Musings on Nappy vs Neglect and the H&M Debacle For Colored Girls with No Edges

Disclaimer: I am a Black American woman, I also have natural hair and as an 80s baby I do not believe in or really understand the concept of edge control. WTF is that even? While I am no authority on editorial hair and makeup nor a natural hair aficionado or parent please note I am the girl who worked as a child care provider in the hood and suburbs, yo friend that watched yo “kids”, the lady on the bus staring at your acrylics and looking back at your daughters unkept hair, a former natural hair channel creator and someone who briefly worked in the beauty industry in the states and abroad. I know babies, all hair and the struggle. So no you do not have to look at my photo or byline before reading.

The latest stretch in reverse marketing is creating something that goes viral so people can discuss their disdain for it while bringing attention to whatever product or brand. I’ll give you a non Black Twitter scenario. That new movie with the white boy from ‘’Baby Driver” well he wanted ya’ll to be anti-capitalist so he bitched and complained to his social media followers who have now trolled the reviews of a movie that isn’t even out yet. So voila now everyone knows about the movie! So these brands that purposely place unkept Black hair or various stereotypical and or offensive imagery in their ad campaigns are also complicit. They know Black folk are the biggest consumers and Black women are the most educated, most read and most vocal of all demographics. So we not only buy everything but we consume all media and what we like or don’t like we self promote by word of mouth or online. We also have this huge hang-up about hair and when we don’t like how our hair is portrayed in media we will gripe about it until the next best thing comes up for cancellation. So it is imperative that popular brands get us right or dubious brands strategically get us so very wrong. The idea is all this talk about that black face thing or that “nappy” headed girl will certainly sell something to someone.

When it comes to the N word … Nappy… many of us get down right enraged by it. We have come a long way from hating our hair to embracing it for all its versatility and strength. If you didn’t realize those embellishing words fit right in with “Nappy”; because nappy hair allows us the freedom to do all the things others cannot with their thin, fine and wispy hair. The reason I can wear braids one day and a bob the next is because the nappy texture of my hair can withstand manipulation, heat, climate changes etc. I can also control the volume of my hair by “slicking” it down or blowing it out. Black hair can endure major chemical enhancements like relaxers, texturizers, permanent hair color and bleach. Others are envious of this and that is why in history we have been forced to cover and or alter our hair to fit the aesthetics and grievances of others. However, now we can do whatever it is we want albeit with scrutiny marked as curiosity, discrimination disguised as code and jealousy renamed as banned distracting/disruptive styles aka anything afrocentric. We can also take nappy and reimagine it in wording like kinky or coily. We can also align with existing curl culture and speak of our hair in patterns too knowing the majority of that system really doesn’t apply to us. The nappiest, kinkiest and coily-est of Black hair is a 4C type curl pattern. 4C being the tightest curl emerging from the scalp in a springy coil. This hair grows super slow and is wound up so tight that it fails to hang like other type curls. It down right shoots up from the follicle defying gravity in an S pattern or Z zag. This is our natural hair and the only way we can change how that curl proceeds down the hair shaft is through long, arduous processes involving chemicals and or heat. A great majority of us really don’t feel the need to do that and that is why we refer to wearing natural hair as “Going Natural”. It is almost like a coming of age, a rebirth and a journey to wear ones hair without changing anything about it. To simply wake up and go as is for some is a blessing and others a curse.

Sadly, for many generations depending on where we are from, choose to live or where we work and play our hair choices are pre-destined. If you are raised in the States depending on your region and its climate your hair may react to things differently so you may explore a multitude of styles and enhancements to be able to function. This is basic grooming. If Karen lives in the south and she has three sons who play sports and she needs to be presentable for games, PTA meetings and Sunday service she may go for a “I Wanna See a Manager” or the infamous “Brown Football Helmet” hairstyle. Karen will go to her local hair salon with a photo, her stylist will do as she requested and she will forever maintain this style between age 29 and 72. Karen may have forgotten everything Mitzi said to do to maintain her helmet but she does still use a brush or a comb on a daily basis. Because the act of grooming ones self is apart of anyones hygiene and beauty regimen. Karen may sometimes forgo the anti-humidity hair spray or the color safe shampoo Mitzi recommended. Hell Karen might not have enough money after buying three gallons of milk on a weekly basis. She may just opt for a bottle of 2in1 White Rain or Suave. So on occasion her football helmet may fall flat, her roots may be grey or she just may wear a ball cap out to the game. But I tell you what though — — Karen’s ass isn’t featured in a national ad campaign for a global company looking like a long winters fucking armpit now is she?!

So where does the idea that Black girls and women would like to look like their worst days come from? That is the real question. When did it become okay to share us at our worst as if that was an aesthetic we personally aim for? And when did everyone but us think it was okay to chime in how we are supposed to look, especially in this day and age? This isn’t the first time this has happened. J.Crew and Madewell started it and H&M seems eager to finish it. I won’t bother mentioning the other acts from Prada, Gucci and Moncler. To be honest most Black people have gotten used to other sordid portrayals of us. What we just cannot stand is a real life model knowing full well what they look like. I understand adult models must remain professional and maintain composure when working. That is why there are plenty of tales of models and actors walking off of sets that can not accommodate their needs and or expect to exploit their image. A child is different because children cannot advocate for themselves. There is great concern that some sort of handler is not looking out for the childs best interests. There is also the immediate reaction of what the fuck were the parents thinking because one day said child model/actor will grow up and ask questions and they will not be directed to the brand. They will ask their parents “How did that happen?” and it is up to them to explain how and why they sold their own blood out like that.

Alas the little girl in the H&M sweatshirt ad apart of a campaign featuring young boys & girls before and after a day at school. All the lil white girls and ethnically ambiguous children are featured with only a few misplaced hair strands. They all appear like they were having a rough time at spelling and did that raspberry thingee with their top and bottom lip and just blew their bangs to smithereens. Meanwhile the one representation of us, the Black girl, is just every bit of wrong. Not only is she featured to be unkept in a way that borders on poor health and parental neglect but there are actual images of fucking lint in her hair! While the other children may feature what is assumed to be the “bedhead” look I guess we are supposed to assume that this poor baby slept a month of Sunday’s without her traditional hair bonnet or scarf. I say this because most if not all little Black girls are raised to cover their hair at night in the same regimen of putting on pajamas, brushings ones teeth and saying nightly prayers. It is rare for us to fall asleep with our crown on a bare pillow unless we are adult drunks or laying our precious nappy hair on pillows made of satin. So how dare they misrepresent a Black bedhead the way they did. Hell even an afterschool head has some luster to it.

I inspected these images. I do not work. I have a lot of time on my hands. I am also partial to lil dark skinned girls in media. They look like me. I was her. I went to school with my hair done by my mother who proudly took Polaroid photos of me before school and another as I exited. Yes, my hair was all over the place. I had ashy knees. My white school uniform shirt was a damn mess of sauce and dirt. My lunchbox was always open missing a screw and or its matching Thermos. There was “cold” in the corner of my mouf and left eye and I was thirsty like I had been in the Savannah. However, I somehow someway still had an intact hair line and the grease on my scalp remained as it did all week after “I got my hair did” day. I may have lost one 14 carat gold doorknocker earring, an already wiggly front tooth or a Goody barrette or two but not entire patches of my nape. In my opinion, this poor child has been neglected. Her hair wasn’t swooped that way by an ignorant Caucasian on-set hair and makeup artist. No, no her hair had been allowed to be matted for ages. Her parent or parents whoever they are decided to just take her into this photoshoot as is and because there is a notion that this is what Black women and girls wish to look like no one even batted an eye. They immediately took this childs photo and then they proceeded to try to make a dollar out of fifteen cents on photo shoot number two and three. Frankly, when the child left the set she was probably better off as someone had actually groomed her. The rest is history as many figures in the editorial, marketing and communications department of H&M continually added the images of the child to multiple areas of the brand. They put her in print. They digitized her image for the website. And then we found her just cheesing wearing one of their already notorious fucking sweatshop hoodies eerily similar to the last offensive debacle. Now the baby, her hair and our debate is viral.

I blame the parent(s) of this poor child and only after that mystery is solved I blame H&M. I mostly blame the brand for sending out a weak press release about our reaction to the marketing. It would have been better that they sat on their bloody hands. We know Black people are always demanding representation and we do not want to see racially ambiguous children — we said that! We really do want to see carbon copies of ourselves in modern representations — rocking natural hair, preppy styling, soft femininity and male smiling faces. We don’t think this equates to neglected hair? When I look around at my peers none of us look like that little girl or any of these women in print with hideous hair. Our parents groomed us to be presentable especially so around others and on our special occasions like picture day and birthday parties. So we know good and damn well either the parent of that little girl is either

• White as snow
• One of these strange African transplants to London, Paris or Berlin who they themselves cannot manage their own hair in the midst of European beauty standard entrapment
• That one chick that can afford to keep a standing “beauty parlor” appointment and or conceals herself in wigs and weaves so she has never seen her own hair but believes this is what her hair will look like without “sponsors” like wrap lotion, creamy crack and wig glue

These are the people who are telling other Black and brown persons to pipe down about our sentiments on this entire fiasco. These people remain on the other side of the debate claiming Black people embody self-hate because we want to see alternatives to our nappiest of nappy hair. They tell us we don’t understand how Black hair functions without manipulation, heat and or chemicals. They tell us the child was styled to fit the theme of the photo shoot so she would be cohesive with the other children in the editorial. They tell us not everyone can have slicked down edges and smooth ponytails. Well, well maybe you can keep coming up with pathetic excuses but I sure the fuck won’t!

I have never laid down an edge in my life or slicked a single fucking ponytail. I wear the third to darkest shade in foundation and use Cocoa as my highlight. I know ashiness equals cleanliness but I make sure to lotion the innermost parts of my behind before I leave my house each day. I also have what I consider 4Z hair and it is the epitome of unmanageable but I manage quite well. I also know that a child with a broken kitchen (the nape of the hair for those unsure) doesn’t just break off due to one days purposeful or improper styling. Common sense will tell you she is obviously a well rounded child especially being booked and busy as some have claimed. So she wasn’t born yesterday and happens to sleep on her back like a newborn. Her nape hair is broken off like that because of neglect. Black hair especially our natural hair MUST have moisture. We require moisture because our hair doesn’t produce oil like others. This is why we choose to wash our hair infrequently as forgoing daily shampoo retains oil. Others wash their hair daily or every other day to rid themselves of the over production of oil. We have no choice but to moisturize our hair be it with water, oil/grease or whatever styling agent to manipulate it otherwise the hair is so dry it breaks right off in a brush or a comb. This breaking does pain us especially so in our kitchen. It isn’t just unpleasant to look at but the act of ripping our already dry hair with a styling tool and zero moisture is physically painful for us. Overtime along with pain we will slowly damage our hairline and this shouldn’t be a reality for a child. Children of all races and backgrounds are supposed to be juicy, sweaty, greasy, hairy lil monsters who are developing and growing each day. Their skin is nice because its just stretched baby skin. Their lil bushy eyebrows are supposed to be shiny and swirling into their sideburns. The are not supposed to be balding around their hairline unless they are experiencing a medical anomaly or fighting cancer. Otherwise any child with a broken kitchen and patchy forehead IS being neglected. The person who is responsible for their daily grooming and subsequently teaching them how to care for themselves is failing them. While I believe it is inexcusable just maybe the parent is frustrated, sick, mourning, separated, alone or depressed. But that same person was able to take their child into a photo shoot and is probably handsomely paid. You mean to tell me her parent couldn’t afford a brush and spit? Or that a global company didn’t provide one styling tool, product or water? Or that one person on set didn’t ask questions like we are asking?

Then as we get so many days into the viral debate people want to know what do we want. We want some reciprocity and respect! Yes, I understand the damage is done but why is it that we think apologies must come in irrational forms. The notion that Black women would have preferred to see the same exact child in a wig is crazy. The idea that we expect Black girls to have their hairlines cemented with whatever product knowing good and well her hair type as well as most of ours is incapable is false. The likelihood that replacing the child once someone realized ooooh this could be a PR nightmare is rare. Basically, with all of that being said H&M knew exactly what the fuck they were doing placing those images on the forefront of their Back to School marketing campaign. It is also safe to say they casted this little girl from walking down the fucking street and specifically chose her for the aesthetic. However, implying that our outrage is somehow delusional on our part or self-hate as we asked to see ourselves and then cannot take it …. UM WRONG! Again, the majority of us do not look like that child and we would never, ever allow ourselves or our child(ren) to parade neglect. We call out of work when we cannot get our hair done and we keep our children out of school until their hair is adequately done so we know ain’t no Black parent in their right fucking mind sent her to that photo shoot looking like that!?

As for H&M well yeah they could have had a stylist who understood Black natural hair on staff. You can totally see they didn’t by the stylized images as the childs hair remained exactly the same for multiple outfit changes. By the time the “Oooh I’m fresh off the bus at school” images appear her lil afro is pushed to its limits. I’ll assume the frustrated and or ignorant stylist brushed that shit under a hot blow dryer and called it a day. It is just as dry and patchy as before but remember the photos were supposed to show a relatable transition between school arrival and departure. Funny how her hair was dusty in both sets of images. When it comes to natural hair or Black hair in whatever state we do not grow hair out of our scalp that looks like that. To be sure I personally neglected my hair for several days just to see something. Again, I have no job and nothing to do so I could conduct an experiment. I had already been rocking my hair in an afro when I normally stretch, twist, blow dry and or manipulate my hair someway every single week. I had also been in the rain several times. I even caught myself slipping twice and fell asleep without my night bonnet. Yes, I had been drinking. I then proceeded to stand in the shower and use the shittest shampoo and conditioner I had on hand. I literally slapped the product onto the top of my head and pulled the hair down like a mop squeezing things in. When I exited the shower I wanted to see were my edges beaded up and my kitchen defying gravity. It wasn’t. The true test was to sleep on that soaking fucking wet hair and see if in the morning my hair would be dull or appear to be broken. Of course the hair shrank up and the edges curled dry. When I first looked at myself the next morning albeit my hair was crispy at this point the baby hairs sprang. There was some semblance of elasticity from the water and products I had used although all was rinsed and slept out. So when I showered this day I stood under the water with a comb and I began to rake my head to abandon which is something I would never do. Yes, I lost a lot of hair because I hadn’t manipulated my hair with any tools for almost a week. But when I emerged from the shower my hair wasn’t peasy or broken. I then inspected my hairline as it dried and I still had all my edges as they normally are unkept, unlaid and unslicked. All they did was curl up like Billy D. William chest hair but spring like a mattress coil when stretched out. And my hair is the opposite of childlike hair health. I am an old lady and my mane is full of grey, bleached, colored and totally damaged strands. I took a risk playing around trying to neglect my hair and see what happens. I should have been massaging my scalp and finger combing my strands with reconstructor, egg yolks and sweet almond oil. I sacrificed myself like a lamb to prove a point.

This experiment showed me that that baby IS neglected. Her poor hair probably feels like steel wool, the strands probably pop off like it was sprayed with liquid nitrogen and her head more than likely smells like the rear seat of a 90s Toyota Camry that has been through a lot of drive-thrus. I am not insulting the baby. I am explaining to you that this is what neglect actually entails. I say this because hair that looks like hers cannot possibly be washed, combed, brushed or styled. And I am talking about the bare minimum of hair care. The only way anyone could fully execute a regimen of care with her hair looking that way is through neglect. Her hair is so visibly damaged there is no way she is taken care of. If we must talk about the absence of her edges in an insulting manner please let me enlighten you. While we keke and talk about peoples missing edges it isn’t a phenomenon. There is also the sad reality of the Black women who choose to glue wigs onto their scalps and braid their hair taut with heavy extensions. Those women, they do stand to have no edges as they are slowly and voluntarily pulling them out. They say beauty is pain but it really doesn’t have to be as it is a choice. If you want to shave your eyebrows off just to draw them back on or glue chicken feathers repeatedly to the inner and outer corners of your eyes or order a face mask off the internet whose ingredients resemble adhesive and slab it all over your t-zone these are all choices. People choose to make these choices everyday b. What I don’t believe is children are sitting around ripping lace fronts off their foreheads. Children play, eat and shit and expect you to groom them until the point where they feel the need to take over themselves. They take over because they either hate you in combination with pubescent vanity or defiance or in most cases they develop their own identity and beauty regimens. The worst thing that could happen is they poke themselves in the eye with eyeliner or poorly cut what they thought would be bangs. No child of any race is going to continually leave the home like that without someone intervening be it a neighbor, a caregiver or a teacher. Someone is going to ask what is happening in that childs life where they show up with spotty hairlines and broken pony tails. If anything a concerned outside party should be worried if the child is vitamin deficient or dehydrated. Again, children are supposed to be radiant and squishy. Everything else on her lil precious face is that so why on Earth would anyone believe this is how her hair naturally grows out of her scalp? And before you come up with another excuse no playground sweat doesn’t do that. She’s a baby not a 17 year old boy!?

So I know what you are thinking. What do I propose H&M could have done? Well if they weren’t complicit in the imagery to cause hype for their problematic brand I would assume they would have STYLED HER HAIR!? And I don’t mean some ethnic celebrity hair stylist be brought in on a helicopter and shingle her curls with thousands of dollars of puddings and jellies. No. I am saying someone could have taken the five minutes to groom her. In example … started by putting a dab of moisturizing product onto her hair, then brushed it with a soft bristle brush smoothing her hair upwards, did a nice puff versus a ponytail to minimize the damage already done and then took whatever stray hair at her nape and bobby pinned it down. That is all, no more, no less. They could have slowly transitioned simple grooming from school is in to school is out by removing the pins and pulling some puff hair outward the same as one would do with a messy bun. I think even a white stylist would have been capable of this act had someone been there to say that and advocate for the child. Maybe the child is nothing but a check to her parent or guardian? Maybe the stylist was exhausted and chose to let the lazy parent do the hair “styling” or lack there of? Maybe the lil girl pulled the damn ponytail holder out herself and that is why her afro images appear to be shit as well? Whatever happened or didn’t many people came across these images and still gave them the green light!? And no one in any room or at any board table said one of these things do not belong. Whether they stupidly did that assuming this is what diversity or inclusivity looks like or purposely left all untouched for reverse marketing purposes we will never know. However, if the parent involved emerges another ethnicity or looking well put together with bundles we may get the answers we hope for. If I were on set that day I would have offered a helping hand. So in that fashion I hope what I have said has cleared this up for the those claiming Black women are judgmental or vain or that we are in denial about what we look like. I for one am quite happy to be nappy as long as I have a detangling comb and some curl cream. Now for some they prefer the alternative but what I can say is sis that ain’t it. Now come out from hiding Ms.Busy and Booked’s neglectful parents so we can get mad at something else.