All this summer, Taraji P. Henson has been inviting us to join her on her natural hair journey. From posting photos of her newly cropped—and utterly amazing—natural curls on Instagram in June to sharing messages of empowerment while hosting Black Girls Rock in early August, Taraji's been on message and on point. She's also—as always—refreshingly straightforward when it comes to shame, beauty standards, and black hair policing.
In a recent interview with HuffPo, Taraji once again got real about the process of learning to love her unprocessed hair. While she's been natural for a while, she say she's still found herself returning to straightening and processing her curls. It got to the point where she decided to chop it all off and start from scratch. "I’m in the phase of letting it grow and I just wanna see,” she said.
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Part of the reason she says she felt pressure to straighten her hair was due to biased beauty standards. While women are finally starting to express themselves as they please, Taraji pointed out that black women still face particular difficulties. The definition of American beauty (though evolving) is still largely Eurocentric, an unfair set of blond and blue-eyed standards that have put women of color at serious risk.
Taraji made a point to emphasize that black women should wear their hair however they want—weaves, wigs, natural, whatever suits your personal fancy—but that they should strive to love their natural hair, regardless of style. She also opened up about how she's still working to undo the damage that occurs when specific beauty standards are internalized, telling HuffPo: “[Black women] have shame when it comes to our hair. What we’ve been told, ‘Your hair is nappy.’ It’s not nappy, it’s curly. That’s a curl, that’s a coil. That’s energy leading up and I was like, we need to convey that message because I see a lot of girls, natural, is it for fashion or do you really understand what that is? It is a crown that God gave you. Our hair defies gravity without any products. Do you know how powerful that is? That’s powerful.”
As a multiracial woman, I can speak to living with hair that's a source of shame as well as a source of power and it's refreshing to hear such an accomplished celebrity admit that she's still struggling with self-love. It's even better to hear a celebrity acknowledge that there is more than one way to get to there. Hearing Taraji speak out about how she's personally learning to love herself and her natural hair, regardless of her styling choices, makes me feel empowered to do the same. I hope she continues to share her natural hair journey. After all, she's got a powerful voice and a gorgeous head of hair.
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