Q: Why do Black people care about hair representation so much?
Answer 1: Go to your favorite non-Google search engine. Do an image search. Search for "professional hair." Now search for "unprofessional hair." Let me know when you see it.
Answer 2: Go to trends.google.com. Do a search for "unprofessional hair" over the past 12 months in the United States. Notice that most of the results are in states where it was legal for employers to discriminate against employees with "unprofessional hair."
Congress passed the CROWN act that would prohibit employers from discriminating against natural Black hair in jobs.🙂 But of course, GOP Senators are blocking its passage.😑
In 2022 USA, hair as it grows naturally out of a white head can be considered "professional," but out of a Black head is "unprofessional."
The search queries include Black folk trying to figure out "You mean I can't get a job or get into college with unprofessional hair? But I just got a haircut? WTH is professional hair?"
Yup. For folks that don't know, lye is a dangerous chemical often used to dissolve animal tissue and hair. Think "Draino" that plumbers tell you not to use because it dissolves hair, but it also *dissolves your pipes*! That's Sodium Hydroxide, aka lye.
If the cross section of one of your hairs is oval shaped it will be curly, as disulfide bonds can bend it in one axis easier than the other. You can't change the cross section much, but you can dissolve outer layers😮
Putting lye on your head consistently, increases your risk for an aggressive form of breast cancer, and increases your chance of developing uterine cancer.
The risk is not higher for Black women than white women if they are both exposed or both not exposed to chemical hair straighteners. But Black women are much more likely to be exposed, because, well, systemic racism that says that their natural hair is unprofessional. 🤷🏿♂️
mekka okereke 
Amelia Bellamy-Royds
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