MPR has an interesting story (that you can listen to via a podcast or read) about the movement among parents of multiracial families learning to dress the natural hair of their adopted children. Some of you asked me what I meant by “natural hair.” According to MPR, ““Natural hair” means hair that hasn’t been chemically straightened or relaxed.” And “natural hair is becoming the fashion for African-American women.”

The article focuses on the need for learning techniques for managing natural hair since “Wearing natural hair for many black people has not always been the norm.”  This snippet of MPR’s article explains why:

Taylor said wearing your hair in its natural state has been a struggle, especially for black women. There’s a need to assimilate into mainstream culture and look the part.

“It’s Eurocentric. Let’s just be honest. It’s a very Eurocentric perspective,” she said. “It’s not just America, it’s any colonized country. We’ve had to subscribe to this colonizer’s beauty standard in order to get access to things, in order to get jobs, in order to be seen as acceptable.”

As people began to wear their hair natural, it became more accepted, but access to learning tools were still pretty limited to online.

“For the longest time we’ve had to change our hair texture to fit into mainstream society,” she added. “Now we’re reclaiming that power, but at the same time, it’s hard because you’ve never had any experience with it.”

To read the full article (or listen to the podcast), head here: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/09/27/natural-hair-movement-takes-root.