Earlier this year, I wrote about Beyoncé’s politically charged Super Bowl performance and the scandal that arose in its wake. Half the world praised her for giving Black empowerment a moment in the media, while the other half branded her a racist and threatened to boycott her music.
Beyoncé made no apologies and paid no heed to the angry mob. Instead, she later followed up the performance with the release of Lemonade. Since its release, the album has inspired critical acclaim, a whole new host of pop culture references… and the witch hunt for one very elusive “Becky”.
In her song Sorry, Beyoncé stated:
He only want me when I’m not there He better call Becky with the good hair
Brilliantly Bad Decision
In hopes of capitalising on the spotlight thrown on Beyoncé yet again, two staffers of Glamour devised a brilliantly terrible plan. They fired back at Beyoncé’s Becky with the Good Hair by posting:
I had to see it to believe it. I couldn’t believe that anyone living in a multicultural society, like America or the UK, could be so bloody clueless as to why this would be inappropriate.
The responses on social media further brought perhaps the biggest embarrassment any lifestyle and entertainment brand has faced in quite some time.
Glamour Magazine is not Alone
But I would soon learn that Glamour staffers weren’t the only ones who didn’t quite get it. Many people actually have no idea what this means.
The following day, while Michael and I drove back from the gym, I asked him if he had heard about the incident.
To put things into context here, let me just inject the necessary detail that my husband is White.
Michael raps, has more Black friends than I do, and knows more about Ebonics than I will ever care to learn. Yet, even he was clueless as to why the article was offensive, and as to what on Earth the phrase “Becky with the good hair meant”.
“Isn’t that the whole thing about Jay-Z cheating on Beyoncé?” he asked me.
“Becky isn’t the point. Don’t you know what ‘good hair’ means?” I asked incredulously.
He didn’t.
It was at that moment that I had to step back and re-evaluate what I believed should have been common knowledge and fairly obvious. After all, I come from a predominantly Black country, whereas America is… well… America.
So let me explain why this is not just another minority-tantrum like the many that make it through the media.The History Lesson
Of all the angry tweets directed at Glamour, this one summed up the root of the problem best.
The keywords here are “historical significance”. This is because the phrase good hair wasn’t coined by Beyoncé for Lemonade, or even by 90s rap. It’s been a part of the Black Movement and the Black struggle since the days of slavery, and is deeply rooted in the journey of Black women (and men) from properties to human beings.
To keep slaves compliant, they were taught that their natural features made them somehow less worthy of rights and freedoms than other races. This primarily included the colour of their skin, and the texture of their hair. Coincidentally, these are the two most distinguishing features of what it means to be Black.
After slavery, as civil rights movements took shape and Blacks received their first chance of assimilating into regular society, these differences posed a problem. But while Black skin brought no inherent inconveniences besides people’s personal biases, Black hair did.
Let me explain how.
The Struggle is Real
For most Black women, our hair is still a part of that daily struggle – especially in an era where personal appearances mean so much. Our friends of other ethnic groups and mixes can easily throw their hair into a ponytail in five seconds. But our frizzy hair obeys no law and no man.
Even in the corporate world, many of us are forced to ditch our natural hair, because corporate thinks our kinky locks are too naughty for regular business operations. And at my Catholic school, every ethnic hair-do was banned in the rule books, and as we tried new ones – like my signature Mickey Mouse puffs in seventh grade – those were quickly outlawed, too.
But ironically, the people who notice our hair the most? – is us. While other teenagers mostly worried about body image issues and acne, we worried about that and our hair. Maybe mostly our hair.
Many of us have tried everything – perms, presses, cornrows, braids, and just cutting the damn thing off. Sometimes we’ve done so much crap to it, it just falls off on its own…
And all of that to conform to what regular society decides is good hair – which is essentially not our stubborn kinky hair. Good hair is the Black Community’s bitterly-spoken name for obedient, soft, silky smooth locks of the Mixed, the Asians, Latinas, and of course White folks.
It’s worry-free hair; the hair of the models they put in Pantene ads, and the girls on Pinterest with an effortless bun on the top of their heads.
In contrast, our naturally dry, frizzy hair is bad hair. We are taught from an early age through dolls, school rules, corporate expectations, and the media that our genetically gifted natural hair is not sufficient, fashionable, or appropriate.
To soften the message, the media often puts forward an image that kinky (or nappy hair) looks like this:
This is true to an extent, but more accurately, this is what African hair looks like when a woman is mixed. In other words, if Michael and I had a daughter, she would likely have a similar hair type to either of these two women. Often times, these hair-types become grouped with good hair because it’s “less Black”.
But for most of us, our hair looks a bit more like this:
Imagine trying to get hair that kinky to meet society’s professional, beautiful, and neat standards, like these Beckys with the Good Hair.
And then imagine the overwhelming pressure to meet these expectations. We quite literally get chemical burns from relaxers and heat burns from press combs just trying to keep up. As one tweep summed it up nicely:
The Way Forward
Of course, things are changing now. Many corporations “allow” us to wear our natural hair without causing a fuss. I, for instance, wore my dreadlocks when I worked at Xerox Business Services.
Similarly, many magazines, fashion shows, and movies also feature Black women who embrace their natural heritage; whether they have bad hair, good hair or something in-between.
As we grow older we learn what works for us, and we accept that we’ll just have to spend more time and more money on making our bad hair good enough to meet societal expectations.
In fact, Beyoncé made a strong statement by refusing to chemically alter her daughter’s hair – at least, not yet. However, when that same Queen Bey – the most powerful female symbol in the Black Community – hires a team to make her look like a Becky with the Good Hair, you know we still have a ways to go…
Extracting the real meaning. Great post!
Wow! This article actually taught me a lot. Thank you for sharing. It’s uncalled for that in the 21st century these kind of things still happen.. There’s no “better” hair or body image oe anything.. We should all be able to use what we like as long as it’s healthy and we like it! Hopefully, we’ll get to see it one day! X
I think things are changing for the better. We’ve begun to show more appreciation for our heritage, all races. Hopefully it’s not just a trend.
Hey! I was wondering if you’d check out my latest post on makeuo and stereotypes and let me know what you think! If you can’t it’s okay! Have a nice day 🙂 X
Fantastic post. I was so proud of her performance at the Super Bowl for going beyond songs about love and doing something much more powerful with her music. When I heard the Lemonade lyrics I know exactly what she meant but also know that a lot of people are clueless, so sadly I’m not surprised. Having originally grown up in a ninety-nine percent white suburb outside of Portland, I can imagine many of my classmates would have said something equally as stupid as the Glamour magazine article. Well I felt fortunate in my unique situation that I was surrounded by a large number of strong black women in the job I chose, I know I had to be really proactive to learn about the things that I was never taught in school . My husband is Australian and his only exposure to African American culture has been on television, so when he moved here and found himself in the midst of a hugely diverse community in the neighborhood we live in now, he was smart and asked a lot of good questions. But I still remember having to explain to him what good hair meant and even had him watch some clips from the Chris Rock documentary on the topic, as I know an educated the hell out of me when I saw it even though I thought I was pretty savvy ( one of my black girlfriend ever explain to me about the hair thing, which I’d always thought was because I was always jealous of their hair since my fine hair is so hard to work with…but of course people expect that you know these things even though many of us just simply sadly haven’t been educated yet).
Anyhow kind of rambling here but thank you again for a well-written thoughtful post. Glamour is too big to screw up like this. As a future mother of a daughter I’m adopting from Ethiopia, it’s been an interesting journey and at the age of 42 I am glad to see so much dialogue in our country that wasn’t happening when I was younger. There’s a long long way to go but I’m excited to see how women in our country are speaking up and out. It gives me faith that my daughter will be able to run the world just fine.
Thank you! I too am glad for the turn she has taken in her career, though I think it’s best she set an example herself. Like I said, she’s still being styled as Becky with the good hair inspite of her lyrics.
Australia is actually a pretty multicultural society from my understanding, but African American culture is in a class to itself. I don’t think any other Blacks have suffered the kind of systematic oppression African Americans have. In Jamaica we can’t relate to white rule, so to speak. We run our own show.
Glad you dropped by and all the best with the Ethiopian adoption. They truly are beautiful people!
Agree on her hair…but she is evolving, and that is a good thing…I know when I hit my 30’s like her my eyes started to open a LOT about the world around me and I saw how much more effect I could have on the world.
Having spent time in Australia, I’ll say that the racism there is incredibly overt and their history of what they did to the aboriginal people, who are considered blacks in Australia, is in many ways on par with what the US did to African-Americans. I’d suggest reading about the Stolen Generation as a start, it’s pretty horrifying. Just like how the US has Howard Zinn to explain the real truth, Australia has a book called Fatal Shore which similarly calls out the real history of the country. When I came back from my first trip I described the country (and still do) as “Europe and Alabama combined”. Some things are super progressive and other things are so backwards and hateful. Racism is very overt, and when I volunteered at a farm in Victoria, the woman I worked for was very matter of fact that “most of her friends were racist”.
I think it’s huge when we all get out and travel and experience different cultures – I remember being the minority when I was in Jamaica 16 years ago and how the resort we stayed at (I don’t remember the name anymore) literally fenced itself off from the rest of the city, serving non-local food and being staffed by all white people. It was so very odd…my partner at the time and I had to literally sneak off-site to be able to simply spend time in the country we had wanted to experience, as we felt commercialism really denied us getting to know such a beautiful place.
Anyhow, I am really a fan of your writing and look forward to reading more! I’d be curious to your thoughts on the recent skin darkening/lightening stories about Zoe Saldana (for her Nina Simone biopic) and Li’l Kim (who looks almost unrecognizable)….seems a whole blog post in itself…
I’ve heard that Australia has issues with racism, but was always told otherwise by the friends I knew who lived there. Then again, Whites are not always the best people to ask about racism, since they don’t experience it themselves, and often assume since they are not racist and their friends aren’t, it can’t be that common. Or so I’ve seen.
Jamaican resorts fence itself off from the rest of the island more for financial reasons than racial or societal ones.
We (locals) hate all-inclusive resorts for that reason and often encourage tourists not to stay there. It doesn’t help our economy. We don’t own those resorts, and the profits are repatriated to Spain and wherever else they come from.
Better to stay at our guest houses and local resorts. You are perfectly safe among us, and we love the tourists. Of course you have a few bad apples, but that’s anywhere. If anything you would be overwhelmed by the sheer friendliness of everyone trying to help or sell you something, rather than any feeling of segregation.
Jamaica’s National motto is “Out of many, one people” and we actually mean it. 🙂
Yeah, we went back in the early days of the internet so we had no clue! Only thing I noticed were the offers to braid my hair 🙂
Yeah, even with the internet the ones with the more money tend to get their own message out easier through marketing and promotions.
What part of Jamaica did you visit?
Montego Bay… Yeah when we travel now it’s Airbnb and similar as hotels aren’t nearly as fun 🙂
That’s where I’m from! 🙂
Same here. We used that for our honeymoon earlier this year.
The bigger issue, strictly in my opinion, is the fact that we look to entertainment for our validation. Clearly Glamour Magazine exhibited their foolery, but I don’t really expect much from a fashion and/or beauty magazine. That’s not to say that people within the industry don’t have valuable opinions, I just recognize what their standard of beauty is so I don’t expect much variation from it.
We have to take more responsibility over ourselves and our children so they won’t look to entertainment and media for v identity in my opinion. We allow our girls to idolize Beyoncé and search these magazines for identity without instilling it in them in our homes.
Let’s let media and entertainment be just that, form of entertainment, hope it evolves with our culture (which it hasn’t thus far) but not depend on it.
I say this from personal experience. I have the mixed look and was always ridiculed by it in school by the white and black people. I would be a crazy person if I relied on outside influence to develop and sustain my self image.
I’ll add that this isn’t meant to be a disagreement to your post, it just made me think of this concern I have. Thanks for sharing.
Haha no prob. Disagreements don’t make me uneasy anyway. Thanks for dropping by!
This is true, though not necessarily a point I can relate to. I’m not a big fan of fashion or even mainstream entertainment. I came across the article because it was PR related, and I was writing an article for a client. I’m not even a Beyonce fan.
Nevertheless, I saw the whole drama and felt it was a point in need of being addressed sooner rather than later from a historical rather than entertainment standpoint.
Most definitely. My comment wasn’t to say your post was irrelevant. It was well written. It was more so directed to our current culture and your post got me thinking about it.
When you put a PR perspective on the subject, that opens it up for even more discussion for sure.
Oh, I know. There’s no need to defend your stance though. I like open and honest conversation about race and all “issues” in society. Without that honesty, we will never move past these things.
Very true!
Enjoyed this post and the thoughts it generates. Your final line about Beyonce having a team to make her look like……really clinches it! Gratefully I am a “seasoned” black woman – who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s with proud black parents. In my family we weren’t allowed to even use the terms “good hair” and “bad hair;” and I don’t feel that my hair as “hard to manage.” It’s just beautiful and that’s all there is to it!!!!!
Thank you! You were one of the few people to notice that last line about Beyonce.
It’s great that you were brought up that way!
My hair definitely felt hard to manage compared to others in the family with more Caucasian-like curls, like my mom. But dreadlocks certainly solved that for me. Now, I love my hair.
Great story Alex. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Dianne
This was bloody fantastic. I THOUGHT I understood what the lyric meant, but when I saw that photo I doubted it, not once stopping to think that Glamour might be politically incorrect and just downright ignorant. I don’t have super kinky hair but my hair is very curly, dry and frizzy and falling out due to genetics, so ‘good hair’ is something very meaningful to me, nowhere near as much as in the Black community, of course, but it certainly is a matter of great insecurity to a lot of people (especially young girls) who see effortless hair in the media and on black women in the media. I really enjoyed reading this post, it was poignant, clear and most of all incredibly informative and well written. I am subscribing for more of your posts 🙂
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it and that it put things into perspective for you.
I’m sorry about your hair troubles! I had that issue too with the falling out. Going low maintenance and working with your hair rather than against it goes a long way! For me that meant dreads. I’m sure you’ll find your answer soon.
That’s some sound advice, working with my hair instead of against it, I shall heed that. 🙂 Thank you!
My father always used to say, “Your hair is your beauty”. He hated it when any of his four girls cut their hair off and he was totally against us having relaxers at age 11. For my mother the struggle was real, trying to get four heads of hair into plaits every week for school. Our black hair is famously hard to handle, resistant to combing, brushing and stretching. Sometimes I think we refer to ‘good hair’ because we see that there are other types of hair that are just easier to manage. That view is purely functional. The real deal is that we can’t help but hope for stretched out curls, hair we can whip, and curls that teasingly fall over the eye. We’ve been taught that means ‘sexy’, ‘beautiful’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘cute’. Like my father used to say “Your hair is your beauty”. For him he simply meant a full head of hair. For his daughters that would become a full head of hair that looks like…
Thanks for the article Alex. BTW all four sisters now sport their natural locks.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
My biological father was a little like that too, but less in a good way. My mom has “good hair” and I think he was always embarrassed by how mine turned out because it was easily attributed to him. His great way of handling it was to pick on me about my hair, or try to point out how much “better” his had been at my age. One day I told him, well you’ve seen my mom’s hair so since yours was so great too maybe you should ask mom who my real father is and cut the crap.
I further rebelled by cutting it when I felt like it, and later going all natural. Now I have locs and a new dad. Good times! I’m glad you’re all sporting your natural hair as well!
Great post! Besides completely not getting it from a cultural reference standpoint…another tendency us white folks seem to have is to try and reach out and “touch” black hair. Especially when it’s in its natural state or braided or in dreads like you have. What’s the deal with that? It’s like how some people think it’s okay to touch a pregnant woman’s belly–nope, it’s really not.
Thank you!
Personally, I don’t have a problem with people asking and wanting to touch my hair. Because if we’re all being honest with ourselves as Black folks we used to love touching the hair of that one friend we all had with “good hair”.
Of course, it’s by no means okay to just touch someone without asking, but I’ve never been offended by the curiosity.
I realise this is a big deal for a lot of people though, more so Americans than Jamaicans back home.
My husband fell in love the day I let him touch my hair, I think haha. Now he won’t stay out of it. I suppose I’ve gotten used to it by now lol
A great post. Thanks so much. Having a bad hair day will never mean the same now. A bit embarrassed that I have not heard of good hair before. If the issue gets more publicity, even if due to complete ignorance and misuse on Glamour part, hopefully some perception changes.
Thank you Sonia. I’m glad you enjoyed the post and found it informative. Ignorance is a natural part of life. We can’t know everything about every culture. But when people like Glamour claim to be experts, they need to do their homework before jumping on certain trends for website clicks.