Every time I need to wash and twist my hair, I gripe about it. Natural hair is work even with locs, but for me, in some ways it feels like a form of self-care. It’s easier for me than wearing my hair loose because detangling is an exercise in muscle failure. But texturism (the valuing of certain textures of hair above others) in the natural hair community is rampant. In many ways it is an outgrowth of the same colorism that made my family see me as moderately attractive even when I was mostly eyes and legs and mouth.
For a time, I was enamored with the privileges that pretty gives you, even when you aren’t necessarily inside the lines of a white beauty aesthetic. Going from being an awkward child to a relatively attractive young woman changed my life in a lot of positive ways. Not just in terms of male attention, though that was flattering at first, but people were more accommodating at every turn. Applying for my first job as a mall survey person? Being attractive was on the unspoken list of requirements. Getting my lunch in the food court? Chances were good that if the person at the register was a guy I wasn’t paying for my fries.
It was great for my burgeoning self-esteem, though I can’t say that it came without a price. In between bouts of promiscuity (that were about my ego and my ownership of my sexuality) I learned to tune out street harassment, to fend off the wandering hands of “friendly” men who just wanted a hug. I even learned that other women weren’t the enemy or the competition no matter what happened with the guys I did like, or the ones I didn’t. But what I am still learning is how much of what I do is about what I want versus the ways that the outside world mandates what constitutes attractiveness.
In order to be pretty in a white-centered aesthetic or in a Black one you have to look as if you spend at least some time in the beauty parlor, or at least with a good kitchen beautician. Even though the broader societal expectations around beauty for women prioritize things like an hourglass figure, smooth, clear skin, and symmetrical features, there are some distinct differences based on your proximity to whiteness in terms of skin color, hair texture, and body type. Having hair that is not styled well, clothes that aren’t flattering, and so on can undermine your chances at success. While a messy bun might be considered sloppy chic for white girls, any hint that a Black woman has failed to put effort into her appearance is met with ardent disapproval both inside her community and outside it. Viewer backlash to Gabby Douglas sweating out her edges at the Olympics filled the news cycle for days; even Blue Ivy’s hair has been critiqued repeatedly. Five minutes after it was confirmed that (now Duchess) Meghan Markle was dating Prince Harry, white women rushed to criticize her hair. Tossing aside any awareness that a biracial woman might have different hair-care needs, they focused on her hair’s failure to match that of her new white sister-in-law, Duchess Catherine.
Racism in beauty aesthetics doesn’t mean that women don’t still benefit from the privilege their looks afford them, but it shows how tenuous that privilege can be, especially once you factor in the reality that it is not permanent. And while there’s really no actual safety in pretty, it can feel less fraught than being unattractive.
One of my biggest lessons in the way that being attractive can cut against you was when I was sexually harassed at work. Not that harassment is a problem related to attractiveness, but the responses to it are often filtered through a lens of victim-blaming rhetoric around looks. I reported it the first time; it happened again; I reported it again. Finally, thankfully the harassment stopped, possibly because I threatened a measure of bodily harm. In the midst of the cycle of harassment I got pulled into the office of a white female supervisor so she could warn me about smiling so much. She said, “You’re a pretty girl, but you’re too friendly, and the way you dress . . .” She trailed off and looked me up and down, her disapproval very clear. I was wearing a long-sleeved sweater dress, leggings, and boots because it was January in Chicago and professional dress for work only offers so many options. There wasn’t much I could wear that would hide my curves, and apparently being covered from my neck to my toes still wasn’t enough.
Meanwhile I was supposed to have been flattered by the attentions of men in whom I had no interest. Because why else did I wear dresses that fit? And why wasn’t I flattered when they told me they weren’t usually interested in Black women, but I was the exception? Being harassed made me feel dirty and scared, but the narrative assigned to me from the outside was that I was supposed to not only feel flattered but also have no expectation of respect or safety at work or anywhere else. It’s amazing what those “compliments” will teach you once you’re past the point of finding validation in them. Turns out backhanded compliments are offensive and ugly. Who knew?
Once I was able to see the trap in “pretty for a Black girl” and in getting hung up on the privileges of pretty, I started to really shift how I looked at myself and the world around me. As my relationship with my body and my hair improved, I could also see the trap in a single beauty aesthetic or in any aesthetic that hinged on proximity to whiteness. But my personal journey doesn’t resolve the larger issues of colorism in America or anywhere else in the world. That old rhyme about whose skin color was acceptable still applies:
If you’re black, stay back;
If you’re brown, stick around;
If you’re yellow, you’re mellow;
If you’re white, you’re all right.
Not only does the rhyme explain colorism, it also continues to inform the ways that society views people. And it’s so insidious that often people perpetuate it without really thinking about what they are doing or why. When the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph was announced, screen shots of a meeting between the Disney princesses included Princess Tiana, but not the darker-skinned, wide-nosed version so familiar from her own movie. No, this version had a narrow nose, hair that looked nothing like an Afro texture, and much lighter skin. Why? Because the artists didn’t think about what it would mean to erase those features. While we know that colorism refers to discrimination based on skin color and that it disadvantages dark-skinned people while privileging those with lighter skin, it is about more than just beauty aesthetics. Having darker skin is linked to lower job prospects, difficulty getting promoted into high-level positions, lower marriage rates, higher rates of arrest, and longer prison terms. As a society we tend to erase dark-skinned people and even punish them for existing.
Colorism has existed for centuries, in multiple cultures, and Black Americans are not the only community that places a higher or lower value on someone based on how light or dark that person’s skin is. Colorism is a global issue found in Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. Here in the United States, because we are such a diverse population it is possible to experience privilege based on skin color inside your community and still experience oppression outside it.
In the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, colorism has roots in colonialism and slavery, but in some cultures, it predates any contact with European beauty ideals and may be more related to class than to white supremacy. Laborers tanned as they worked outdoors, while the privileged had lighter complexions because they were inside. Socially, dark skin became associated with poverty and light skin with the aristocracy. Today, the premium on light skin in parts of Asia is likely tangled up with this history, along with cultural influences of the Western world that also positioned “rednecks” at the lower end of the social strata of whiteness for similar reasons.