Steve Sailer blogged what I initially believed, and even Jezebel has confirmed: it has been mostly black women who were griping at Gabby Douglas for having an unkempt head of hair during her Olympic performances a few days ago. I suspected that I was like most people (and, to a greater degree, white men) in that I didn’t notice anything wrong with Douglas’ hair. Of course, this can’t be about black women being unfair to a young black girl. White patriarchal supremacist racism is to blame.
From Oneka LaBennett at the feminist Ms. blog:
Before blaming black mothers for needlessly putting their daughters through these hair-straightening ordeals, we must understand the importance of a well-kept head: Black girls face additional, oftentimes unfair scrutiny. In a larger culture that undervalues black beauty, a neat-looking girl might be regarded more fondly by her teacher, or might enjoy a greater chance of landing a job. Consider that in 2009 the conservative blog Free Republic deemed then 11-year-old Malia Obama’s hair twists inappropriate for an official visit to Rome, and who can forget Don Imus infamously referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos”?
Too bad none of that scrutiny applied to Douglas, except from black women. If black women feel pressured to keep their hair up to a certain standard then they, before anyone else, should understand the unique pressures that Douglas would have faced. And if they don’t, then how is that my problem?
Like this:
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My mother said she was brought to tears when she watched Douglas’ performance, she then went on to joke about her hair and overly appearance.
Whenever they witness harsh actions done to blacks by blacks it’s thought to be initiated by white people.
“In a larger culture that undervalues black beauty” my ass. If anything, the black beauty that exists is overvalued–insta-model, tv, movie star, it’s just that it’s in such short supply.
Another bullshit controversy manufactured by the media to stir up ratings with salacious insinuations of racism. I do wonder if the Cliometrics projections of social unrest are going to come to pass — Time seems ripe, in the midst of a great depression that the media won’t talk about, and bombarded constantly by lies about race/sex differences.
I’m still trying to figure out what is so noteworthy about a tight ponytail.
I’m bored.
“I’m bored.”
Sounds like a personal problem.
Relaxing your hair a lot causes it to become brittle and break easily. Since Gabby has to wear her hair up in a ponytail all the time, which can cause hair to break, and also does routines that rub her head on the balance beam or floor, she needs her hair not to break so easily.
Swimming is the worst sport for someone who has to straighten their hair each time they wash it.
The white-knighting useful idiots of Cracked are at it again:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-unhealthy-mentalities-internet-turned-into-movements/
It’s hilarious how Cracked seeks to attract readers who thing outside the box, reject the bullshit of the mainstream media etc. and then pander to the gynocentric, misandrist impulses of average women and manginas by posting crap like this.
Black diss black, white is blamed.
Black women spend a huge percentage of their income on getting their hair did. They can’t pay bills on time or afford a copy of Hooked on Phonics for they kids but they can always come up with $350 for a new weave…
I think us white men are completely misunderstood. There’s a lot of white men like myself who find the epitome of “black beauty” to be something close to Esperanza Spalding. Maybe she’s not black enough for black people.
You can bet that Douglas’ hair is going to miraculously become plentiful, long, and supple.
Blacks don’t have hair. They have kicky nap. All this hair that you see on blacks, male and female is fakeass. Blacks pay hundreds of dollars for it and it only last about 4 weeks, then they got to do it again. Those EBT cards must be burning from being swiped so much.
I find this interesting since I saw her performance, and it wasn’t till afterward that I went back and looked at her hair on the DVR to see what everyone was talking about. During her performance I was more interested in what she could do, and the fact that he had a radiant smile, as well as other parts of her body. I have had gymnasts as girl-friends when in grad-school, and yeah – they are as much fun as you’d think…
And their hair isn’t even in the top 10 things that hold my interest…. And to me, her ethnicity is just another flavor or spice… I would never limit my diet in food, or women… The only word I had to sum her up was… “YUM”…
Gabby’s mother correctly observed that is was most likely older black women who were critical of Gabby’s hair. Older women, white and black, think hair should be set. They aren’t crazy about the free flowing hairstyles of today. My grandmother has expressed similar criticism of younger white women’s hairstyles.
Most of the Olympic female gymnasts have bad hair. They have it scraped back too tightly in order to keep it out of the way. Even the exceptionally beautiful Romanian gymnasts look older than 25 and very severe. Unattractive clips abound and bangs are also pinned back. I think female athletes are afraid to look masculine, they have to hide their thick necks when going about their daily lives outside of sports, so they need long hair. I noticed there are few female athletes with short hair at this olympics, which is good. These woman are all lacking softness, femininity and any cheeky charm gymnasts used to have. They are all serious as heart attacks. It seems to be worse than in the old Commie vs Capitalist days. Still, the eastern bloc girls are more feminine, more beautifully proportioned and have lovely balletic movements than do western gymnasts. The asian gymnasts are very good but are just tiny children and not women.
This is why their hair looks sloppy to everyone and hasn’t in past years. It’s not because of a scruchy or ponytail, gymnasts still can look perfectly normal with those. The difference is that there’s never been an Olympic Team who has let their hair grow out long, all the way down to their shoulders. Look at these girls in their photo ops when wearing street clothes. All these girls have long hair past their shoulders. Gymnasts never do that.
So they can’t just do a simple pony-tail because it would be too long. They have to fold the ponytail in half, in order to shorten it’s length. And that results in them looking like lazy college girls running out the door late for class with bed-head. But people are missing the real reason for this whole criticism this year. It’s because no other Olympic Team has in unison all decided to have long hair past their shoulders. That just doesn’t fit a Gymnast, there’s no way to put that in a normal pony-tail or pulled back. So they came up with this crazy “pony-tail fold-over” that just looks sloppy and doesn’t fit the normal elegant look of a gymnast.
Yeah, really long hair is completely inelegant. Yuck.
jenny,
i, and i think pretty much every other straight man who has seen the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, had not one single solitary thought about about those girls’ hair. it’s another example of girls bullying girls. patriarchy’s fault though.
and don’t get me started on their smooth skin. fucking gross.
Just wandered on to this article by accident. CR, as a black woman, I think the allegations that all black women are talking about Gabby’s hair is ridiculous. Since when did a few twitter comments represent all black women? If you look at twitter, most of the comments are absurd and I doubt a bunch of old black women are on twitter. If anything, it might be teens making comments. No one gets enraged when they talk about Michael Phelps ears on twitter. Anyway I didn’t care about her hair, and my 5 black female friends I was watching the Olympics with, didn’t care either. And none of them have fake hair and most of my black female friends don’t. Also our hair CAN grow long. George . Camlost, despite what some silly Chris Rock documentary said, most black women don’t spend hundreds of dollars on weaves. Chris Rock is all about making money and will say anything to make a “documentary” about hair interesting. And yes we do have kinky, textured hair and some girls straighten for their own CONVENIENCE, so what? Just because something is different, does not make it bad. How small minded are you all that you look down on anyone that is not like you?
I don’t think all white people or all black people should be blamed for the random Gabby hair critics. I do blame the media for making it into a big issue when it wasn’t even an issue at all. Just a few losers on twitter.
Joyce,
i wrote that it has been “mostly black women” who have criticized the hair. not sure how you drew the conclusion that i said *all* black women were critical. they clearly weren’t.
and, yes, the media should be condemned the most for making something out of this. it was a nothing story. drawing shit off of twitter is cheap, easy “journalism”. they ran with a story that “people” were criticizing the hair. if they’re going to run with it, though, two things should be made clear on such a “story”: how many people and which race/sex of people? it’s quite a different story if white men were criticizing the hair or if the group was made up of all kinds of people or if the taunters were members of douglas’ own group.
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