Don't Get It Twisted: Untangling the Psychology of Hair Discrimination Within Black Communities

Systems of oppression have shaped the prejudicial treatment of Black people based on the appearance of their hair, from the era of chattel enslavement to present-day America. Hair discrimination is a social injustice characterized by unfairly regulating and insulting people based on the appearance of their hair. A sampling of 90 African American community members narrated memories of hair discrimination using the guided hair autobiography method. While the hair narratives revealed texture, length, and style were the most common entry points into discriminatory behaviors, color, hair augmentation, density, and product choice were also tools of "othering" within a Eurocentric aesthetic value system. The narratives suggested that men and women experience interpersonal rejections early in their development in both emotionally intimate (at home with family) and public settings (at school with teachers and classmates). Sadness was the most frequently reported emotional response to these rejections. These findings extend the current literature on the psychological significance of hair within Black lives and pleads for policies of hair protection at work, hair-based professional development for teachers in schools, hair-influenced educational curriculum for students, community-based programming in hair care settings, and family interventions during hair combing interactions.