I LOVE natural hair. I HATE cigarettes.
Posts Tagged ‘afros’
Natural Hair and Cigarettes
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Ebony Mag: 70’s Afro Hairstyles
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009I had no idea that there were nicknames for different afro shapes on men. So could one walk into a barbershop at one point and time, say “I want the executive?” and then get that particular hairstyle? Check them out below.
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 4)
Monday, August 10th, 2009
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 3)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
This year was obviously lacking ‘fros on their cover, but I won’t hold that against Jet, as they had pretty decent topics to make up for it all. Jean Knight was the first person to wear an afro on the cover for this year. As you see, both Jessie Jackson and Angela Davis has yet another cover and this isn’t the last time that you will see them on covers for this decade.
To remind everyone of the caption on Angela Davis’ cover is referring to, it was about getting Davis out of prison. At one point, she was associated with The Black Panther party and was on the FBI’s most wanted list for a crime that she didn’t commit. She was eventually caught and arrested. Here is a snippet of why she was sought after (from Wikipedia.com):
During the summer of 1970, Davis had become involved in Black Panther efforts to garner support for the imprisoned George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, known as the “Soledad brothers” (after Soledad Prison, where they were incarcerated). On August 7, George’s brother, 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson, along with two others, disrupted trial proceedings in an attempt to assist the escape of friend James McClain from the Marin County Hall of Justice. McClain was on trial for an alleged attempt to stab an officer. In the courthouse, Jonathan Jackson and his accomplices rose from their seats, drew guns, and ordered everyone to freeze. They then led the judge, the prosecuting attorney, and several jurors into a van parked outside. As the hostages entered the van, Jackson and the others were reported to have shouted, “We want the Soledad Brothers freed by 12:30 today!” During the escape attempt, Jackson and accomplice William Christmas were killed in a shootout with police. Judge Harold Haley was killed by his captors with a shotgun taped to his throat inside the van. Prosecutor Gary Thomas was paralyzed by a police bullet during the incident.
The shotgun used by the escapees to kill Judge Haley was registered in Davis’s name, implicating her in the escape attempt. The California warrant issued for Davis charged her as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide.
Here’s a snippet of an article published by the NY Times on October 14, 1970, announcing her arrest (I highlighted the part that made me give the side-eye in bold):
Angela Davis, the young black militant who has been hunted for nearly two months on murder and kidnapping charges, was arrested yesterday at a motel in midtown Manhattan by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The charges against the 26-year-old Miss Davis, a former acting assistant professor of philosophy at he University of California at Los Angeles grew out of a kidnap-escape drama in a San Rafael courtroom in early August. During the abduction and escape attempt a Superior court judge and three other persons were killed.
Miss Davis was arrested at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, 861 Eighth Avenue, at 51st Street about 6 P.M., according to the manager. Arrested with her was David Rudolph Poindexter Jr., a 36-year-old Negro, who was charged with harboring a fugitive.
Davis was eventually acquitted of all charges in 1972.
Garnier Fructis Hates Afro Hair
Friday, July 17th, 2009 Naturals are offended by Dr. Miracles commercials, yet somehow, we allowed Garnier to slide past our radar, and continue to buy their products. 
Everybody knows how Garnier Fructis commercials go. They usually start out with a woman with a head full of hair (usually naturally straight hair) that’s either limp, or all over the place. It’s not the straightest in the world, but it’s easy to tell that this is damaged straight hair. There’s nothing offensive about that.
However, the commercial that I saw recently was far different. This time, it showed a white woman with an afro that would actually be considered well pampered amongst others, especially among naturals with a similar hair type. I honestly couldn’t find anything wrong with it. All I could do was laugh at their ignorance and think “Are they serious?”
And why does Garnier have to overexaggerate when it comes to showing straight hair at it’s “worse” by insulting people who have a natural texture that looks very similar? The average naturally straight-haired woman’s hair does not look like that when their hair is damaged, so why all the extra?
I couldn’t find the commercial that I saw, but in my search, I came across this video. In this particular commercial, they look down on both afros and locs. From what I can tell, this commercial was actually released last year, portraying afros and locs as “unkempt,” “dirty,” or what have you. And they compared our hair to dog hair, ya’ll! I have never seen this particular Garnier commercial in my circuit, so I may have missed it. It’s also in a different language, so it’s possibly shown in a country other than the United States.
I actually loved Garnier Fructis products. Not only were their products great for straight hair, they were great for curly and kinky hair as well (when it comes to simply moisturizing and adding sheen to the hair). I loved their curl cream (before it went off the market), along with their styling foam. I haven’t bought from them in a while, but after seeing these particular commercials, I sure as heck won’t be buying from them in the future, whether rich or poor. Unknowingly, we were supporting a company who looks down at our hair type. Guys, be careful who you buy from because some of that money will be used to make commercials such as these.
Shame on you, Garnier. I sincerely though you were better than that. I really did.
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 2)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
In this post, we’re going to focus on the Jet Magazine covers from the year 1970. This is the year that Jet Magazine began going full throttle with the afros. The first afro of 1970, on the cover Jet magazine, was none other than Angela Davis, with the last issue of the year (in December) showing Jackson 5 on the cover.
Blaxploitation 
This is also the decade that Blaxploitation films were created. The Blaxplotation genre was created to target black people. Not only did the movies star blacks, but the casts were mostly black as well. In these films, you may often find various characters who proudly rocked their afros.
Blaxploitation films that were released in the year of 1970 include They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (starring Sidney Poitier) and Cotton Comes to Harlem (starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx). Blaxploitation films often were filled with characters who were pimps, hookers, or drug dealers. Some felt that Blaxploitation films perpetuated negative stereotypes about blacks. To stop this, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation, eventually killing off the genre.
There’s so many in this decade that I have plenty to show you in future posts. (I think that I’m going to break them up into four or more posts.) Here’s something that’s really neat about one of the covers. If you look at the March 1970 cover, you will see that the headline says “What Naturals Are Doing to Beauty and Barber Shops.” Interesting! Enjoy.
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 1)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009I scanned through old Jet Magazine covers from the time that Jet Magazine was first released in 1951, all the way up until now. In the 
beginning, the beauty standards pretty much coincided with European standards, and there were virtually no sign of kinks on the covers when it came to women. (As for the men, it was pretty much half and half.) In fact, we were so good at it that half the time, I couldn’t even tell I was looking at a black person (the pictures were in black and white).
I didn’t see a woman with visibly unaltered hair on the cover until I came across Cicely Tyson rocking a twa. It was on a Jet cover that was dated April 5th, 1962. We wouldn’t see another female wearing an afro on the cover until 1966 with Joanna LaSane.
On August 10th, 1967, Jet released a special issue called “BLACK IS BACK!” 
The following year, more covers were released of black people showing their natural beauty. (Could this have been influenced by the Black Panther Movement that began in 1966?) For the most of the next decade, I saw a mixed representation of relaxed, pressed, and natural hair.
Around 1979, most of the naturally kinky textures began to disappear among black women. This was shortly after the Black Panther craze disintegrated. I noticed that throughout all the changes, chemically altered hair always remained, keeping its share of the representation, while natural hair didn’t. Why is that? Why did it have more of an impact on our community? Why is natural hair is often seen more as a trend, while chemically altered hair isn’t?
Aside from the physical, I came across some rather good topics that surpassed the issue of beauty. Some of the many great features included a story about a white minister who died fighting for integration in schools, the first black woman to serve in a nation’s capital embassy, a unique law that allowed single women to adopt black babies no matter what the race, a school that helped pregnant students from ages twelve to eighteen, and various features on interracial couples and families at a time when interracial dating was taboo.
Series such as these are bought about to spark a discussion on how black media saw beauty then, how they see it now, and how they may see it in the future. Will the “natural” black women ever be represented equally in black media for good, or will we only be showcased more when natural hair is a trend as opposed to a lifestyle? We will forever remain “tokens?”
