Impactful Inclusion Toolkit

ACTIVITY 10Own Your Education

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it's faced.”

—James Baldwin

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The presence of difference often sparks a range of emotions in the workplace. When it comes to the difference of a Black person's hair texture and style compared to that of a White person, I find that emotions range from curiosity to outrage. The natural hairstyles of Black Americans continue to be controversial and remain on the front line in the fight for racial equality as hairstyles are often deemed a distraction and inappropriate in the workplace by White people. By contrast, the natural hair styles and texture of White people never seem to so much as raise an eyebrow. For decades, professionalism has been dictated by how well one adapts to European physical features and mannerisms, and people who fall outside that construct must alter their appearance to be regarded as professional.

The intolerance for Black hairstyles serves as a barrier to employment, career advancement, and education, forcing Black people to conform to Eurocentric hairstyles. This requires the straightening of our coarse hair for the sake of economic independence. The Good Hair survey conducted by the Perception Institute revealed that “on average, white women show explicit bias toward black women's textured hair. They rate it as less beautiful, less sexy/attractive, and less professional than smooth hair. [Further], black women perceive a level of social stigma ...