just wants to pick on Angelina and is using Zahara to do it.”
I AGREE. This was never REALLY about Zahara…I think it was a cowardly swipe at Angelina. Her daughter was an easy target (a young child) and the article was an easy way to create lots of buzz because of our permed versus natural hair psychosis.
Allison got lots of buzz (great for a writer) on a hateful, maybe envious little article ….got plenty of people to question Angelina’s child rearing skills by pointing to her child’s hair. So, now I’m wondering if Allison has any other articles out ther about Angelina.
@Lena
“it always sent a little tickle down my back when they were braiding my hair, ”
Unfortunately, when my hair was “really” braided it was apparently by evil older cousins and I used to dread the feel of knuckles digging into my head. LOL.
I was often left with a headache and typically had to think a week to come up with an appropriate prank as punishment for their “great” and painful styles…(castor oil in cokes, etc)
Where in hell does this self-hating negro get off beating up on a little girl?
Did it ever occur to this vicious Aunt Jemima that if Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie hadn’t adopted Zahara when she was six months old that child might very well have died before her first birthday? Z was a desperately sick little girl. She was half dead from dehydration and malnutrition and there was a suspicion that she might have HIV. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case but it didn’t matter to Pitt and Jolie. They made a commitment to adopt her and care for her no matter what. They loved and nursed her back to health. Zahara today is a healthy, thriving, beautiful little girl. She is loved and cherished by both her parents. She has her daddy wrapped around her little finger. And this stupid cow Allison Samuels can’t see past her hair. How pathetic is that?
Somebody needs to show Samuels that YouTube video. Is this what she wants for Zahara? For her mother to show how much she loves her by torturing her hair for minutes on end? That video was painful to watch. And the worst of it was that poor ignorant woman didn’t even realize she was actually making her child’s hair worse with all that dragging the brush through her hair. Anybody could see that child has a hellacious case of split ends all the way up the hair shaft and brushing is only making them worse. The only cure for split ends is to cut them all off.
Z doesn’t have split ends. She has a healthy head of hair, thanks to her mother having sense enough to leave her hair alone. Samuels acts like a black girl is being neglected if her hair isn’t fried, tied and laid to the said, but what the hell, Samuels is not Zahara’s mother and she has no damn business telling somebody else’s mother how to fix her child’s hair.
By the way, I cracked up laughing when I saw Samuels photograph. If she wants to see a hot mess, all she has to do is look in the mirror.
Love this post and Love you!!
I too go out in the rain and I’m happy and proud that I can sport the troll doll, the controlled curlies, the inbetween look of curl/frizz and any varation mother nature decides that we working with on any given day.
I’ll be honest I dont always feel proud especially if I want controlled curls that day but get troll doll, but I rock nonetheless. I’m blessed..black hair and all its variations is divine!
Miss Samuels *sigh* perhaps she needs a consultation at my salon.
First of all, the issue here is not whether Z’s hair looks good or not. It is whether her parents’ choice to keep her hair in such a style is reflective of neglectful hair care practices and not merely neglectful, but neglectful to such an extent that it required a public outing and shaming. It is not. Whether you like the style or not is irrelevant. The fact that we are even having this discussion is itself indicative of the problem. No one would dissect and publicly tear down a little white girl’s hair like this. You might have a negative opinion, but you would recognize it as such– just an opinion. When it is a black girl, it is a free for all and everyone feels they can decide what is “right” for her as if it is some objective fact. It is not.
To those criticizing Z’s hair and then using the “I’m natural too” defense, that defense means nothing. You can be natural and still have a straight hair mentality. If you think natural hair can only look good when it is combed into submission, then your ideas are not that different from the author’s. Acceptability tends to be code for making hair look as un-ethnic as possible and as close to flowing, hanging straight hair as possible even when not straightened.
Also, the fact that you have natural hair or that you know someone with natural hair does not make you an expert on all natural hair. The range of textures of black people’s hair is quite varied. What works for your hair may not work for another black woman’s hair. Your hair may have shine or sheen, but not all afro-textured hair does and that does not make it deficient. Unless the hair is falling out or there is severe breakage, you cannot tell just from the style whether it is taken care of or not. In the Newsweek article, these comments, and black hair advice in general, hair styling advice is often treated as hair care advice. Unfortunately, many black women, obsessed with looking “acceptable” focus more on styling their hair than caring for it.
Zahara has lovely hair, and I am glad her parents don’t treat it as a disease that needs to be cured. White people, without all the baggage that black people have, can sometimes be more open-minded and enlightened about black people’s hair than black people themselves.
There is nothing wrong with that child’s hair.
And if you click on the pictures of Chris Rock and his lovely wife above Angelina and Zahara, their daughters hair is nice, too.
“White people, without all the baggage that black people have, can sometimes be more open-minded and enlightened about black people’s hair than black people themselves.”
So true!!! I get more compliments on my natural hair mostly from whites and asians.
@ topic
Journalists like her are always one sided. Perhaps bringing back the Fairness Act isn’t a bad idea after all.
i’m 100% on team zahara, and for that matter, i’m 100% on team jolie-pitt. i applaud the way they are raising their children, whether adopted or not. those children are being raised to be who they are because their parents know that in a world that only wants to make you like everyone else, the hardest thing is to be who you are. zahara is a beautiful little girl, but the most important this is she is a happy little girl. i moved from kenya to the usa when i was 2. my hair wasn’t touched chemically until lord knows when because as an african girl being raised by an african mother, my hair was beautiful the way it was. now that i’m 23 and have been relaxing my hair for far too long, i wish i could go back to when i just rocked my natural hair that was occasionally braided up. at 23, i’m now working to get back to that. i find it abhorrent that this writer targeted a 4 year old. i beyond agree with everyone who has said that she is mad because she’s a slave to this “good hair” notion. as my girl india arie said, i am not my hair.
I am sure someone probably mentioned this….but what if this 4 year old doesn’t like to have her hair combed…..after all she is 4!
I know some free spirited white parents who let their blonde haired children run around with dirty hair because the kids don’t want to have their hair combed or washed that day…they are children after all.
And their time to enjoy those carefree wild hair days are short lived indeed.
Maybe we are all just yapping and this is how little Ms. Z likes her hair.
Most children of priviledged white parents that I know have a WHOLE lot more say in what they wear and look like than many black people I know.
Oh the rampant assumptions on this blog made by folk who claim to be so open minded.
I like the interpretation of what was actually said by those who have thier own agenda or clearly have their own “black people” issues.
This has certainly been a spirited debate. I think the fairness act would really be…unfair. LOL.
BTW…I noticed bloggers are getting a lot more attention lately by the government.
Angel:First of all, the issue here is not whether Z’s hair looks good or not. It is whether her parents’ choice to keep her hair in such a style is reflective of neglectful hair care practices and not merely neglectful, but neglectful to such an extent that iIt is not. Whether you like the style or not is irrelevant. The fact that we are even having this discussion is itself indicative of the problem. No one would dissect and publicly tear down a little white girl’s hair like this. You might have a negative opinion, but you would recognize it as such– just an opinion. When it is a black girl, it is a free for all and everyone feels they can decide what is “right” for her as if it is some objective fact. It is not.
t required a public outing and shaming
me:*standing up clapping*.I couldn’t agree more.
FYI Brad Pitt has said that he applies Carol’s Daughter products to little Z’s hair. At least they’re trying to keep the baby natural. I say kudos to them!
Oh boy!!! Samuels is just another Sambo, status quo negro who wants to fit in. Zahara’s hair wasn’t dirty, visibly tangled or matted and yet this fool, as has been previously stated, can’t find anything of substance to write about. This is sheer lunacy and Samuels should be ashamed of herself and if she is not, I and others who are congruent with me, are ashamed of her! It amazes me that black journalists are in the business of selling their souls these days just to get a byline or a spot on one of the cable news networks. They are willing to openly degrade black people just to appease the status quo. Once again, I truly wish that we would get the heck over what white people think of us and tell the truth, shame the devil and focus on the issues that really matter.
@gem,
you are right. There is nothing wrong with the little girl’s hair. She looks rather cute.
@Aisha and truth p.,
Both of you are on point. I often wondered why there were so many black men and boys who had such hatred towards black women and girls. I also wondered why so many black women and girls had such little respect for one another. Day by day, I am begining to understand that MANY black women are behind it all. Some of them have so much hatred towards us and themselves that they poison the well from which their children draw from. They are so blind that they don’t see how much they are hurting and killing the black community. I am at a point where I just don’t see how we as a people can make our community better. It is just not going to happen. When you can’t see that there is no reason to comment negatively on a 4 year old’s hair, esp. when it is no your child, you are a lost cause. I just pray that more black women with pride and dignity step up and “man the wheel”.
It always amazes me how at the end of the day its only black women fighting black women over how another black women or child’s hair should be, while still pointing the finger at white people.
Great Hair Site
http://www.lisaakbari.com/natural/
I see we’ve reached over 100 comments about a lil girls hair but Mitrice Richardson only gets 4 replies-When I think about black people it reminds me of a dog chasing his tail over and over, just plain dizzy.
@MochaBrown;
you said: It amazes me that black journalists are in the business of selling their souls these days just to get a byline or a spot on one of the cable news networks. They are willing to openly degrade black people just to appease the status quo.
ITA. This Samuels nonsense reminds me of that lard ass Black male sports writer who complained that Serena Williams needs to lose weight, and that he is not a fan of big behinds (this was right after she’d won another big match-and who the hell cares what this fat f— is not fan of?!), or that other fool who called Michelle Obama “stokely carmichael in a dress”. And HE had the nerve to cry on election night after Obama won.
And aside from the so-called journalists, let’s not forget dl hughley’s comments on the freaking jay leno show. It has become standard for any moron of any race/gender looking for instant “mainstream” cred to dump on a Black female public figure, which in turn represents all of us because American culture is apparently unable to differentiate between us. This Samuels person attacking a child and referring to her hair as a “hot mess” is a new low. The “hers is not a wash and go world” comment still has me reeling. Who the hell is she to proclaim what kind of world Zahara lives in, or anyone else’s child?!
Meant to add: I am also sick of individual Black people with access to the media being spokesmen for the entire race. Samuels should have named her rant “My Issues with Uncombed Hair”. That would not have conveyed the same tone of self hate inclusiveness as the title that she chose. Including the word “politics” is a lazy way of implying to mainstream (White folks who read newsweek) that she is an expert about Black hair care, and her mindset is accepted by all Black people.
@tracy
Okay…I’ll bite. For a moment, I’ll allow myself to get pulled over by the behavior police. I read the article about Matrice Richardson and I read the comments and couldn’t think of a single thing to add. I considered adding…another missing black woman…but this group has spent countless comments and no doubt will spend countless more considering that phenomenon.
I also stopped by several more blogs talking about Matrice Richardson. So, although I personally made no comment…it didn’t mean that I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the posters here did the same thing. WAOD is a favorite stomping ground for me…but it isn’t the only one.
So, quite honestly, Tracy…you have no idea if we’re posting a hundred times on hair on WAOD on this site and three hundred times on twenty different sites about Matrice. I mean…that whole “free will” thing means we get to do what we want when we want.
So…I feel pretty safe commenting for most if not all WAOD posters (sorry, Gina)…we’re concerned about Matrice. It bothers us that the media doesn’t pay very close attention to missing black women.
But your chastisement of this is akin to walking up to a group of black women and commenting that we’ve decided to talk an hour about one subject and only twenty minutes on another. I have no doubt…the group of women would turn around and look at you as if you’d temporarily lost your mind.
And…it’s not lost on me, that you also took the time to stop by here and post AND HAD NOT POSTED ON THE MATRICE RICHARDSON article as of this comment.
I don’t understand, Tracy. But, I love you anyway.
Thank you for this intelligent, carefully nuanced post, and thanks to all who have commented. The Black hair debate is never-ending. In some ways I can see how it may seem to perpetuate the painful pathology many Black women have surrounding their hair, but at the same time I feel that it can be a fruitful and even necessary discussion.
We all know the root of the pathology. Hair as a racial marker, measured on the slave block. Hair relaxers first sold alongside face-whitening creams. The straight, blonde, “Euro-centric” standard of beauty so ingrained in all of us thanks to a million whispers of media and aftermaths of white colonialism. Then there’s the added pressure of being a woman in a society that insists on measuring female worth according to beauty. The issues are tied together and IF we are not careful–only if we aren’t–we can internalize these messages.
Every woman likes to change her appearance on occasion, just for fun. That’s why I don’t agree with outright criticism of women who wear wigs/weaves or relax their hair. If underneath that desire to manipulate hair in a particular way is something deeper, something painful–then we have a problem. I think a way to find out whether there is a problem is to talk about it. The more aware we can be of these issues the better off we are.
Now, when it comes to transracial adoption, as (I think it was) Lena stated, this can get tricky. Some people say adoption has also been a site of colonialism in a lot of ways, in that kids are uprooted from their home culture and taken to live in a (often) white, upper class home. As a biracial adoptee raised by white parents, I can tell you this is complicated. I can tell you that my parents didn’t know what to do with my hair, didn’t know how to comb it or cut it. Kids would tease me about my Afro on the playground, call me the n-word, and I had no tools nor resources with which to deal with it. My dolls and my favorite actresses and my mother had pretty, straight hair. All I knew was that something about my hair was terribly, terribly wrong. It was only as I got older and began having these conversations (and also stopped relaxing my hair) that I felt I could unwind these painful messages and embrace myself as a black-white woman in this country.
So what I hope is that Angelina Jolie seeks knowledge about how to keep her daughter’s hair healthy. I hope she embraces her daughter’s hair and makes sure to counteract society’s messages by telling her again and again that she is beautiful just the way she is.
How many women in Ethopia do you know who get a perm?
I cannot believe the viciousness in the “Nappy Ass Hair” video.
I truly believe that evil is taking us over.
Yme, I have’nt been on the site very long and just like you did’nt choose to comment. My point is this we as bw will never get over our hair issue and I think we should focus on other issues just as well
BTW, I love ya too:) Just having a long frustrating week.
What is there to say about Mitrice? I’ve commented on at least two blogs, but really, there’s simply not a whole helluva lot to say. It’s a puzzling situation all right, but until the young lady turns up no one really knows what’s going on there.
@Tracy
Quote: “BTW, I love ya too:) Just having a long frustrating week.”
LOL.
Trust me. I understand. Hang in there.
Wow all of this over lil Zahara’s hair. I’ve seen many people on various message boards say she needs to have her hair combed. To me her hair looks soft, well conditioned, fluffy and clean. Neither Z nor Shiloh seem to very girlie. Perhaps if they were we would see more accessories in their hair. The taming of the tresses aka the presence of a headband and slicked back edges would cut the comments about that child’s hair in half.
@ Liberty Hultberg:
No, I gave nom opinion on transracial adoption other than to say that sometimes the parents don’t know what to do with a black childs hair, so then they seem to just give up.
Thanks for your comments, as they prove my point in that adoptee parents, by not understanding (or caring about) the upkeep and grooming of our hair, will sometimes let it go “any ol’ way” and don’t or can’t take care of it – leading to esteem issues in their adopted children years later.
Your comments about “pretty, straight hair” and “that something about my hair was terribly, terribly wrong” is truly proof of the esteem issues that can arise.
This is last comment *edited to remove suggestion that Samuels’ proponents go engage in dangerous activity on a public road way.*
It wasn’t about hair. It was the fact the attacking Black women and girls in a public space is big business in this country. Its also a safe business. first White editorial decision makers and entertainment execs are all too willing to green light images which reinforce stereotypes. In this case there were two, the first is that natural Black hair is a defect which must be managed or cured. The second is that somehow Black children require “special instructions” to raise.
I actually think this discussion has been symbolic and clarifying. You see, anyone who would excuse, annotate, explain, promote, support or anything other than condemn attacking a 4 year old in a national magazine is an enemy of Black women.
Because you won’t find a more innocent symbol than a 4 year old child, and even then some people could not bring themselves to draw a line and say “we don’t abuse children in this way.” If we won’t enforce boundaries to protect black women and girls, who the heck will? Do we expect White executives to defend little Black girls? If they did, any number of you would line up to condemn them if this comments section is any indication
There ’s nothing complicated about this issue. This woman attacked this child’s physical appearance for pure profit. She scrounged around in the bottom of the barrel of Black online commentary to do it by quoting MTO. She picked a target that was vulnerable because she knew Angelina and Brad can’t clap back on the issue of Black hair and resentment of interracial adoption would silence others. She also knew she could rely on the large number of you who believe that if our “mask” isn’t perfect then we’ve invited criticism, abuse and as some of you have stated, the loss of gainful employment.
So Zahara’s hair was an easy mark. As are our butts, our skin, our relationship status, our clothes, our general way of being. Many of you will justify PUBLIC abuse of Black women and girls by laying Blame on some defect in the Black girls or woman. Some of you believe a 4 year old or her mother “asked for it” by not meeting your expectations as to appearance.
No the defect is in Allison Williams and in her supporters, enablers, and explainers. YOU’RE DEFECTIVE! Because even if I had an opinion about a 4 year old’s behavior or an appearance, as a compassionate adult, I know that I am not entitled to attack a child or harm a child based on those opinions. What’s MORE distressing is those of you who think attacking a 4 year old’s appearance is “helpful” or “therapeutic.”
When you see Zahara, you see her physical self and demand that she view herself in physical terms as well and the ripe old age of four. Others see her emotional self. The aren’t looking at her hair, but trying as they may to discern whether she’s happy at 4 years old.
Children are the closest to God we will ever become. They are blank slates. They tend to love unconditionally and they are free from the dysfunction many of us acquire as life happens.
Now a Pandora’s box has been opened, by savaging this child’s appearance in a national publication, Samuels waved a flag that its open season on Zahara’s appearance in mainstream media. I knew it was coming, but didn’t expect it to arrive at 4. I was hoping people would wait until at least 14.
But I forgot, little Zahara’s a little girl with brown skin and curly hair, she gets no immunity or protection in the public space, if fact savaging her is incentivised.
Now some have described my views as Nazi-ism. No, its called having standards that don’t tolerate adults beating up on CHILDREN in my face and turning a blind eye and excusing it in any way. When rebuking an adult for abusive behavior, I don’ take a long and winding view. If I saw Allison Samuels slapping a child on the street, I’d call her out on the street.I Make no mistake, this article by Samuels was an act of child abuse with the potential to leave much longer lasting scars than the physical variety.
I don’t negotiate or explain away child abuse and anyone who does is complicit in that abuse.
You call it being narrow minded. I call it having STANDARDS and values. Child abuse is unacceptable.
With that, this discussion is over. thanks for participating.