What are non-negative terms African Americans and other Blacks use to describe Black hair?

Here you go - about the term "nappy" and includes an example about a man..at least it starts as an example of a man going to a barber.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/08/09/412886884/the-racial-roots-behind-the-term-nappy

"Turns out, the origins of the term are complex. Nappy's history is tangled up in the arrival of the first slave ships on the coastlines of the Americas in the 17th century. The likely origin of the term is the word nap, which was used to describe the frizzled threads raising from a piece of fabric. There is a lot of speculation that nap was redefined as a disparaging phrase for the coils and kinks in the hair of the African enslaved, in connection with the fields of cotton that drove the Colonial economy.

(There's also a largely discredited theory out there that the term comes from the British use of nappy to describe a diaper, or someone dirty or unruly.)"

Okay. I recall you said in a recent thread that was posted you had a geneology test done and you found out you have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.

I was going to ask you if you could please help with this thread. Thank you for responding.

Only 4.5% of my DNA omposition is linked to Sub-saharan Africa.
For comparison, 5.8% of my DNA is Spanish/Portuguese and 3.7% is East Asian.

Okay. Thank you for sharing that.

-FIXED.

You don't consider yourself Black. You've heard of the "one-drop rule" correct?

You do realize that the one drop rule was used by racist lawmakers in the US to limit the rights of non-white people, right?

Why do you insist in using a long discredited racist policy that the US has abandoned years ago?

No I didn't know that. In the U.S. a person is considered Black if they have any Sub-Saharan African ancestry.

That was true, in the days before the American Civil War and in some states after the war. The concept became truly defunct after the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement.

Not so much nowadays.

Whatever. The U.S. Census categories people by race and ethnicity.

I'm not an expert on history like my dad was.

Yes, the Census has those choices, but people can choose what race or ethnicity they are. The government are not the ones who are deciding who belongs to which race in the Census.

The one drop rule was taught (to me at least) in middle school, not in a college level history course.

I learned about the "one-drop rule" in middle school.

[quote]Are there any other Black members of this site who can please answer this question?[/quote]

TONSORIALLY TITIVATED TOUSLE



She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hell that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know
It's not for lack of bread
Like the Grateful Dead
Darling

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

Down to here
Down to there
I want hair
Down to where
It stops by itself

They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair

My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Thank you for responding but I'm not interested in your hippie mumbo-jumbo.

Are you sure?

Hippy Mumbo Jumbo could be the name of an anthropomorphic elephant in one of your cartoons.

I'm not sure that there is one specific type of "African hair". I haven't researched this but there were many different tribes and cultures in the continent and there may have been differences between hair texture as there were between other physical attributes. Bushmen and Pygmies look different from Masais and Yorubas. And for African-Americans the differences are even greater as so many U.S. blacks have a measure of European ancestry as well as African. My DNA is nearly 20% sub-saharan and I used to get called "Brillo-head" when I was a kid! I think "kinky", "tightly-curled", "woolly", and just "African" are non-negative descriptions and can be used without offense.

True but I was told I should stay away from doing anthropomorphic stuff. I am capable of drawing human characters.

Thank you for sharing that. I recall when I was in grade school and middle school kids made fun of me because I usually kept my hair in an Afro. I recall one time in middle school there was a White boy who passed by me in the school corridor or bridge and as he passed by he looked at me and said, like a stereotypical White youth (like Bill and Ted), "Hey DUDE now I got an Afro just like you!"

Dudespeak and dude culture was a big thing back in the late '80s and early '90s.

I wasn't offended or mad at that boy I just thought he was crazy.

People used to make fun of my Afro when I was young and I didn't care. Kids used to make fun of me for wearing combat boots when I was in grade school and middle school.

Ironically, years later, in the mid '90s (around the time I was in art college), if I remember right, and beyond Afros and combat boots became mainstream. Some people in the mid-to-late '90s walked around with pics in their hair, but I never did that.

I think combat boots did become popular when I was in high school but I think they became more mainstream when I was in art college in the mid-to-late '90s. I do recall seeing rappers wearing cbat boots in old '90s music videos.

Some people I have seen now still sport Afros. Rapper Redfoo has one and so does singer/comedian/musician Reggie Watts. The only person I know of now who has a pick in his Afro is Questlove.

I've been wearing my hair in an Afro for decades. Who cares what kids thought about my hair back in grade school and elementary school and who cares what people think of it now.

People didn't make fun of my Afro in high school and art college.

If you don't mind me asking, were you subject to a lot of racial abuse as a kid or teen?

I was subject to some to a degree as a kid or teen.