Now, as I have stated in previous posts, I'm politically independent; I am not keen on pledging allegiance to a political party. What upsets me about this image actually has nothing to do with what I think about President Obama and his presidency, and everything to do with the snide "Fake Hair," the ignorance of white people, and putting women in a box. It has me in such a mental fit that I felt I needed to get it out there in a blog post.
I'm about as white as you can get when it comes to skin tones, thanks to some Irish heritage somewhere in there, so I've been told. You can literally see veins through my skin on my arms and legs if you're looking close enough. I noticed this one day (to my horror) when I was shaving my legs. My version of tan is laughable, and for the most part concentrates into wonderful freckles on my face and shoulders during the summer. My hair fair and it is not thick; getting it to stay in some kind of real curl is nearly impossible but I can manage some slight waves naturally. All of that is to say that I don't have any experience being dark skinned or have thick, textured hair. But I do have a few friends who do. And I live in a city where you can find all kinds of hair products that tailor to all kinds of hair-types, products I had never seen when I was living in the suburbs.
The first thing about this image that comes to mind is, what does Michele Obama's hair have do with the quality of presidency or anything to do with politics at all? It seems to suggest that if you have fake hair, you are not a quality person. It's an unfair attack on a woman, and an unfair attack on the First Lady -- which I can't really think of anyone doing except when it came to that whole Clinton cheating fiasco.
Secondly, this seems to really come down to white-ignorance. Michele has had a lot of different hair styles, and I don't think it has anything to do with wigs and everything to do with having the resources to do different things with her hair. From what I've read and heard from friends, African-American hair takes a LOT of work to maintain, especially if you want it straight. About two years ago, I went with an African friend to get her hair done (she was born and raised in South Africa and came here for college, and stayed). She was getting the twists in her hair re-done, since they had grown out quite a bit. I have to tell you, the whole process looked painful and tiring, since took a long time. I also had helped the same friend get ready for her wedding, and she showed me how she puts natural oils in her hair to keep it nice, and we put her twists into rollers to make them curly instead of straight.
I briefly had co-worker who would openly admit that she wore wigs and they were so beautiful, I didn't even know it until she told me! For all the work and effort that goes into maintaining, I don't blame any woman who would rather opt for a wig. So to go on and basically attack Michele Obama for wearing a wig (though I don't think she even did), you may as well attack every woman who chooses to do so. Or better yet, get educated about African-American hair.
Another issue that this brings in for me is the idea that if you don't fit a certain image of a woman, you aren't good enough. Why is it that African-American women straighten their hair in the first place? Certainly, some women like it, for the same sorts of reasons that a white woman with ultra curly hair may want to straighten it out once in a while. But, I have to wonder, how much does it have to do with just not feeling pretty enough? An African-American friend of mine was very candid once, in admitting that she didn't feel pretty growing up because all the beautiful women she saw in the media - TV, the news, advertisements, etc - had either pale Anglo-Saxon skin or pale-as-you-can-get African American skin; and their hair was not coarse like her's was. I had never noticed this before, until I was watching some TV station that was tailored more towards the African American community. There were different commercials for the same products on that station, that I had never seen on any other station before. I thought this was extremely odd, and wondered, "Why would you do that??"
This story from my friend was echoed through the show "My Strange Addiction," when it featured a young African American girl who had a particularly dark skin tone. Her "strange addiction" was to rub bleach lotion all over her body several times a day, in order to lighten it. She said she felt very ugly because of her natural skin tone. She was 15.
Unfortunately, this kind of idea is not exclusionary to the US. I'd read a BBC article about the outrage in India over a special bleach lotion that was meant to lighten the skin in the nether-regions of women. I read several other articles afterwards that revealed that having darker skin as an Indian woman is looked down on, while having fairer skin is preferred. Bleach lotion is no stranger there. Women have been photoshopped to have lighter skin than they actually do for magazines, and I'm sure that's a practice that happens over here in the US and no one has come out to say anything about it (that I know of). Additionally, a friend of mine spent two years in China, and the paler you were, the better.
I grew up hating how pale I was. I would burn all too-easy, and I felt like a ghost compared to tan friends. I hated my freckles. Just like tan bodies are preferred for white women, I guess lighter versions of dark complexions are perceived as being preferred for black women. I don't understand this, and I think it's outrageous. Why is it that women can't just be who they are, and be seen as intelligent, authentic, beautiful, and loved? Thankfully, I've gotten over my complex of wanting to be tan, and I rather enjoy each and every freckle that is evidence that I really do have melanin in my skin.
I'm sure that if Michele Obama went with her natural hair texture and style, the right-wingers would still not be pleased, and proclaim that she is dirty and go further to say that Obama's administration and presidency is somehow wild and uncontrolled. Because of some crazy logic that ties together the First Lady's appearance with political virility and authenticity of the President.
Now, my hope is that no one who is African American would be offended by my thoughts. If anything I would very much like to be corrected where I need to be; I prefer to know where I am wrong than continue living in some ignorant bubble based on what I've seen/heard through the lives of others. Please contribute your thoughts!
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