Former First Lady Michelle Obama issued a pointed rebuke to non-Black people who feel entitled to comment on Black women’s naturally textured hair, calling out racist beauty standards she says have long oppressed women.
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“Don’t tell me how to wear my hair, don’t wonder about it, don’t touch it — just don’t,” she said during an interview with actor and businesswoman Tracee Ellis Ross for Obama’s new fashion book, “The Look.”
Obama set the record straight on a long-standing beauty standard imposed on Black women — one that pushed them to appease others’ expectations for far too long.
“Let me explain something to white people. Our hair comes out naturally in a curly pattern,” Obama said. “When we straighten it to follow your beauty standards, we are trapped by the straightness! That’s why so many of us can’t swim, and we run away from the water. People won’t go to the gym because we’re trying to keep our hair straight for y’all! It’s exhausting, and it’s so expensive and takes up so much time!”
Many social media users are siding with the former first lady, applauding her for speaking out against the systems that have long impacted her and the broader Black diaspora.
“The reality that Michelle Obama is talking about is not only that there are individual acts of discrimination and prejudice based on people’s hair, but that there is a systemic way in which people do not get promotions because they are not seen as professional and professionalism is defined as white beauty standards,” TikToker @justwaynecreative said.
“People will never understand how exhausting it is being the only BW in yt spaces. I don’t want to have a discussion every time I change my hair,” commented TikToker @VirgosGrewv
Although it seems like Obama was standing up for her community, some social media users also argue that her remarks ultimately do more harm than good in the broader racial conversation.
“Michelle, respectfully, no one cares. No white person is obsessing over your hair and what you do with it. This is the race divide that is currently existing. Mind you, this is the prior First Lady of the United States, dividing America based on race,” said TikToker @spillthetea5507
“No matter how successful you are as a person, the victim mentality clearly seems to creep in all the time,” said TikToker @_radtv. “There’s nothing stopping Black people from actually going and learning how to swim today.”
“We have a woman who was the former First Lady of the United States admitting, openly admitting that her beauty standard, in order to be beautiful as a Black woman, is that you have to beat the white standard.”
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