We are so messed up! 😒 Despite the massive strides we have made towards loving our skin and our culture, we have such a far ways to go in reclaiming our identity. H&M recently released a youth ad campaign featuring a young black princess. The campaign drew backlash from the black community because of the seemingly “poor” or “lackluster” grooming efforts of the beauty team at H&M.
The reaction to this ad is sooo much deeper than self-hate. This is a clear signal of PTSD. Some people have spoken so harshly about this young Queen’s hair it is shameful. I see the perpetual oppression in the responses of people that look like her, but still, I cannot leave out the how. It would be wrong of me to blame this all on us. When the truth of the matter is that black peoples are traumatized. Our identity was stripped from us, stepped and spat on, and set on fire.
Let us not forget, that it is 2019, and we still have the need for legislation barring discrimination in the workplace due to one’s hair texture. When you have been taught to believe that black hair in its natural state is “unkempt”, it will take more than 15 years of a natural hair renaissance for the ideal to dissipate. We are making positive strides to learn how to love ourselves, and the responses from people that look like us to this ad show just how much further we have to go. This is why we do the work we do here, at I Hear That Girl and The Dope Black Chick.
It’s important when wondering why some of us would respond the way we have that we tell the WHOLE story of how we got here (self-hate). And then maybe… just maybe, we can begin to educate in love, for the love of ourselves.
