Black hair

Michele Avery and Yvette Modestin share a passion for artistic expression. They have known each other for over 20 years and have partnered on various creative projects. So, coming together to produce a play about the intricacies of Black hair was a natural next step.

Afiya Mbilishaka struggled with a conflict during her college years: Should she try to make a career in hair styling or psychology? Her aunt gave the answer: “Well, why can’t you do both?” So she did.

As a child, Latoyia Edwards had her hair relaxed. Her mother was a cosmetology student and often practiced different hair treatments, techniques and styles on her daughter. It wasn’t until years later when Edwards’ own daughter was bullied at school for wearing her natural hair that Edwards considered wearing box braids on live television.

The NAACP is expected to pass a resolution during its convention that begins this week on educating more Black women about the link between hair relaxers and uterine cancer.

It’s Oscars time again. In advance of the March 12 ceremony, with Chris Rock finally speaking publicly about receiving Will Smith’s “slap heard around the world” on stage last year, it’s worth revisiting that incident and the larger issues it raised about how Black women are watched and how men try to protect them.

The least of the Olympics’ concerns should be that of swim caps for black hair. However, the International Swimming Federation of the IOC said the design of the swim caps does not fit “the natural form of the head,” a statement eerily reminiscent of the eugenics movement propaganda to substantiate both black anatomical and intellectual inferiority.