People had a lot to say from a recent episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians where Kim admits that she didn’t know how to take care of her bi-racial daughter, North’s curly hair. In the episode, Kim honestly states she struggles with trying to style North’s curls that are so different from her own straight hair. “I want her to be proud of her curly hair…Whenever she sees someone with curly hair, she like runs up to them and says ‘you have curly hair like me!’ and I just want to learn how to do it.”
This episode sparked a conversation on many different topics ranging from non-black women who have bi-racial black children, different black hair types, and honest stories from girls who grew up like North struggling with how to fit their hair into a category (if they should). Many people applauded Kim for at least trying to learn how to manage curly hair. She’s had some controversy in the past about weaving North’s curls, and brushing it straight into a bun.
What may seem harmless, and “stylish” to some, can actually be harmful and damaging to others. This is the misconception on different hair types. What a girl with straight hair can do, can be, but shouldn’t necessarily be done to girls with kinky/curly hair. Vice versa with the many versatile styles that can be done with kinky hair, may not hold up well with straight hair. North West’s curly hair falls into that middle category. What most people who aren’t kinky/curly don’t realize is that there is a world out there of information. Educating yourself is the first step, and Kim taking the initiative of wanting her daughter to be proud of her curls is first! Many people were up in arms about Kim weaving North’s curls because her curly hair at that age is fragile, and can break easier than her cousin Penelope’s straight blond hair.
Not to mention weaving hair to make it appear longer or thicker than your original length and volume, some feel, will instill a dislike for your own natural hair. North’s hair is very long alone, but because it’s curly, she has “shrinkage.” Shrinkage is the curling up of the hair shaft. It makes the hair appear shorter than what it really is. The styles were all in good fun when explained by aunt, Khloe Kardashian, but that didn’t stop people from stating their opinions on Kim and Kourtney Kardashian for weaving their daughter’s toddler heads.
Many can become confused by the outrage, not understanding where it stems from. Just hate maybe? Since we all know the Kardashians are prone to receive a lot of it, but the topic of Kim raising a bi-racial child without knowing how to seemingly take care of certain factors or approach certain situations with her children, doesn’t sit well with the many who criticize her for not seeing the bigger picture behind having them. Getting back on topic, some previous comments about North from Kim earned her a few side eyes.
In a recent Jimmy Kimmel interview she described North’s hair as being this ‘wild afro.’ What some thought was a light hearted mother’s description of her own child, others thought was an inconsiderate stab at her blackness. Every mother has funny light hearted names for their children, but many felt that not only Kim, but others out there tend to have a disregard and subtle condescending view on kinky/curly hair. It’s deemed “unprofessional,” “untidy,” and marking it off as “wild” leads to fetishization and even negative stigma. Even celebrity news outlets put the label of “wild” on North’s hair when describing her just out in public with her famous family. Kim has also made other comments, stating that she wanted a baby that was half coffee, half milk before North was born, which is fine, until you don’t know how that baby’s gene pool is going to turn out because 50/50 of black and anything else is random. Why does this all matter in the state of North’s hair? Because it’s bigger than North West. It’s bigger than Kim Kardashian-West.
This topic alone sparks many questionable things that can be said surrounding bi-racial and black hair. Twitter had a lot to say about different topics that can be grouped in to this one episode on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, with a lot of people praising Kim for reaching out to professional black women stylists to help her learn how to manage and maintain North’s curls properly so they can be healthy:
The conversation didn’t stop there, it started up other ones with people stating their opinions on how black/bi-racial hair is received by people who don’t have it as well as the ignorance displayed by people fetishizing biracial babies:
As you can see from the opinions stated above, many people know that a majority of folks are ignorant when it comes to biracial “beauty” and kinky/curly hair. What can be said when coming out of this conversation, is what will we do next to educate ourselves on what we don’t know. Obviously Kim is taking better strides in understanding deeper the “blackness” of her bi-racial children, and she’s come a long way from comparing them to coffee and milk, and trying to slick North’s hair up in a forced straight bun. These are just some things to consider for everyone else in the world. Whether you have bi-racial/black children or not. Kinky/curly hair is a beautiful thing, and it’s a whole other world on it’s own. To this, we say, rock out North West!