Not so long ago, I had a conversation with a friend. It was more like a debate than a conversation, honestly. We were arguing about a question that seems to plague the internet: Why don’t Black women wear their natural hair? If you have a phone or are active on social media, I am sure you have seen this heated debate. My timeline has been flooded with claims about why Black women don’t wear their hair. I constantly see quotes like: “Black women don’t wear their hair,” “They are ashamed of it,” “Compared to white women, Latinas, and women from other origins, Black women don’t wear their hair,” or “Men like women with their natural hair, I don’t know why they don’t wear
it.” I believe these comments stem from a complete lack of knowledge of our history, resulting in unnecessary comparisons and judgment. And yes, while it may be true that many Black women don’t wear their natural hair out, this reality doesn’t come from nowhere. To be clear, this is a deeply complex subject, and I am not trying to oversimplify it or claim that this is the only explanation.
Instead, I want to explore this reality through three specific perspectives that resonate with me:
Alienation, Transgenerational Trauma, and a Lack of Representation.
1. Alienation
Before European colonization, African men and women wore their hair in sculpted braids and intricate designs, not only for aesthetics, but as a language. Hairstyles were used to communicate marital status, age, social rank, and spiritual beliefs. Our styles were imposing, geometrical, and embellished with natural resources such as clay, cowrie shells, beads,and silver coins.
Even today, many tribes in Africa keep their customs and style their hair using these pre-colonial techniques. For example, the Himba tribe from Namibia and Angola apply a creamy, oily paste named otjize(inappropriately called clay; I just learned that too!) made from crushed red ochre stone and butterfat. There are also the Afars, a pastoral group living in Ethiopia, who curl their hair using clarified goat or cow butter (ghee).
Now, we can agree that we used to wear and celebrate our hair. But a massive shift happened.
During European colonization and transatlantic slavery, colonizers proceeded to use a psychological weapon called alienation. Alienation refers to the state of feeling isolated, estranged, or disconnected from oneself, others, or society. Put like that, you may not understand how deep it truly is, but stay with me. In his book Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon defines the alienation of Black people not only as the loss of self and identity, but as the act of viewing oneself through the eyes of the colonizer. (Book I highly recommend by the way).
Think of it this way: the colonizer came to our continent, and instead of learning our languages, he imposed his own and made us forget ours. For example, imagine if I, a francophone, moved to the US, refused to learn English, and forced my entire American friend group to speak only French until they completely forgot English. That would be crazy, right?
But that is exactly what colonization did to our minds. During transatlantic slavery, Black people were stolen from their homes and sold to Western European slave traders, who shaved their heads before they even boarded the ships. While colonizers claimed it was for hygiene purposes, in reality, it was a systemic technique to break their morale, instill terror, and enforce absolute submission from day one.
Later, under the colonial system, afro-textured hair was explicitly labeled as “unprofessional” or “unclean.” Black people internalized this hostility. We began to view the very hair that grows from our scalps as defective. In other words, we began to see our hair through the colonizer’s eyes, and we passed that distorted mirror down to our children.
2. Transgenerational Trauma
“Tu es ce que tu consommes” (you are what you consume) is my favorite phrase. I wrote it in French because it sounds better to me since it’s my first language (ouuh she tryna prove she speaks French so bad ! DUH), but that’s not the point.
Everything you consume doesn’t just come from what you eat; it also comes from the environment, the laws, and the institutions you ingest daily. I am the reflection of what I consume. And this is exactly how trauma works. You can share or transmit ONLY what you own, and for generations, Black people have been forced to consume systemic hatred for their hair.
Transgenerational trauma is the transmission of psychological trauma from those who experienced it directly to their descendants. The original identity was broken by slavery and colonization, but it didn’t stay in the past. It survived because our institutions kept forcing us to consume it. We see this everywhere. It’s in African schools that still force young girls to completely shave their heads to enter a classroom. It’s in the actual line in the Congo just a couple of years ago, where men faced stigmatization and police intimidation simply for wearing afros, long hair, or braids.
This is the missing link between history and our households. When a society creates laws and rules that treat natural Afro-hair as illegal, dirty, or a distraction, parents absorb that threat. They don’t pass down hair rules out of self-hatred; they pass them down as an inherited survival mechanism.
They teach their children to hide, braid, or cut their hair because they have consumed a worldwhere looking “too natural” makes you unsafe.
3. Lack of Representation
Why is representation so important? As the Psychology Today article argues, “Representation matters because it shapes how we see ourselves and others, validating individual identities and breaking down harmful stereotypes.” For example, think about it like this: when you scroll through Pinterest, TikTok, or Instagram looking for outfit inspiration, you naturally search for creators who
share your exact body type. If you search and search, but find absolutely no one who looks like you, it’s easy to think: ‘Maybe my body is just too complicated. Maybe I am simply not fashionable.’ This is exactly what happens with our hair.
I remember when I was younger, the only representation I had of Black hairstyles was the girls on relaxer boxes. The girls had long, silky, and shiny hair, and I was constantly begging my mom to do the same hairstyles on me. (Spoiler alert: she never did because my hair was not long enough,which created a lot of frustration in me). Eventually, when I did try them, the relaxers damaged my hair so much that I had to cut it all off and start a completely new growth journey.
In addition, media is a powerful tool of representation. For a long time, Black women were notrepresented enough, and the ones we did see in music videos, TV shows, commercials, runways,and movies almost always had wigs, weaves, or slicked-back hairstyles. This conveys a clear message to our subconscious: our natural hair needs changes, alterations, products, extensions, or color to be considered beautiful and acceptable. In other words, it needs to match Eurocentric standards to have value.
Today, I am grateful to see that with social media, our hair is represented in all of itsforms. We can educate ourselves about itsstory, learn how to take care of it, share our knowledge with other Black women, and reconcile with our identity.
I am so happy to see that in today’s media, we are finally being represented by celebrities and artists who proudly wear their culture. They show us that you can look beautiful, glamorous, anddesirable while wearing braids or Afro hairstyles. For example, we have singers like Tyla and Doechiiwho proudly rock their braids and cornrows to major events and in their music videos. We also have actresses like Tracee Ellis Ross, who has beautifully and proudly worn her natural Afro hair across our TV screens for years, even launching her own brand dedicated to Black hair care.
Because of them, and because of the inspiration we can now find on social media, we no longer have to look at a screen and feel like our natural state is a problem. We see that we can be cute,sexy, fashionable, and completely ourselves without needing to hide behind a wig or chemically relax our hair.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the question of whether Black women wear their natural hair or not should no longer be an issue. We deserve to coexist in a world where a Black woman can do whatever she wants with her hair, whether that means wearing braids, keeping it natural, or wearing a wig simply because we have the right to have fun with it.
Our hair possesses a unique level of versatility and creativity. If you put one hundred Black people into a single room, we have the capacity for every single one of us to have a completely different hairstyle. One might have a sharp buzzcut, another long knotless braids, another a flawless silk press, and another a colorful wig. We are so creative that we are able to be unique individuals within our own culture, while remaining deeply connected.
It is time for the world to accept this reality. They cannot take this joy away from us. The story of our hair departed from a past of suffering, erasure, and transgenerational trauma. But we took all that historic pain and transformed it into something undeniably creative and beautiful. Today, our hairstyles are not a symbol of shame; they are the living prints of our past, our resilience, and our identity.
Sources and Further Reading:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367139219_Fanon_and_Hair
https://iptrauma.org/docs/trauma/intergenerational-transgenerational-trauma/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-the-people/202112/why-representation-
matters-and-why-it-s-still-not-enough