On good terms

GIVE THE GIFT of good hair this Christmas” was the subject line of an email that landed in my inbox. For most, the term “good hair” is an innocent concept: speaking to the universal, if subjective, desire to have hair that looks good all day every day. For the black community, however, it is not so innocuous. Rather, it is intrinsically tied to race, and the pernicious idea that black hair textures that are closer to white hair textures are “good” and therefore superior.

Award-winning hairstylist Charlotte Mensah (whose client list includes Zadie Smith and Janelle Monáe) recently added the title of author to her repertoire and with the publication of , Mensah