Statement of Purpose

So, what is my objective? This will be my second semester working on this project, and I am just beginning grasp what I want to know. Initially, I was interested in understanding why black women reject their hair in its natural state. I never realized the role HAIR plays in the African-American community until I decided to go natural myself. The responses to my transition prompted to me to learn how HAIR has become a defining aspect of African-American culture. As I researched the history of hair in the African-American community I begin to wonder how did we "Black women" develop our conceptualization of hair. I have become passionate about the development of beauty standards in the African-American community because I feel that our negative connotations for natural black hair and some of the skin complexes we develop manifests into self-hatred. This is only a hypothesis and thus I have begun a research project to understand how African-American women develop beauty standards and the implications of our beauty standards.