Urban Hair

 You can tell when an African American has become successful by the color of their hair. The more successful they get, the more contemporary they look. Let’s take look at Beyoncé and Rihanna for instance. Rihanna started her career with black hair, as while  Beyoncé started her career with ethnic braids.Now that they have become international artist their hair color had changed to blonde. 
 Below is Rihannas' and Beyoncé before and after pictures.

Why do black people or minorities have to change the way they look in order to become successful?  Everybody has conformed except for Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. Oprah is a T.V mogul that has millions of dollars. She’s not skinny, she wears her natural black hair, and however she does have green eyes. Maybe the green eyes and the occasional flat ironed hair give her a pass perhaps? Who knows?

Whoopi on the other hand, couldn't be further to conform than any other woman in history in the African American Culture. None the less she has had the most awards ever in the African American culture such an Oscar, Emmy, tony and the list goes on. Whoopi has natural dreads and she does not use sex appeal to make money unlike her components Beyoncé and Rihanna.

This raises the question; do you have to conform in order to become successful? Are these celebrities conforming because they like themselves better with blonde hair? Or is having blonde hair a requirement of moving up the ladder in the entertainment business? Oprah nor Whoopi has not changed their look, why has everyone else?

Oprah and Whoopi are journalists and talk show host while Rihanna and Beyoncé are musical pop stars. Are they changing their styles to stay relevant for mire entertainment purposes or is it a problem between black men not accepting black woman or minority woman as they are?

I’m not blaming the westernized mundane Caucasian people for this injustice. My question is why do black woman conform into appealing to white audiences? If black man stood up for black woman and dated within their own race then maybe there would be less pressure to look white. Also black woman need to have higher self-esteem and know that there black is beautiful.

Let’s take a look back into the beginning of this conformity of the straightening of the hair. This goes back to Madam C.J Walker, she invented the straightening comb. The straightening comb is designed for black people to straighten their natural tight curly hair to lavishly straight hair like a white girl. The purpose of the straighter was for black people to have easier hair maintenance to control hair from breakage. But really I think implicitly that it was invented for black people to appeal to white America to gain acceptance and/or equality.

There is a website called My Black is Beautiful,which encourages and uplift black woman to know that they are beautiful.

To the left is a picture of straighten hair natural curl hair.