Here’s What Wrong With ‘Vogue’ Calling Nori A Hair ‘Icon’
Immediately when I read Vogue.com‘s headline “How North West’s Curly Styles Are Inspiring a Generation of Natural Hair Girls” I cringed.
As a child, my tightly coiled hair was a challenge for my mother. Black and curly, every other day she walked the line between my tender-headedness and her desire to make me look put together. Those years in kindergarten where I insisted in playing the sandbox with abase knowing she’d have to wash my hair that night, were the worst. She told me herself.
Eventually, like many other black children, she put in a perm to ease the process of styling my hair and because—frankly—to fit in. You see, being a black child with nappy hair was not the status quo pre-2000s. Having a presence in the Americas for centuries still did not disenchant white folks from being alarmed/intrigued/curious/dismayed by our hair.
It certainly wasn’t fashionable.
So clearly, I began my dissent into this story with baggage. You know, from the 27 or so years of uneasiness. Should I go natural? What does my real texture look like? Braids? No, too ethnic for this job. How can I feel good about my hair and not be exoticized like a zoo animal in a work environment full of white folks?
And so I read. The author, Marjon Carlos, essentially is bigging up North West—mixed race daughter of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian—for wearing her hair the way it comes out of her head thus inspiring other babies, like her said niece, to do the same.
An excerpt from “How North West’s Curly Styles Are Inspiring a Generation of Natural Hair Girls” on Vogue.com:
Whether a top bun or a comb-over, North’s pint-sized hair styles complement her fashion-forward play clothes, while remaining refreshingly easy and age-appropriate. They’ve established little Nori as a kind of hair icon for a nascent and diverse generation of tots rocking their natural curls with unprecedented flair—among them, my two-year-old niece, Isabel.
Like Nori, Isabel (affectionately known as “Izzy B”) sprouts an enviable festoon of curls that are a reflection of her biracial background: Her mother is of Russian-Jewish descent and her father is African-American. Ever the hands-on “fashion auntie,” I’ve happily assisted Izzy’s mom with styling her little corkscrews, passing along a long familial tradition of black hair care that emphasizes detangling and moisture. When my sister-in-law doubted her ability to skillfully do her daughter’s hair on a daily basis, I offered encouragement: as I wrote here before, she is not alone in wanting to bring out the natural beauty of her mixed-race child.
My best friend recently lamented to me about something she’s encountered while dating. She said, “Men will ask me all the time if I’m mixed with something.” Adding, “And when I say ‘No. I’m fully African American… just black.’ They seemed disappointed. As if me being mixed with something would make me more attractive, more exotic.”
My question to the author, who has newfound interest in black hair, is what about Blue Ivy? What about Willow Smith as a baby? Hell, what about Rudy Huxtable (Keshia Knight Pulliam) who wore her hair natural for years—even to this day?
It’s funny how fashion is. One day something is in, one day it’s out. And with the ever expanding and diverse world we live in, where Caucasians have interest in the black experience and those in fashion have to acknowledge us in every facet of life, these anomalies become more present. And beauty—in their eyes—comes in the form of things or people they identify themselves in. It has to relate or it isn’t relevant.
So now that Timberlands, cornrows, baby hair and — the new addition — natural hair are “in”, they’re the new fads. Something for us black folk to get excited about. Finally, validation. What we’ve always wanted from our culturally inept and ignorant fellow Americans.
Curls. “New” curls. What a lovely concept. Who knew?!
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