We've all seen the pictures of a sickly looking Vybes Cartel and the new slick-haired Sammy Sosa making many a sister question, what is going on with our brothers? Because the eurocentric beauty standards have always applied more harshly to women in general (white women included) we never really looked at how or even if these white standards have affected our black men and their self-perception. It obviously affected who they've historically chosen as mates and held up as the standard of black beauty. Black women who have light skin, slender facial features and hair that is curly or wavy and generally long have tended to be more valued .
Many of us, self included, have memories of wanting Shirley Temple curls like Pecola Breedlove in the Bluest Eye or wearing our mother's half-slip or bath towel on our heads pretending to have shakeable hair like Marsha Brady. Or how many of us have picked scabs off our scalps cause the perm stayed in too long or gently smoothed vasline over our ear where our mother burned us with that hot comb in the kitchen on Saturday night so we'd look cute for church on Sunday morning. How many of us have paid $300 cash dollars to get a weave when our money could've been spent better elsewhere. So we all have stories, some shameful and painful, about our relationship with our hair. Our beauty is unique and often imitated the world over, but our history in North America is replete with Black women fighting to feel beautiful (sometimes at any cost) when our society deemed us ugly, dirty and low. Is it any wonder that Madame CJ Walker was the world's first self-made millionairess because she taught Black women how to straighten their hair and tend to our beauty needs.
But lately I've been more curious as to what has the beauty myth done to the minds of black men. Obviously women are not the only ones whose identity and self-image suffers because of the society's beauty standards. Our story about our natural beauty and the methods to enhance it have been talked about and analyzed more recently by Chris Rock and his documentary (or mockumentary) "Good Hair". But Chris himself had a Jherry Curl when he first became popular back in the 80's. Yes, he slept with a Jherry Curl bag on his head. And today I'm pretty sure that's a texturizer in his hair. That would be a "baby perm". So as he analyzed the culture and economy of Black women and their hair, he totally overlooked how black men have "lyed, fried and dyed" their own.
We've all seen the photos and know the stories of black men who had a "conk" before the afro took center stage in the 60's. Then came the "corporate 80's" and the need many blacks felt to assimilate saw the rise of the Jherry Curl. So I'm wondering if the visually-focused (music video and celebrity driven) society we're in has many of us turning against ourselves? The media is slowly widening the beauty standards for body types, i.e. Kim Kardashian and other non-black women imitating the black female form. But what about notions of beauty around facial features and hair texture? What has the affect of the long-hair flowing and pale skin images we're all inundated with had on our men. We know what it has had on the sisters because so many sisters on the street have a weave, and some just need to say no until they get some more money to get it hooked up. But I digress, so my question is: have brothers succomed to the look of the slick haired "pretty brother" with light skin that dominated the 1980's?
I have to admit I'm troubled by brothers with processed hair and of course skin bleaching is the craziest thing a beautiful rich-skinned black man or woman could do to themselves. I'm always proud and in awe of Esperanza Spaulding's wild mane and the full, fun cotton halo of Lela James. But do brothers ever regale in their own natural beauty that's not often celebrated in the media? Yeah their swagger is jacked and imitated by every "other" the world over, but what about their hair texture and broad features. Many of us have come across the brother with skin like smooth ebony wood who's still a little bitter today about the fact that sisters weren't checking for him in high school and felt he wasn't cute. He's still hurt 20 years later and yes, sometimes sadly, still taking it out on sisters. So yeah, we know that the beauty myth has hurt our men and many have internalized it and have the scars to prove it, but is the attack on our natural beauty becoming more strident today and affecting brothers differently than it did in the past?
But really at the end of the day it's ultimately our responsibility to accept and love ourselves without condition and living in a eurocentric nation doesn't help the people who aren't of European descent, but you still gotta love you. We have to find ways to celebrate our natural God-given, God-approved selves instead of worrying if we add up to another man's notion of what is beautiful. Yeah, easier said than done but it is just that uncomplicated a task.
