“The style seemed calculated to portray her as the underdog,” Givhan wrote in a column about her last year. She wrote that McKinney’s style was “purposefully out of fashion. Aggressively not slick, ostentatiously humble.”
When McKinney finally retired her braids and started wearing a natural “twist out” style, the litany of comments on blogs and in the media were derogatory and laced with harsh racial overtones.
One of the most offensive remarks was made by syndicated radio commentator and Libertarian Neal Boortz.
During comments about an incident (March 29, 2007) in which McKinney reportedly struck a Capitol Hill police officer while trying to pass a security checkpoint, Boortz said that her new hairdo made her “look like a ghetto slut.”
As much as natural hairstyles get people all worked up, there is no evidence that political wives who wear them can derail their husband’s political aspirations.
Philadelphia’s personable First Lady Lisa Nutter, who has been described as a woman with class, wore locks while her husband Michael served on the city council and didn’t bother to cut or conceal them when he decided to run for mayor. He won handily, and when African-American women of power, influence and success are mentioned in the media, Lisa’s name has shared billing with the likes of Oprah and Michelle.
To roughly paraphrase a line by songstress India.Arie, Michelle is not her hair.
Whether she continues to flaunt the flip like First Lady Kennedy during the presidential campaign or decides to start locks like the First Lady in Philly, her real character should not be superficially determined by what she wears on top of her head.
It should be determined by the intelligence that dwells within it.
Photo courtesy of NaturallyCurly
