Hair

Sahar Kanishka

Can I touch your hair? Ever since I was a child I have been flooded with questions about
my hair, specifically if they could touch it. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but as
time went on I began to become wonder why people always asked to touch MY hair? If I
asked to touch their hair that would be considered weird, so why was it okay for them to
touch my hair? Was I not normal? Did I not fit the norm? As time went on I began to
become more and more curious with this question, so I began to research. I connected
with others in a similar position as me, talked to people, and finally found an answer,
micro-aggressions. Simple actions that seem innocent but actually have very racist and
negative connotations, such as “but… where are you actually from?” However, there
doesn’t even need to be any words exchanged, it could be a simple, double-checking the
car is locked when a person of color walks by. Or following a person of color around in
store to make sure they aren’t stealing anything.

The problem with subtle racism is that it is being taught to children from a very young
age. It can be seen in movies, TV shows, and even Barbie’s. The media bias of today is
harming people of color. The 2014 Sentencing Project report concluded that the media
was the major source of misconceptions about people of color and crime. They reported
that “A study of television news found that black crime suspects were presented in
more threatening contexts than whites: Black suspects were disproportionately
shown in mug shots and in cases where the victim was a stranger. Black and Latino
suspects were also more often presented in a nonindividualized way than whites—by
being left unnamed—and were more likely to be shown as threatening—by being
depicted in physical custody of police. Blacks and Hispanics were also more likely to
be treated aggressively by police officers on reality-based TV shows, including
America’s Most Wanted and Cops. Mass media are therefore a major contributor to
Americans’ misconceptions about crime, with journalists and producers apparently
acting based on their own or expectations of their audiences’ stereotypes about
crime.” Even the news is biased on reporting’s; for example, recently in St. Louis, officer
Jason Stockley was acquitted of his charges for murdering Anthony Lamar Chase in
2011, due to a car chase. Protests erupted in outrage that the police officer was
completely acquitted of all his charges, but instead of focusing on why people were upset,
news outlets such as Fox News Insider decided to focus on the protestors and how
‘violent’ they were.

The Clark Doll Test. The Clark Doll Test was first done by psychologists Kenneth and
Mamie Clark, in the 1940’s. Children had to choose between a black and a white doll, all
of the children chose the white doll, even the black children, they said because it was
‘prettier’ and ‘cleaner’. The Clark Doll test was also cited in the Brown v. Board of
Education Supreme Court case, to exemplify how segregating children, creates a feeling
of inferiority. However the court did not bring up what Dr. Kenneth Clark concluded
from his experiment, which was that racism was an American institution, and that school
segregation suppressed the development of white children
(http://www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60-the-doll-test). The ideology that a certain race is
already considered superior, by children, demonstrates that there is a major issue with the
way people of color, and other minorities are being portrayed to the public. However, you
may be thinking that this was done all the way in the 1940’s, a different time. But Kiri
Davis did the test once again in 2005,, and once again 85% of the children chose the
white doll. It may seem like we have progressed and changed, but the statistics beg to
differ.

A major example of subtle racism in my life is my hair. People will stick their hands in
my hair, without even asking. My hair is my crown, an extension of my soul, so when
people think they can stick their hands in my hair; it is not only offensive to me, but also
hurtful. This is my hair. But what is even worse than having people shove their hands in
your hair is being discriminated upon by your natural hair. Two girls in Seattle were
turned away from school due to having box braids for natural hair. Box braids are a type
of African American hairstyle. They have been told they cannot come to school until
their braids have been cut off, or they got a straight perm. Another incident is work
discrimination, and how people of color with natural hair such as afros or cornrows, are
told not to wear their hair like that because it is ‘unprofessional’ and ‘distracting.’ Some
are even turned down from jobs because their hair is considered dirty, which is absurd
considering curly hair requires even more cleanliness because of how thick it is. This is
the type of blatant racism that people of color deal with. Even if we do conform to the
norm, it will never be enough; we will still be discriminated against, unless there is a
change.

Although I am here talking about subtle racism, that in no way means that blatant racism
is gone. Blatant racism is still clearly here and can be seen happening today. The
Charlottesville protest is a major example of this. It has shown how there is still racism
happening today, and people want to divide this country more, instead of unifying us.
Even in the highest office in the land- the White House- there is clear evidence that
racism is not only tolerated, but tacitly, and sometimes even overtly, encouraged- as
Trump unfortunately demonstrated when he said, “XXXXXX

Another major example of racism today, is the shootings of innocent black

people. Michael Brown was shot six times because he ‘tried to attack the officer’. Jordan
Davis was shot for ‘loud music’. And Trayvon Martin was shot ‘because he looked like
he had a gun’. But did Michael Brown really try to attack the officer? He had his hands
up and surrendered, but according to ________, the police officer proceeded to shoot him
six times. Six times. It was not loud music that got Jordan Davis killed, and it was not
that Trayvon Martin looking like he had a gun that got him killed. AS _____ reported, he
was eating skittles, and he had his hoodie up and his hand in his pocket and he got killed
for that. He was killed because he was BLACK. And the police officer viewed him as a
threat, so he killed him.

In Jordan Davis’ court case, initially, according to the Florida Times Union
published on Oct 17, 2014 “the jury did not find Michael Dunn,” the bystander that shot
Jordan Davis, “guilty of first-degree murder, but they did find him guilty on 3 counts of
attempted second-degree murder, and one count of firing into a vehicle.” However, as the
Times Union further noted, “Jordan’s family took the case to the appeals court,” and then
:Michael Dunn was” finally “found guilty of first-degree murder.”

However in Trayvon Martin’s case, as CNN reported on July 14, 2013, the “six
jurors found that the police officer was not guilty.” While this may certainly have been a
fair trial, the fact that “5 members of the jury were white women” causes grave doubt in
the minds of the black community.

But whether or not there is blatant racism involved in the interactions between the
races, what is perhaps even worse is the subtle racism beneath it all. People are trying to
come up with excuses to justify the actions of the murderers. They are saying “but it
looked like he had a gun”, “but it looked like he was going to attack the officer”, “but he
looked like a threat”, these are all excuses trying to justify the murderers’ actions to kill
innocent, unarmed people. All too often, people automatically tie in the word ‘thug’ with
these victims, as a way to back up the reason they were murdered. Thug has become the
new ‘n’ word. People know if they use the n word they will automatically be at fault, so
instead they have replaced it with the word ‘thug’ which automatically ties in gangs,
violence, and stereotypes of people of colors. These stereotypes need to go; it is like
saying ‘all blondes are dumb’. These stereotypes are not true, so why do we continue to
apply them?

The past is the past, however the past creates the present and leads us to our
future. What we are concerned about now is the present. Right now, we need to raise our
children with open minds and open hearts, to embrace differences instead of being fearful
of them. Right now, we need to raise them viewing everyone as equal. Right now, we
need our country’s leaders to foster acceptance, not racism, if we want our future to be
free of both overt and subtle racism. Because people aren’t born knowing how to hate,
they learn how to hate. And if they can learn how to hate they can learn how to love.
After all, love is greater than fear.
 Works Cited

“NAACP Legal Defense Fund : Defend, Educate, Empower.” Brown at 60: The Doll Test
| NAACP LDF, www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60-the-doll-test.

Moule, Jean. “Understanding Unconscious Bias and Unintentional Racism.” Phi Delta
Kappan. January 2009,
http://www.pdkmembers.org/members_online/publications/archive/pdf/k0901mou.pdf

Gandy, Imani. “Black Hair Discrimination Is Real-But Is It Against the Law? #ABLC.”
Rewire, 17 Apr. 2017, rewire.news/ablc/2017/04/17/black-hair-discrimination-real-but-is-
it-against-law/.

Burney, Adele. “Hair Style Discrimination In the Workplace.” Woman.

https://woman.thenest.com/hair-style-discrimination-workplace-13659.html

“Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts. CNN. 22 June 2017.

http://www.easybib.com/cite/eval?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2013%2F06
%2F05%2Fus%2Ftrayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts%2Findex.html

“Shooting of Jordan Davis. Wikipedia. 18 November 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jordan_Davis

“What Happened In Ferguson?” The New York Times. 13 August 2014.

http://www.easybib.com/cite/eval?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Finteract
ive%2F2014%2F08%2F13%2Fus%2Fferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-
shooting.html
Savali, Kirsten West. “Throw Away the Script: How Media Bias Is Killing Black
America.” The Root, Www.theroot.com, 2 June 2015, www.theroot.com/throw-away-the-
script-how-media-bias-is-killing-black-1790860024.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/09/16/st-louis-protesters-jump-police-car-smash-
windshield