It’s almost 2023. Black people shouldn’t still feel pressure to change their hair.

As a Black woman in America, I spent decades feeling as if I had no choice but to straighten my hair.

Former first lady Michelle Obama has felt the same pressure. While on book tour last month, Obama told a Washington, D.C., audience that she would have preferred the ease of wearing her hair braided while living in the White House, but decided against it to give the country time to acclimate to having its first Black president. “Let me keep my hair straight,” Obama said she told herself back then, according to the Washington Post. “Let’s get health care passed.”

Pause and let that sink in: A first lady decided not to style her hair in a way that Black women have done for centuries because she felt Americans might not be ready for it. She joked that her critics — some of whom were all over her the time she fist-bumped her husband onstage — would have said: “Those are terrorist braids! Those are revolutionary braids!”

Kidding aside, Obama understood clearly what she was up against. Historically, Black women have been told — sometimes indirectly, other times directly — that wearing our hair in so-called ethnic hairstyles isn’t an option. Research shows that African American women who don’t straighten their hair are often perceived as less professional, or even unkempt.

I started becoming aware of this aspect of racial discrimination at an early age. When I was in elementary school, my mother and the hairstylist she sometimes hired would straighten my hair with a hot metal comb heated on our kitchen stove. I remember sitting really still and holding down my ear, so it wouldn’t get singed. Afterward my scalp would sometimes ache, but my hair would be straight and silky — at least until the next time it rained or the humidity hit it and it reverted back to its natural texture.

I started getting my hair chemically relaxed as soon as I could. For a time in college, I switched to long-braided styles, which gave me a much-needed break from harsh chemicals. My hair loved it, and grew thick and healthy. But once graduation rolled around, I made sure to go to a salon and get my hair straightened for job interviews. As much as I loved the freedom that the braids afforded me, I didn’t want my hairstyle to get in the way of a job offer.

That was years ago. Although things have greatly improved, thanks in part to the natural hair movement, we still have a long way to go.

That’s why I applauded earlier this year when Fox 29 TV anchor Alex Holley anchored Good Day Philadelphia with her hair styled in long braids. Holley knew she was taking a risk, and informed her parents ahead of time. They warned her to be prepared for possible pushback from viewers.

“I was shaking,” she said onstage, recalling her first day on camera in braids during a recent conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission about the CROWN Act, which would make hair discrimination illegal. “I really was terrified because I didn’t know what to expect.”

She got rave reviews. In taking that small but significant leap, Holley joined a growing number of Black female broadcast journalists who have joined the #NaturalHairOnAir movement, and are rocking braids, cornrows, and their natural hair textures on-air — something that used to be unheard of.

The fact that so many other African American women still feel as if they have to manipulate their hair to conform to a white, mainstream ideal is why we need the CROWN Act, which bars discrimination against those wearing braids, locs, twists, bantu knots, and other ethnic hairstyles.

The CROWN Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” has already passed the U.S. House but is stalled in the Senate. Numerous states and municipalities (including Philadelphia) have passed their own measures making hair discrimination unlawful. It’s way past time that Pennsylvania joined that list.

Some Black men grapple with this issue as well. At the CROWN conference, former NFL player Kris Wilson said that after graduating from UCLA’s law school, he interviewed at a law firm and found himself having a conversation with someone there about whether his hair — in locs — was “going to be turning clients off.” Wilson wound up doing a career about-face and now works as a producer and director for NFL Films. There was also the New Jersey high school wrestler who made national headlines in 2019 after he was forced to cut his locs or else forfeit a match. In 2020, a Texas high school student with locs was told he wouldn’t be allowed to walk with his class at graduation unless he cut his hair as well.

“This is something that Black folks have experienced for years,” Pam Gwaltney, deputy director of compliance with the city’s Commission on Human Relations, said at the CROWN Conference in November. “I think it’s because it’s perceived to be different and not perceived to be the norm.”

The pressure put on Black women to change their natural hair isn’t just an imposition of time, but it’s also expensive — chemical relaxers easily can cost upwards of $100 and need regular touchups every few months. It puts our health at risk, too. In October, the National Institutes of Health released a study linking the use of chemical hair straighteners to a higher risk of uterine cancer.

I haven’t had my hair chemically straightened in years. I’m older and bolder these days and wear my hair in all kinds of ways to match my mood or whatever it is that I’m doing. I’m luckier than many because as a newspaper columnist, I have more freedom to be myself, relative to people who work in more conservative industries such as banking or law.

As for Holley, she’s back to her trademark curls that cascade past her shoulders. Although the initial response to her braids was positive, she noticed that public reaction seemed to shift over time.

“I guess [viewers] thought it was just like a little gimmick, that I would do it for a day and then go back to what I usually wore,” she told the audience at the CROWN conference. “Over time — because I had [braids] in for a couple of months — the [audience] messages started to change. ‘So, when are you going back to your real hair?’ ... or ‘Hey, we liked you better the other way.’”

“The longer I wore it, the more difficult it got,” she recalled.

Eventually, Holley, who also cohosts The Feed at Night, removed the braids, but she plans to return to the style in the future.

“I should be able to wear [my hair] how I want and do with it what I want and free myself from other people’s opinions and what they think,” she pointed out.

When they passed the microphone around for questions, I stood up and told the audience that Holley had demonstrated tremendous courage that first time she anchored the news with her hair braided. The applause she got was deafening — and well-deserved.