Bo Braids and the Politically Incorrect

From Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Blcak Hair in America, Chapter 5--"Politically Incorrect--Black Hair's New Attitude: 1980-1994," (pp.100-104).

"What Farrah Fawcett did for the cascading mane, Bo Derkek is doing for braids," Newsweek magazine proclaimed in 1980.

Ironically, the era that began with Blacks exploring a new visual aesthetic of natural, nappy hair and African-inspired styles ended with a White woman being  championed by the mainstream as the embodiment of beauty for wearing one such look. In 1979 Bo Derek made the movie 10. In it she wore her hair in cornrows with beads on the end, the same style that Cicely Tyson had worn more than a decade earlier. By 1980, on the pages of Time and Newsweek and in the lexicon of the population at large, cornrows had come to be known as "Bo Braids." Even those mainstream publications that took the time to note the African roots of the style seldom included photos of Black women wearing them.

Some like to point to Bo Derek as an example of America's embracing a multicultural, more inclusive beauty ideal." (the rest of the article will be available as class handout!)

Alicia Keys--