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View Full Version : cross-cultural--white husband learns about black wife's hair



chen bao jun
June 26th, 2014, 09:29 AM
http://www.chicagonow.com/its-never-just-black-and-white/2011/04/a-black-womans-hair-a-bald-white-mans-education/
I thought this article was interesting and funny. It was nice that the guy wants to learn how his wife feels about her hair. Of course he should not assume that all black women feel the same as she does. I personally am ecstatic that after being married 31 years (and having dated 7 years before that) my husband will FINALLY (tentatively) touch my hair. He's black and was so well trained by his mom and sisters never to go near their hair that it's taken me this long to get it through his head that I like having my hair touched (by him, anyway). Quite frustrating.
I also wouldn't call a weave 'natural' but maybe some think it is because they have their hair in a natural state under there? There are all kinds of permutations. One of my nieces, totally fried relaxed hair which looks pretty dreadful (to me, just my opinion) is so proud that she is the only one of her friends who doesn't have a weave so has her 'natural' hair...I also do have a (white) friend who is dyed blonde AND permed curly and is always boasting that her hair is so easy to do, since she just washes it and hops out of the shower (and I am always think, yes, once its dyed and fried..)So we all have our opinions about how natural we are, even if other people find them--self-deceiving...
Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things.
the guy is funny--I hope you guys enjoy him, too.

lazuliblue
June 26th, 2014, 09:57 AM
That was a great article. I never knew about weaves/relaxers etc. until as a teenager I watched America's Next Top Model and they did the hair make-overs! Since then I've tried to learn about all different hair types, and the history behind the methods and cultural differences in hair care.

chen bao jun
June 26th, 2014, 12:04 PM
I think we usually have no idea how the 'other half' lives. It's nice when you can approach it sensitively but with a touch of humor like this guy did, as you learn.

Sharysa
June 26th, 2014, 02:01 PM
The article was pretty endearing. It's so nice to see that people actually make an effort to not only learn personal things about your spouse, but to share it with other people.

meteor
June 26th, 2014, 02:30 PM
I loved it! :) Thank you for sharing! :D His observations were so cute and endearing!

I, for one, definitely learned a lot of very useful hair-related stuff from what's considered to be African-American hair-care over here: from silk satin to oils/butters to wide-tooth combs to pre-poos to LOC method to oil rinses to "sealing" to baggy/greenhouse method... The list goes on and on... Most LHC-ers know all this stuff, but "out in the wild", at least in this part of the world, a lot of this information is not that well-known outside of African hair-care, even though many people could probably benefit from it. :)

chen bao jun
June 26th, 2014, 03:46 PM
Yes, hair care really isn't segregated by race, so to speak. A lot of hair care products/ideas are useful for many different hair types. I think the main difference would actually be that few non-blacks have hair that is as fragile as some African hairtypes can be, especially those that are supercurly and superfine at the same time (which is not uncommon). Plus some differences in amount of sebum produced (although I don't know if this is racial so much as the result of many white people being taught to wash hair everyday from childhood, thus causing their scalps to produce more sebum).
What is sad to me about mainstream black hair care (especially as practised in many if not most salons) though is how abusive to the hair it is, especially when proper care is not taken. Its true that many Caucasians bleach their hair and perm and so forth, which is not good for your hair either, but their mothers don't usually start it doing it when they are 4 or 5 years, which is the age that chemical straightening and hair extensions now start in the black community. Also there is in some places pretty universal use of heavy hair extensions tight braided to fragile hair--traction alopecia anyone? this is actually epidemic in the black community now and its a shame, it doesn't have to be like this. There are better choices and better ways to do things, even if you happen to personally like wearing your hair straight as a person with black ancestry and a African descent hair type (which is fine with me, none of MY business), but the research isn't done and the balding is a real and obvious problem. (look at the edges around the temple and the foreheads of middle aged and older black women, whew. And often its so late when attention is paid that that hair is gone, never to come back. that's a real shame when its totally product induced, not hereditary or disease induced, in my opinion).