“I AM NOT MY HAIR”: Dove is Fighting to End Black Hair Discrimination — and You Can, Too!
Black hair is beautiful, and wonderfully versatile. We can wear our hair straight or curly; kinky, wavy, knotted, braided, plaited, loc’d, short, long, bobbed…the options are endless.
Still, Black women and girls are often subjugated to societal pressures to conform to beauty standards fostered by outdated prejudices about what’s academically “fitting” or professional — and unfortunately Black men and boys are not immune to this kind of discrimination either.
In 2019, California became the first state in the U.S. to pass the CROWN Act — Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural hair — which ends race-based hair discrimination in workplaces and in K–12 public and charter schools. Championed by then-California Senator Holly Mitchell and galvanized by Esi Eggleston Bracey, former COO and head of beauty and personal care for Unilever PLC North America (the makers of Dove personal care products), the CROWN Act has become a movement in government and private sectors aimed at ending hair discrimination nationwide.
“This isn’t about hair,” says Mitchell, now a Los Angeles County Supervisor. “This is about discrimination, and us creating a culture shift where we acknowledge that a Eurocentric standard of beauty…
