I went to a meeting this afternoon at a different office. Anyway, they had ethnic diversity pictures up on the wall, and one of them did it by the alphabet. Well, for the letter C, it had Cornrows. It had a cute picture of a little girl with her beads. So that led me to think... why did we stop braiding our hair? At what age did having your hair french braided become uncool? And since cornrows are so 'trendy,' will we no longer see little girls with cornrows and beads?
I agree with you, Krisco, I never had this problem, either. As a matter of fact, the front of my hair is cornrowed now, and I just left the back out. I am versatile with my 'fro!
I have gotten SO many compliments here at the office on the style. And it's not the first time. I wore them when I was in corporate america, too, so it's not just because I'm in nonprofit.
So the nurse's aide can have cornrows and not be unprofessional, but not the doctor? Because she has less education or because she is paid less? Why?
And Alicia Keys did NOT make cornrows popular, just the particular style she wears. Women were wearing cornrows before that. And not just natural heads, either. Where do yall live??? The cornrows were thicker and braided back. Sometimes with wooden beads on the ends and sometimes with just rubberbands and sometimes burnt at the ends. I can remember people having extensions in high school, and the front of the hair was cornrowed with loose braids in the back. That was 10 years ago. CT4, am I trippin? I remember people getting braids in undergrad with cornrowed styles, too. And I've been out of college for 5 years, WAY before Alicia Keys. Please, don't give her credit for something she had NOTHING to do with.
And another thing... why are people so set on giving the employers what they want? Doesn't anyone want to bring about change????? Why is it acceptable that an employer can tell you what to do with your HAIR????? At what point are changes made? Or do we just accept what is thrown at us for the sake of making a dollar? So, the rules aren't the same across the board... do we just leave it at that or try to change the rules? You know, the rules used to be that we were separate but equal. Before that, the rule was we weren't equal at all. So I guess I can pray that one day, my child's hair won't be a determining factor in his/her employment.