Black people's hair.
You know, the thing that we don't want white people to touch
because it'll give them superpowers.
Oh, my God! Now I can dunk?
For generations, black people have been made to feel
as if their hair is a signifier of their inferiority in society,
and for generations,
black people have had to take that bullshit.
But not anymore.
A leading retail pharmacy in South Africa
has been forced to close some of its stores
after accusations of a racist advertisement.
Clicks Pharmacy is under fire
for posting an ad on its website
that describes black hair as dull, dry and damaged,
while calling white hair fine, normal and flat.
It's since apologized and pulled down the images,
but supporters of the Economic Freedom Fighters Party
want the retail chain to shut down for five days.
Yes. Even in the country that's 85% black,
this kind of shit is still going on.
Which makes you wonder-- how black does a country have to be
for this not to happen anymore?
Like, is this going on in Wakanda?
But if you're a black person,
these kinds of stories are nothing new.
And it's not limited to South Africa, either.
In fact, here in America,
black people deal with legal and cultural discrimination
against their hair all the time.
Dulcé Sloan has more on that
in another installment of Dul-sayin'.
♪ ♪
Black hair is like gluten.
White people are scared of it,
but for some reason, they're obsessed with it.
And for most of America's history,
white people have done whatever they can
to stop Black folks from wearing our hair in its natural glory.
And our hair has a lot of natural glory.
When we lived in the motherland, hair was so important
that you could tell a family's name and social status
just by their hairstyle.
Basically, your hair was how you told all your business.
And this is still true today. Show me a Black man's waves,
and I'll tell you if he drives a Benz
or runs after the bus.
But when the slave masters came, they cut off our hair
as a way to control us and erase who we were.
And you know how some people cut off their hair
after a bad breakup?
It was like that.
Except they didn't give us blond highlights.
And even after slavery ended,
our hair was still not allowed to be free
because in its natural state, Black hair was seen as unkempt
and unacceptable in white America's faces,
whether it's corporate policies
discouraging our natural hairstyles
or army dress codes
that specifically eliminated Black hairstyles
or schools being allowed to punish Black students
for wearing their hair naturally.
Why?
It makes me think Black people sporting natural hair
is like cutting onions for white people.
They just start tearing up at the the sight of an Afro
like it's a black sun.
"It's round. It's so round!
Their hair just rose to the sky."
Instead, Black people are encouraged
to straighten our hair
to conform to white America's standard of beauty.
Not only is this unfair, it's hard as hell.
Straightening Black hair takes hours
and requires shit like hot combs,
relaxers, a silk press process,
not to mention all the chemicals you got to use.
Breaking Bad doesn't have anything on Breaking Brandy.
And we've seen the evidence of this
in hairstyles that have since gone by the wayside,
-like the unfortunate trend... -(door buzzes)
(bleep)
Like the unfortunate trend of Black uncles everywhere
sporting the Jheri curl.
The only real symbol of resistance
the Jheri curl stood for was destruction.
Jheri curls ruined your pillows, your clothes
and your relationships.
I went on a date with a guy that had a Jheri curl once,
and my passenger seat was never the same.
The only way Black hair found cultural acceptance
was when it was on white people's heads.
When Bo Derek wore braids in the movie 10,
she was hailed as starting a cross-cultural craze.
But in the same era,
Black people were punished for wearing the same braids.
That's got to be the most gaslighting shit I've seen
since I learned how to use a Bunsen burner.
But for the good news, for as long as white people
have been telling us what we can do with our hair,
Black people have been fighting back.
Just look at Frederick Douglass,
who intentionally took photographs
for his Instagram 200 years early
showing his luscious natural hair
to fight against the racist caricatures of Black men.
He was basically the 19th-century Idris Elba.
Black hair was even part of the civil rights era
with the Black is Beautiful Afro movement.
And today, the CROWN Act movement
is making real progress in breaking down the stigma
of Black hair's natural state,
which will hopefully lead to the day
when just letting our hair exist
doesn't have to be a political statement.
I mean, as soon as I had a baby 'fro,
I couldn't walk down the street without someone yelling,
"Hey, sister queen.
I see you over there starting a revolution."
"Hey, man, I'm just going to Whole Foods.
What are you talking about?"
So, that's the messed up history of Black hair in America.
And that's just an overview.
The rest is enough to fit in Angela Davis' 'fro.
Until next time, remember, white people,
when it comes to Black hair, you can look
but not touch or copy.
And, Black people, put the conditioner in
and then the oil.
Don't let me catch you walking around with your hair all dry.
Hair so dry it looks ashy.
If your hair is looking like some knees, ha!
You got a problem.