Black Beauty Runs Deep and Wide

Recently I ran across a post from a facebook friend whose entries I often find thought-provoking, intriguing and engaging.  The post by fellow blogger BLACK GIRL WITH LONG HAIR,features an ALLURE magazine article which instructs White women on how to achieve Black women hairstyles.  Just one day prior to my discovery of the post and article, I dined at one of my favorite L.A. area restaurants only to encounter my White female server with an identical hairstyle to mines.

Toni Staton Harris
Novelist | Screenwriter | Speaker
Hair by: Hairby_shaywilliams Los Angeles

I questioned her maintenance and flexibility and shockingly, our routines and agendas, at best, varied only slightly.  She walked away and I ravaged my brain as to whether to be offended or not. I mean after the Rachel Dolezal debacle one wouldn't dare question my curious trepidation.  Then a novel, yet more than likely unpopular thought popped into my mind. When I relaxed my hair for years and wore it in a dangerously straight bob, not once did a White woman question me about my choice of style.  I thought, why am I questioning her?

Now, what I will NOT stand for, is White women given and/or taking credit for creating and/or wearing a hairstyle created by people of color as in the Bo Derek situation.  I remember when Peaches and Herb the R&B group appeared on a popular 70's television talk show.  Peaches was questioned by the host about her "Bo Derek" style.  Herb swiftly corrected him by enlightening the watching audience with the fact that Black women had been wearing this style for centuries.  [You can say it's the Peaches style but it's not the Bo Derek style] I remember Herb affirming.



However, more important than credit; who gets to do what; who threw a rock at John and hid his hand... The "aha" moment materialized for me when I remembered to realize that Black Women are not the low members on the beauty, attractiveness totem pole as many scholars--I use that term very loosely--would have us believe.  Heck, I don't believe they believe it. For if that is one's true belief, the global community would not, for thousands of years to present day and beyond, emulate and adapt every morsel of the Black woman's creative being.

And before some warped mind gets it twisted that I'm supposed be flattered by fraudulent perpetrators--I'm not.  I also am not calling my restaurant server a fraud.  I'm simply acknowledging that it is understandable why women of other ethnic and cultural groups choose to emulate a Black woman's signature hairstyle... Simply because we too have some of the most beautiful styles on the planet.

This is Toni Staton Harris... Checkin' Up and Checkin' In on how Black Beauty runs deep and wide.