Residents, a podcaster from the moderately popular podcast ‘cancel culture’ has come under fire for her claims that black women who wear more ‘Westernised’ hairstyles are ‘not authentically black’. The platform describes their own content as the discussion of ‘topics that may get [them] canceled’ - as you might expect these podcasters are no strangers to controversy. 

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In the widely-circulated snippet of their podcast, a woman who appears to be of Caucasian lineage can be heard telling her audience ‘Black women shouldn’t want their hair Westernised, why do they want it Westernised?’

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A succession of pictures of black women wearing synthetic hair, particularly weave, then appear across the video - to further clarify what the podcaster means by ‘Westernised’ hairstyles. The podcaster then goes on to rub more people the wrong way when she states black women who wear these styles are ‘straying from their natural route’ and even more ‘trying to be something they’re not’. She goes on to accuse women who attempt to ‘fit into’ a Western beauty standard of ‘watering down’ who they ‘naturally’ are. When finally prompted by her co-host and asked ‘why can’t they just want straight hair … because they just feel like it looks better on them?’.

The female problem-starter then puts forth another of her controversial opinions, stating that black women do not want straight hair because they think it looks good on them but rather because they’ve seen it ‘on the white girl’.

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As one might expect from the Cancel Culture podcast, many commenters took to the comment section to express their disagreement. Among the focal points made against the podcaster is that she is the ‘wrong messenger’.

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The nuances of texturism and colourism which affect the black community can often be far too subtle or obscure for people outside of the black community to detect. This is why many black men and women were understandably outraged in the comment section, with one commenting ‘Telling black women they aren't authentically black IS NOT a statement for you to be making.’

There is a concordance in the comment sections that whilst some of her points may even be valid - without the full context of the black experience she should not be talking on intracommunal issues. 

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Some elements of that black experiences were detailed by commenters, for example - the ways in which black women are often taught black hairstyles are unprofessional, the pressure for black women to assimilate and one black male even added that ‘Afro’s were banned’ at his school. The effect of over-policing our hair, disqualifying Afro hair from the beauty standard of Western culture and associating ‘tame’ Caucasian hair with professionalism have all impacted the relationship black people (women in particular) have with their hair.

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What you might also detect is that this podcaster gives her diatribe in broken Ebonics, stating ‘chat to a woman in Africa… innit’ and declaring herself a ‘naturalist’. It’s unclear if the podcaster has just been heavily exposed to and influenced by black culture, regardless the sentiment in the comments continually returned to her being an inappropriate messenger to the black community - many went as far as to tell her to direct her energy towards the ever-growing rate of artificial lip filler and other synthetics being consumed by white women in recent years.

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