The other day, I saw a program on Hulu called Hair Tales with Oprah Winfrey being interviewed. l was uplifted because what they discussed felt like a response to my post, Oprah Hair, Self Love, and Self Annellation.
Among other things, she and Tracy Ellis Ross talked about how we are imitated by the dominant culture for the cause of dominant culture trendiness.
They also discussed how if we do straighten our hair to be trendy, we also straighten our hair to look like what the dominant culture calls professional in order to stay employed. While women on Hair Tales made that observation, and they also pointed out that we straighten our hair to be versatile and expressive.
Then I watched a Ted Talk on trauma responses associated with living in a white supremist Culture. There, Jelan Agnew said that straightening our hair is a trauma response. I believe her. And I display many trauma responses that she described. I just dropped the hair straightening one.