SPIN-OFF: Black people with Type 1 Hair

[Eritreladiee]

even though i don't think so, many people will assume that eritreans are "mixed" to explain their features and hair

Yeah, basically if you don't have kinkiest hair, the widest of noses, the biggest of lips, the blue-blackest of skin- u not a real African

(titkalamee 3arabi?)

 

[Almaz]

Yeah and that really gets on my nerves because Africa is so vast. Three times bigger than the United states but after all this time and all this information out there.

People still to this day and time still put Africans in ONE myopic box and if they cannot reason why an African looks a certain way that HAVVVEEE to mix with something. Well didn't the first man come out of Africa?

Yeah, basically if you don't have kinkiest hair, the widest of noses, the biggest of lips, the blue-blackest of skin- u not a real African

(titkalamee 3arabi?)

 

[Almaz]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

Well people need to keep up w/ modern anthropological studies before they speak on the matter. East Africa well, the original man and all that...however when it comes to their looks and all, evidence pointed to them having the original traits and passing them on. IOW, the East Africans aren't mixed, the other folks are!

 

[Kurlee]

Yeah, basically if you don't have kinkiest hair, the widest of noses, the biggest of lips, the blue-blackest of skin- u not a real African

(titkalamee 3arabi?)

yes! I hate this mindset. I made friends with some East african girls in schools and after a while they told me how annoyed they get when people (blacks) tell them they are not real black or african because of their hair, complexions, features. That would annoy the hell out of me.

 

[YankeeCandle]

People advance theories based on what they personally have seen and experienced. Since we all have limited experience, the result is usually a "theory" that is limited and flawed, as well.

IMO the U.S. concept of "blackness" (which I as a person of non-Western background did not grow up in) is an ethnocentric one, revolving entirely around a specific subset of African peoplle: the collection of equatorial West and Central ethnic groups in which the Andre-4 type hair was the average.

The African component of the "African Diaspora" draws mostly from those specific lineages, and it makes sense that Diasporics (along with the non-African people they share the Americas with) would construct "Blackness" based on that prototype.

But schools need to do a better job of pointing out the flaws of that ethnocentric definition--and of broad "racial" constructions in the first place. Diasporic children, whether Jamaican, Black American, or Brazilian, should learn that Africa is no different than Europe or Asia in its diversity.

Africa, too, has indigenous groups that live within a few hundred miles of each other and that look so different to one another that in the U.S. they would be called "different races."

Africa, too, has indigenous fine and wavy hair; straight hair; and tightly coiled hair.

Africa, too, has indigenous extremely short ethnic groups and extremely tall ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous ethnic groups with soft rounded facial features and others with beaky, sharp ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous people ranging from the pale creamy inside of an almond to the toasted brown outside of an almond to the rich purple-black of an eggplant.

Africa has indigenous people with heavily lidded eyes and others with epicanthic folds (i.e. eyes most Westerners associate with East Asians).

It has all of these things indigenous to its shores because Africa contains the spectrum of every climate and geographic environment (except tundra) in the world. As such, it has indigenous people whose bodies, faces, and hair reflect that diversity.

Children should also be taught the very great lengths to which European and European-American scholars have historically gone to try to rationalize away the indigenous Africans who do not fit the narrow Diasporic-West/Central African prototype. All manner of madness has been advanced to explain away Africans who are lighter than that prototype, or whose agricultural and subsistence methods were too close for comfort to the ones Europeans prided themselves on.

Let's do our part and stop the madness.

If you, personally, have not experienced indigenous African people with straight or wavy hair (or for that matter, Asian or European people with kinky hair), then please do not spin theories out of your limited experience.

It makes a poorer world for us all.

 

[Kurlee]

People advance theories based on what they personally have seen and experienced. Since we all have limited experience, the result is usually a "theory" that is limited and flawed, as well.

IMO the U.S. concept of "blackness" (which I as a person of non-Western background did not grow up in) is an ethnocentric one, revolving entirely around a specific subset of African peoplle: the collection of equatorial West and Central ethnic groups in which the Andre-4 type hair was the average.

The African component of the "African Diaspora" draws mostly from those specific lineages, and it makes sense that Diasporics (along with the non-African people they share the Americas with) would construct "Blackness" based on that prototype.

But schools need to do a better job of pointing out the flaws of that ethnocentric definition--and of broad "racial" constructions in the first place. Diasporic children, whether Jamaican, Black American, or Brazilian, should learn that Africa is no different than Europe or Asia in its diversity.

Africa, too, has indigenous groups that live within a few hundred miles of each other and that look so different to one another that in the U.S. they would be called "different races."

Africa, too, has indigenous fine and wavy hair; straight hair; and tightly coiled hair.

Africa, too, has indigenous extremely short ethnic groups and extremely tall ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous ethnic groups with soft rounded facial features and others with beaky, sharp ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous people ranging from the pale creamy inside of an almond to the toasted brown outside of an almond to the rich purple-black of an eggplant.

Africa has indigenous people with heavily lidded eyes and others with epicanthic folds (i.e. eyes most Westerners associate with East Asians).

It has all of these things indigenous to its shores because Africa contains the spectrum of every climate and geographic environment (except tundra) in the world. As such, it has indigenous people whose bodies, faces, and hair reflect that diversity.

Children should also be taught the very great lengths to which European and European-American scholars have historically gone to try to rationalize away the indigenous Africans who do not fit the narrow Diasporic-West/Central African prototype. All manner of madness has been advanced to explain away Africans who are lighter than that prototype, or whose agricultural and subsistence methods were too close for comfort to the ones Europeans prided themselves on.

Let's do our part and stop the madness.

If you, personally, have not experienced indigenous African people with straight or wavy hair (or for that matter, Asian or European people with kinky hair), then please do not spin theories out of your limited experience.

It makes a poorer world for us all.

 

[SND411]

What I dont understand is how the definition of "white" is so extensive:
-red, brown, blonde hair
-different noses
-different complexions (from your Swedish to Sicilian)
- different eye colors etc...

But Africa, with the MOST genetic diversity, has to only be one specific way?

 

[YankeeCandle]

What I dont understand is how the definition of "white" is so extensive:
-red, brown, blonde hair
-different noses
-different complexions (from your Swedish to Sicilian)
- different eye colors etc...

But Africa, with the MOST genetic diversity, has to only be one specific way?

This is due, again, to ethnocentrism, only this time from the European end of it.

When you are the one doing the defining and looking out at 'the world' as though it is a unique oyster for you to categorize and explore, you can and do make up definitions that fit your own worldview and experience of the world.

Europeans rightly saw themselves as diverse--linguistically, ethnically. culturally, etc. And so, much has been made in Europe over indigenous Euro ethnic diversity, to the point that wars have been fought within Europe because of it.

Although ancient Europeans (Greeks and Romans) recognized the diversity of Africa, Asia, and Europe and commented according to ethnicity (not our modern construction of "race"), that changed with the so-called Ages of Discovery and Enlightment. (16th century onward).

When time came to devise justifications for the slave trade, colonialism, and other European-dominated enterprises, race as we know it came into being. That is when it became financially and socially expedient to lump together disparate groups of people on the basis of arbitrarily-chosen criteria.

To give you an example of how Europeans have defined the world according to European standards, consider the fact that geologists do not recognize Europe as a continent at all. IN fact, Europe is geographically a SUB-continent (of Asia), along the lines of the Indian subcontinent protruding from Asia. Yet, when classifying the world around them, European explorers and scientists saw Europe as its own continent, and named it so.

Those who have the power to classify have much power indeed.

 

[Theresamonet]

I wish we didn't use the term "negroid" around here. I hate the "oids" (negroid, mongolioid, etc.)...Oh well...I'm kinda hoping this thread gets locked...I'm starting to feel a certain way about it.

 

[sharifeh]

Well i know dominicans black ppl with type 1. we call them "culisos" or "culisas" if they are men or women, is how we name this type of ppl in DR

cool fact!!

NOT all Ethiopian have Arab heritage. Neither do Somailis. Some but not all depending on the region. There are some Kenyans and Rwandans with type one hair too and they surely not an Arab in the bunch. These areas are made up of many different ethnic groups only a few are mixed with "Arabs". This is a myth. Tell that to an Amhara they would cut you down.

Thank you!!

 

[Lucia]

I've seen people from Madagascar, SE, NE, NW Africa with naturally straight coarse stereo-typical "Asian" hair and they don't claim to be Indian or mixed they're all African.

 

[luckiestdestiny]

My great aunt is type one. Yes my family is a mixture but claim black because most (exceptions I'm sure) who came over in slavery in this country are MIXED. No one likes that word with us but it's true. We are not pure breeds anymore. But we in my family claim black because when we think of black we think of mixtures that have African Heritage as one of them.

 

[ebonylocs]

I am from the Jamaica, my parents are mixed, and I have 4a hair. I wouldn't touch the islands, because we trace our heritage to so many places there's not enough time to explain.

As someone from the "islands" I would say that people from here are *no* more likely to be more mixed/ more diverse than AAs, especially given that we tend to be a majority African-derived population living with *minority* other (white / Asian) population; as opposed to AAs, who are a minority living among a majority white population plus large immigrant communities from all over the world. (However, of course, this depends on the islands. What I just said is truer re Jamaica, Haiti, Barbados, St. Lucia) and less applicable to Trinidad, Dom Rep., Puerto Rico.

Since the OP simply asked about Black people with type 1 hair I assumed she referred to all Black people. Not just Blacks with completely unmixed parentage or ancestry, Blacks from only certain regions of Africa, or Blacks that had specific "Negroid" features.

But then, that kind of voids the question, no? If anyone with any amount of African ancestry, however minute, can be considered, then of course they can have any type of features. Any eye colour, hair texture, skin colour. What's the point of even asking?

Anyone see a person from Madagascar (which is located in Southern Africa, near Mozambique....and yes, they were a french colony at one point so I guess they arent really Black either)

Umm, it is well known fact that Madagascans are a mix of Africans, Indians, and Arabs. This evolved when Indians & Arabs began trading via the Indian Ocean with the south east of Africa.

I don't get the limitations people put on what is black, saying that some people are more black than others. Its akin to saying, on a socioeconomic level, that because a disproportionate number of blacks in American cities are working and lower class that therefore that is a defining social characteristic of blackness, and that anyone who is outside of that isn't as black as others regardless of how they identify and how they are viewed in the broader society.

There is no way you can equate unchangeable and heritable traits like physical features to something as potentially transient and circumstantial as socioeconomic status.

 

[Honey Bee]

People still to this day and time still put Africans in ONE myopic box and if they cannot reason why an African looks a certain way that HAVVVEEE to mix with something. Well didn't the first man come out of Africa?

Almaz, I've been wanting to ask you to please post some informational links in your siggy...about history, about phenotype, about African Jewry (all I know is 'Operation Moses', and some speculation about the Queen of Sheba ), whatever. I would appreciate a few links, just to help me weed out some of the unreliable stuff. I honestly don't know where to start (and I was actually a history major), and it would be helpful to have the viewpoint of a first-hand witness, so to speak. Thank you.

To the original question, I have 2 first cousins with allegedly type 1 hair. I can't say, because I met them when I was little and don't remember, but my mom describes them as having "Indian hair", lol. She is familiar with Andre's sytem, so I'm taking her word. As "corroborating evidence", lol (smh @ the lengths we go to), I have many, many 1st cousins who are 2's and 3's. In fact, as a child, I felt a little out of place, like, dag, who are all these spanish girls? (I grew up in Spanish Harlem, so anybody who wasn't white and wasn't black, was "Spanish".) My mom explained the anomaly to my satisfaction.

 

[vainღ♥♡jane]

i only know one girl even close to type 1. she has type 2a hair and it has always been about hip length since she was a child. ♥

 

[LadyRaider]

My mom and her brothers and sisters have indian hair. One of my cousins has it as well. I think it's 2 hair. Indian hair is wavy, (I think.) I don't know why I say that since on tv, it's always straight. I think it is easily brushed straight though.

I would imagine there are blacks from south america and australia might have straight hair. I think straight hair is fairly rare. Most hair seems to have some wave.

 

[Ithacagurl]

This is my friend from Haiti not mixed. I am not sure the type hair also have cousins with this type from jamaica.

 

[meecee]

This little girl in my old apt. complex had type 1 hair. Both of her parents are Black (dad creole). She had very thin, fine, wispy straight hair. It was light brown too. It was so thin and straight that her mom really couldn't style it. Her hair was just like an average white toddler's.

 

[almond eyes]

Having lived and visited many parts of Africa, I have never seen any black Africans with stick straight hair. When I have seen black Africans with this straight and light coloured hair it is caused by malnutrition; in many parts of Africa people are living below the misery index. This straight/fine/light coloured hair tends to look like straw and very unhealthy. My cousin who has now straight hair because of lupus. I think the concept of stick straight hair on black Africans is very odd.

Best,
Almond Eyes

 

[princessnad]

^^ I was going to mention that many of the Africans, Aboriginies or people from Papau New Guinea with blond hair are nutrient deficient and it manifests in their hair.

 

[Almaz]

PM me as to which one you want to start with first

Almaz, I've been wanting to ask you to please post some informational links in your siggy...about history, about phenotype, about African Jewry (all I know is 'Operation Moses', and some speculation about the Queen of Sheba ), whatever. I would appreciate a few links, just to help me weed out some of the unreliable stuff. I honestly don't know where to start (and I was actually a history major), and it would be helpful to have the viewpoint of a first-hand witness, so to speak. Thank you.

To the original question, I have 2 first cousins with allegedly type 1 hair. I can't say, because I met them when I was little and don't remember, but my mom describes them as having "Indian hair", lol. She is familiar with Andre's sytem, so I'm taking her word. As "corroborating evidence", lol (smh @ the lengths we go to), I have many, many 1st cousins who are 2's and 3's. In fact, as a child, I felt a little out of place, like, dag, who are all these spanish girls? (I grew up in Spanish Harlem, so anybody who wasn't white and wasn't black, was "Spanish".) My mom explained the anomaly to my satisfaction.

 

[Almaz]

There is a lot of Malay/Arab/Comaro infusions on the Island but they dont' care they just call themselves Malagasy.

I've seen people from Madagascar, SE, NE, NW Africa with naturally straight coarse stereo-typical "Asian" hair and they don't claim to be Indian or mixed they're all African.

 

[almond eyes]

I met a Malay woman who has Asian phenotype with the bone straight hair but they may be Africans but not black Africans who are of negroid blood.

And yes, not all the Africans who came to the US though slavery were pureblooded. There was a lot of racial mixing that happened in West Africa before and during the slave trade.

Best,
Almond Eyes

 

[LunadeMiel]

People advance theories based on what they personally have seen and experienced. Since we all have limited experience, the result is usually a "theory" that is limited and flawed, as well.

IMO the U.S. concept of "blackness" (which I as a person of non-Western background did not grow up in) is an ethnocentric one, revolving entirely around a specific subset of African peoplle: the collection of equatorial West and Central ethnic groups in which the Andre-4 type hair was the average.

The African component of the "African Diaspora" draws mostly from those specific lineages, and it makes sense that Diasporics (along with the non-African people they share the Americas with) would construct "Blackness" based on that prototype.

But schools need to do a better job of pointing out the flaws of that ethnocentric definition--and of broad "racial" constructions in the first place. Diasporic children, whether Jamaican, Black American, or Brazilian, should learn that Africa is no different than Europe or Asia in its diversity.

Africa, too, has indigenous groups that live within a few hundred miles of each other and that look so different to one another that in the U.S. they would be called "different races."

Africa, too, has indigenous fine and wavy hair; straight hair; and tightly coiled hair.

Africa, too, has indigenous extremely short ethnic groups and extremely tall ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous ethnic groups with soft rounded facial features and others with beaky, sharp ones.

Africa, too, has indigenous people ranging from the pale creamy inside of an almond to the toasted brown outside of an almond to the rich purple-black of an eggplant.

Africa has indigenous people with heavily lidded eyes and others with epicanthic folds (i.e. eyes most Westerners associate with East Asians).

It has all of these things indigenous to its shores because Africa contains the spectrum of every climate and geographic environment (except tundra) in the world. As such, it has indigenous people whose bodies, faces, and hair reflect that diversity.

Children should also be taught the very great lengths to which European and European-American scholars have historically gone to try to rationalize away the indigenous Africans who do not fit the narrow Diasporic-West/Central African prototype. All manner of madness has been advanced to explain away Africans who are lighter than that prototype, or whose agricultural and subsistence methods were too close for comfort to the ones Europeans prided themselves on.

Let's do our part and stop the madness.

If you, personally, have not experienced indigenous African people with straight or wavy hair (or for that matter, Asian or European people with kinky hair), then please do not spin theories out of your limited experience.

It makes a poorer world for us all.

I too believed that most Africans "looked" a certain . That is until I started dating my SO. He is an "orginal" (as he likes to call himself) from South African. He is yellow skinned and looks chinese when he smiles (his eyes completely dissapear) Oh and his father's eyes are gray and his late maternal grandmother is the yellowest woman I've ever seen . I was like damn, way to educate my butt

 

[Kurlee]

This is my friend from Haiti not mixed. I am not sure the type hair also have cousins with this type from jamaica.

Your cousin is very pretty and I have seen many west indians who resemble her and have her hair type. i guess it's more about what you are exposed to that shapes how you "judge" how people look.

 

[almond eyes]

Some Black South Africans have mixed with the Dutch/Malay/Asian/Arab populations.

I will stand by my assertion that Black negroid Africans do not have stick straight hair.

Best,
Almond Eyes

 

[makeupgirl]

Actually no I haven't. Everyone I knew said that their hair was either too curly or kinky so their mothers put a perm in to control it. I've never seen a black person with type 1 hair as a natural. Maybe type 2 but not type 1.

Then again I take that back. My mother told me my great-grandmother or aunt I can't remember had bone straight hair. She was full-blood indian.

 

[LunadeMiel]

Some Black South Africans have mixed with the Dutch/Malay/Asian/Arab populations.

I will stand by my assertion that Black negroid Africans do not have stick straight hair.

Best,
Almond Eyes

That I know. But he's people just left the bush . They weren't mixing with anybody .

 

[testimony777]

My godmother has type 1 hair. My paternal great grand mother did as well. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather both had a mix of 1 and 2a type hair, both had a very slight wave to their hair.

 

[Newlife2011]

is this worth the read?