Kinky, Curly, Beautiful: Embracing African Hair
Channel: Baba Kii Sun
Date: 2022-07-07

Afro-textured hair, or kinky hair, is a human hair texture originating from sub-Saharan Africa. Each strand of this hair type grows in a tiny, angle-like helix shape. The overall effect is such that, contrasted with straight, wavy, or curly hair,"Curtain Bangs Curly Hair " afro-textured hair appears denser.

In 2010, Chastity Jones eagerly accepted a job offer from Catastrophe Management Solutions as a customer service representative. The offer, however, came with one caveat—she had to cut off her locs. Jones refused, and the company rescinded its job offer. The company’s hiring manager reportedly told Jones, “They tend to get messy.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a suit on Jones’s behalf in 2013 and lost. In 2016, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s ruling and dismissed the case.

Jones’ case is not unique. Cases filed by black workers alleging discrimination against their natural hair in the workplace have filled courthouses for more than forty years, yielding mixed results. These judicial rulings, intertwined with changing social and cultural mores, have created a contentious and uncertain legal situation, with courts and other governmental entities ruling on both sides of the debate.

How Did We Get Here?

Anti-black hair sentiment on U.S. soil has existed for centuries. In the 1700s, enslaved women who worked in the fields usually covered their hair in head-rags due to the harsh demands of their work. Enslaved Africans who worked in the “big house,” however, sometimes mimicked the hairstyles of their enslavers, either by wearing wigs that had become popular during that era or shaping their kinky hair to emulate them. In cities like New Orleans, however, where free Creole women of color donned elaborate hairstyles that displayed their kinks and coils with an air of regality, the city implemented laws—the Tignon Laws—that required these women to wear a tignon (scarf or handkerchief) over their hair to signify that they were members of the slave class, regardless of whether they were free or enslaved.

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