Author and activist Tameka Ellington encourages Black women to embrace their natural hair during Black hair event

Speaker Tameka Ellington, left, and moderator Deidra Herring, right, led a discussion on the discrimination Black women face due to their natural hair. | Credit: Sharon Niymel, BLACKXBOLD Writer

As February came to an end last week, an event celebrating Black history through hair officially bid the month farewell. 

Featuring Tameka Ellington, CEO, activist, author and associate professor of design at Kent State, the event was hosted at Thompson Library Feb. 28 with a goal of educating students about the significance of Black hair.

One of her main points of discussion was The Crown Act, which is a 2019 legislation originally passed in California prohibiting discrimination based on hairstyle or texture. Although 23 states have adopted this law as of last year, Ellington said she is concerned about the states that have not, especially Ohio.

 “I truly believe that the reason why the Crown Act has not passed across the United States is because there's still some way that our overall society wants to be able to remain and have some agency on black people,” Ellington said. “And this is a way for them to be able to do that.”

In recent years there has been a rise in Black children facing disciplinary actions for wearing their natural hair. Last year, a high school boy from Texas received an in-school suspension for refusing to cut his dreadlocks, according to ABC News.

Ellington led engaging discussions during the event as she explored topics related to Western beauty standards and dispelled stereotypes about Black hair based on her extensive research and her personal story.

Ellington said while growing up, her hair was often called “nappy”—a derogatory word often used to describe type 4b and 4c hair on Black individuals. She said the peak of this discrimination occurred while wearing her natural hair to work and being told by a manager that she needed to look "American" to fit in.

“They told all the employees that if you want to work here you have to look all American,” Ellington said. “That means they're trying to tell me that I'm not American.”

Ellington said she advocates for Black women to remove themselves from the preferred aesthetic of wearing wigs and even suggested high rates of alopecia in Black women could be tied to suppressing natural hair. 

According to the National Institutes of Health, alopecia is the fourth most common diagnosis for Black Americans.

“We deal with it the most because of the different types of hairstyles that we’ll wear and the weaves will definitely do that to you,” Ellington said. “I want us to get to a point where natural hair is not no longer a trend. But it's a way of life.”

Event organizer Tracey Overbey, assistant professor and sociology librarian, said she created this event for Black people to have a space where they can feel seen and be encouraged to embrace their authentic selves.

“I do see a lot of us around, people that look like me and I wanted to make them feel that it's okay to be who you are,” Overbey said. “That's why we're trying to bring scholars that can address the issues that we face in the Black community.”

Overbey said she agrees with Ellington’s calls for Black women to embrace their natural hair more often because Black women have too long edited themselves to satisfy others.

“Change those narratives, how they look at Black people and Black women and how we wear our hair,” Overbey said. “That's what I would like young and older Black people to take away from Dr. Ellington's research, that it's OK to be who you are and show up as your true authentic self.”

Ellington said this issue is not exclusive to Black women in America but all people of color around the world with hair textures different from the socialized standard. Ellington said changing this narrative starts with creating a new norm. 

“We are still trying to attain a Western standard that we have been conditioned and brainwashed to believe that is the only form of beauty,” Ellington said. “Until we decide we are done assimilating it will keep happening.”