LANGUAGE

Why There’s A Lot of Racist Language Used to Describe Black Hair

We need to raise awareness about this terminology

Dr. Allison Wiltz
6 min readSep 16, 2024

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Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence,” the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd once argued. Thus, if we want to mitigate racism targeting Black people, we must first consider the relationship among these concepts. If ignorance perpetuates fear, then it would stand to reason that learning and teaching others about racism would alleviate some of the hatred and violence in our society. For instance, while some denigrate physical differences among racial groups to justify perpetuating harm, this approach would be harder to accomplish among a culturally competent public.

Perhaps the most prominent example of cultural incompetence in American society can be found in the language used to describe Black hair. Depending on where you live, you may hear words like thick, curly, coiled, or kinky. Some phrases overtly condemn, such as “bad hair” or “picky-headed,” while others are more subtle jabs, such as using the compliment “good hair” as a comparative slight. Others, like “nappy,” have negative connotations. To understand why there are so many racist terms used to describe Black hair, we must consider the societal norms perpetuated throughout the chattel slavery…

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Dr. Allison Wiltz
Dr. Allison Wiltz

Written by Dr. Allison Wiltz

Black womanist scholar with a PhD from New Orleans, LA with bylines in Oprah Daily, Momentum, ZORA, Cultured. #WEOC Founder

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