Hair can change a person

          We all know Miley Cyrus from the famous Disney series Hannah Montana. She used to be what we call a daddy's girl and was an idol for many young teenagers. But a few years after the Hannah Montana series on Disney Channel ended, she thought about changing her image-- so she cut her long wavy hair short and changed her whole image from a daddy's girl into a wild and ambitious woman. This is a good example of how people use their hair to show they want a change, they want to have a new starting point in life and have a new image. For example, when some people end a relationship they choose to go cut their hair and "show up" as a different person. Either it is going from long hair to medium length hair or long hair to short hair or some people even shave their hair to represent themselves as a whole new person.

I found the close reading passage a good relection of how hair effects girls in our society. Hair has a great emphasis on how a girl is viewed. The repetition in the first 3 lines show how much emotionand effort goes into styling hair.

DELUSION IN ITS PHYSICAL FORM

Above this text is a collage of women that have been talked about on social media in the passed year. From left to right: Rachel Dolezal, Zendaya, Kylie Jenner, and Amandla Sternberg. Now, out of these four women, two of them are committing the heinous crime of cultural appropriation. What is cultural appropriation you may ask? Cultural appropriation is the the act of stealing elements of another's culture in order to look "exotic" or "different". Can you guess which two women are committing such an act? If you answered both Kylie Jenner and Rachel Dolezal then I applaud you. What both of these women and most of America don't seem to understand is that one cannot apply physical elements of another's culture to themselves just for "the look". At the end of the day, women, specifically the black women, who wear these hairstyles cannot shed the stereotypes that come along with wearing their hair a certain way. Such is the case with Zendaya, when wearing her dreads to an award show she was heavily criticized for them; to quote Guliana Rancic of E!'s show "Fashion Police" she said that the 18 year-old looked like she smelled of "patchouli oil" or "weed". Women like Zendaya and Amandla are criticized for expressing their love of their culture while women like Kylie and Rachel are blindly praised and supported for "starting a trend". Hair is significant as it truly does show where an individual comes from, and for someone of another race/culture to steal that is both disrespectful and in poor taste. Hair is not "just hair" it is a form of self expression and the styles themselves carry a heavy history. 

Hair Can Give Off a Different Perspective

I think it is kind of crazy how hair can give off different impressions to certain people. Zach Galifianakis is a good example for me because the one that I am used to seeing on the left reminds me of  a goofy character who can never be taken seriously but the one on the right looks like a business man who is always serious. Even though both images are the same people I don't know if the guy on the right will still be as funny to me as the guy on the left is. Its amazing how such a simple change to ones appearance such as shaving there beard can give another person a different opinion about them, it just goes to show that hair can most definitely be a determining factor on how others view you or how you view others.

The "Hares"

I want to start by saying that these are personally two of my favorite Air Jordan Silhouettes 

ever made. The top is the Air Jordan 8 Bugs Bunny and the bottom is the Air Jordan 7 Bugs

Bunny. Now the interesting thing about these 2 (not to mention the Air Jordan 1 version)

is that they are dubbed as the "Hare" Jordans because of their color scheme which is based

off of the beloved Looney Tunes character Bugs Bunny. He joined forces with Michael Jordan

back in the early 90's in commercials for the shoe to defeat their enemy known as Marvin

the Martian. I have to admit that I am a sucker for a good play on words. I realize that this has

 nothing to do with hair, yet seeing as these are something that greatly interest me, I felt it both appropriate and interesting that the names of these two shoes would be the "Hares".

Hippest Old Man

Not to long ago, on my online trek through the wonders of Facebook articles, I encountered an article that displayed several pictures of old men "hipsters." After reading the article and looking at the pictures the picture that caught my attention and related to the class was this picture right here. I really don't know what gets me to say wow this old dude is really cool. Is it his clothing? His tattoos? Or is it his hair? (Which by the way is pretty on point).

In regards to how this picture relates to the class, I just found it interesting learning how hair can represent one's individuality. In this case this "old man's" hairstyle illustrates that he may be old but he definitely pulls off the trendsetter/debonair style for himself.

REACTIONS TO RACHEL DOLEZAL- What's Hair Got to Do with It?

Earlier this summer, the story around NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal, president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, was at the center of much controversy when it was revealed that Dolezal, who has both identified as a black woman and claimed to have been victim of hate crimes, is in fact white. 

Dolezal's "white" lie (pardoning the pun) left many bewildered, including Dolezal herself, who when interviewed by media outlets couldn't understand what, exactly, she'd done wrong.

Reactions to Dolezal's story continue to run the gamut. While on the one hand many seem amused by her attempts to "pass" as a black woman, on the other there are those who note that her case suggests much more than the ways in which cultural appropriation has become an acceptable practice in our country. In fact, her case, allows for discussions about notions of passing, black womanhood, racial identity and white privilege, among others. At the top center of Dolezal's story is her hair: "natural" sometimes, braided or dreadlocked on other occasions.

The following tweets (posted on thehuffingtonpost.com by 06/12/2015 5:31 pm EDT) deal with passing and, specifically, with Dolezal's hair. A couple of questions to consider:

1. What about Rachel's hair becomes important when discussing issues of racial identity and passing? 
2. Could Rachel Dolezal have gotten away with her impersonation of an African-American woman had her hair been different? 
3. What types of stereotypes did her hair both rely on and further promote in the process?

Posted: 06/12/2015 5:31 pm EDT  Updated: 06/15/2015 1:59 pm EDT