Meyers, Jim (2000)  "Do we like what we see?"  (excerpt from Afraid of the Dark:  What Whites and Blacks Need to Know About Each Other.  Chicago:  Lwarence Hill Books), pp. 115-120.

In the 1960s, black Americans discovered huge Afro hairdos, which many whites found disconcerting. Then whites linked Afros to other ideas about race that the 1960s brought. It seemed that blacks in the 1960s were perpetually angry and accusatory, and whites began to assume that black hairdos and black anger were interrelated. So those who wore Afros were assumed to be angry, too.

But whites are generally unaware of the efforts black Americans extend to their hair. Or whites are confused about the processes involved or the meaning of hair, if you will. Hair belongs to the general mysteriousness whites sense about black people.

Readers of The Autobiography of Malcolm X were introduced to the old-fashioned ritual of getting your hair "conked," a painful process that involved a caustic brew of potatoes, eggs, and lye; but Malcolm was also focusing on the psychological wounds that accompanied this ritual submission to white values:

My first view in the mirror blotted out the hurting. I've seen some pretty conks, but when it's the first time, on your own head, the transformation, after a lifetime of kinks, is staggering....on top of my head was a thick, smoother sheen of shining red hair--real red--as straight as any white man's.

How ridiculous I was! Stupid enough to stand there simply lost in admiration of my hair now looking "white." . . . I vowed I'd never again be without a conk.... This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: When I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man's hair.

 This passage is a relic from the 1940s, and the process of straightening hair has since changed. Still, whites were likely to miss out on the intrinsic joy that has accompanied the rediscovery in the 1960s of the many wonderful possibilities that black hair, so long disdained, can represent. This feeling was evident in a 1994 Washington Post column by Donna Britt on reports, apparently premature, that 1960s-style Afros were about to make a comeback. Maybe I only craved a Fro at age 14 because everyone who was remotely cool wore one. Or because getting one was sure to give my mom a fit. But that didn't explain its effect. I remember sitting, heart pounding and scalp smarting, as my cousin Joann washed, oiled, and picked my previously straightened hair into an Afro. Halfway though, Joann whispered, "This is gonna be pretty."

It was -- but it was more. Staring mesmerized into Joann's bedroom mirror, I marveled at how my basic blackgirl hair had evolved into something vibrant, neat and beautiful without being hot-combed or chemically relaxed into submission. It's impossible to explain the psychic damage that was undone in that moment. My reflection challenged years of hearing my hair was ugly in its natural state--from society and even from relatives who loved me. The miracle atop my head refuted every word.

 Whites seem to take black hairstyles personally, managing to focus on their own hair rather than the interesting aspects of black hair. When they realized that blacks were rejecting white norms in hairstyles of the 1960s, a host of related ideas were planted in white minds. For better or worse, whites have continued to associate ethnic dress and hairdos with an awareness of black history and culture. And they assume an awareness of black history and culture could cause blacks to be angry and antiwhite.

A black person might be happy and at peace with the world, but from his or her hairdo whites could read anger and alienation. An ethnic-looking outfit produces suspicion that the wearer could be one of those blacks who hates whites--the ones whites cite in polls. This suspicion is unfortunate.

Black people who braid their hair or twist it into dreadlocks sometimes find that their white friends react strangely. The technical details of the hairdo, such as how long it takes, are a mystery to whites; but whites may also be confused about what the hairdo means. Does it mean the wearer is rejecting white culture? Or coming out of the closet, so to speak, on angry feelings about whites? Whites worry about such things, when--if only they could relax for a moment--the new hairdo probably has nothing to do with white people and is merely an attempt to look good.

Still, the conventional wisdom among black workers in corporate America is try to fit in. Wear what white people wear. Wear your hair like white people do. How would one know this is so? Look around. Although attitudes are evolving -- senator Carol Moseley-Braun wore a braided hairdo in 1996 -- many black Americans assume that hairdos of ethnic origin can lead whites to suspect you are "angry" or "have an attitude." And these results can hurt you in the long run. After five o'clock, however, when you leave the white-dominated world, you can be as "black" as you want to be. Millions of black Americans are accustomed to operating under these two sets of rules, one black and one white. When they go to work, white rules are in effect. When they go out on Saturday night or to church on Sunday, black rules prevail.

And the two sets of rules can produce noticeably different results. On this question of differing styles, we must be cautious. Nothing irks my black friends more than the suggestion that all black people are alike, that their experiences are the same, and that they all have the same tastes. And it would surely annoy many white people to realize how frequently it is claimed that white people can't be told apart.

Often, blacks and whites share values and preferences. Still, I sense the black or white worlds occasionally operate on different standards about what looks good and what does not. Attitudes about hair can help explain some of the difference. Because black hair and white hair are usually different in texture and curl, blacks and whites see different "problems" with their hair, but the "problems" usually involve curliness. Often, whites want more than God gave them, and blacks less.

Black Americans may refer to hair that is thick with tight curls as "bad;" white Americans have "bad hair days," when curliness goes every which way at once. At the same time, whites with the long, straight hair that is often envied have their own woes: if it is too straight, it just lays there, a disaster. Some black people might imagine it's wonderful to have long, flowing hair, an all-American ideal extolled in shampoo ads. But those with long, flowing hair have a devil of a time keeping it under control. Almost any physical exertion or encounter with the elements produces a mess. A solution is to grease the hair, lacquer it, or stiffen it with hair spray. But this move nullifies the flowing quality. Another solution is to incorporate dishevelment into the hairstyle, eliminating the need for every hair to be exactly in place. And the high-fashion variants on windblown disarray can be elaborate indeed.

More commonly, too, white Americans affect airs of indifference toward their hair, as if to say, "My hair? Oh, I just ran a comb through it." This illusion of minimal effort is often admired and envied as a white ideal. In 1996, for example, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, then the recent bride of John Kennedy, Jr., was described by the Washington Post as "model tall and a perfect size six" and "just sloppy enough to make people think you aren't obsessed about your looks." This is a version of white perfection involving a flirtation with sloppiness that suggests that looking good requires no effort -- looking good evolves naturally without worry or work. Either one is born with perfection or not. Many black Americans find such an attitude phony or condescending; they refuse to believe that anyone looks very good without trying, a view that points to an important difference between black and white attitudes. Whites often try to make things look effortless, understating the work involved. But many black Americans are more likely to believe good appearances result from effort and attention to detail. As a result, black men and women are less likely to affect the casual airs that the Post admired in Mrs. Bessette Kennedy. They are also less likely to say they don't care how they look. In fact, this focus on appearance is evident in black neighborhoods, if only in the number of beauty parlors and barbershops you are likely to see.

Whites sometimes see this focus on appearances in black America as odd--almost a triumph of style and surface over substance. Some whites claim that looks are only skin-deep--but this notion ignores how deeply skin color has affected the lives of black Americans. So that argument doesn't wash.

In our stereotypical impressions about race, it is likely whites will be assumed to be more affluent and blacks less so. And with this stigma of poverty following them, black Americans sense a need to demonstrate evidence to the contrary. Many blacks also firmly believe that good grooming pays off. You feel better. You are treated better. Better opportunities come your way.

And it turns out that fleeting fashions will often reflect these values. While white youths may adopt a sloppy style, as in the "grunge" look of the 1990s, it is hard to imagine black youths deliberately seeking to look poor or ragtag. Black fashions are often costly, as in the case of $150 sneakers. Black youths may take an idea like baggy pants, as was popular in the 1990s, and exaggerate it, pushing it to an extreme, pants so baggy or worn so low so as to cause others to look twice. And when jeans with tears and holes became briefly popular, black women made sure they were torn artfully in exactly the right places for maximum impact. Even in the torn-jeans look, nothing was left to accident.

Similarly, it is no secret that many black Americans spend vast amounts of time and money on their hair; some complex or braided black hairstyles take hours to produce. But black hair also presents opportunities for elaboration that white hair doesn't, and centuries of African culture produced a multitude of decorative variants, including braids, cornrows or plats, dreadlocks, and others. Straightening hair, or "relaxing" curls, the current term, can involve attention to details that whites won't even notice. Since the tiny hairs on the nape of the neck-- the kitchen--and along the hairline on the forehead are difficult to straighten and keep straight, they get extra attention, and other black people will notice if the curl returns there. Whites probably won't notice because they don't know those hairs are considered an extra problem.

Dealing with problems that force you to pay attention to almost every single hair is a quite different approach from pretending you don't have to pay your hair much mind. Hence, even on the subject of hair, we have two differing sets of values--two versions of what looks good. The "black" version announces that effort is important; the "White" version pretends no such concern. The "black" version can focus on details; the "white" version ignores the details in favor emphasizing the overall effect.

Sometimes, too, it can seem that whites favor simplicity and understatement, while blacks will be drawn to complexity and exaggeration. Blacks tend to dress up for an occasion, while whites tend to dress down. There are, of course, countless exceptions to such generalizations, but they are, at least, interesting to note. Still, whites look upon the variety and inventiveness of black hairstyles as puzzling. Why do they do that? Or they may conclude blacks love to be different, to stand out in the crowd, which can also seem to be true. Black Americans seem to admire originality in style. It has made the style leaders in America and around the world. But black people may find it just as puzzling that whites don't stand out. Why do whites want to look so plain and nondescript? Or why do they pick up black styles, like wearing your baseball hat backward, so long after it was new in black America?