Cardi B calls out natural hair bias: 'There's no such thing as bad hair'
The issue of hair bias has generated debates about racism and beauty standards.
Cardi B opened up about her journey with her natural hair and called out hair bias in a viral Instagram post Sunday, telling her millions of fans, "there’s no such thing as bad hair."
"Why everytime I post my natural hair I hear 'you’re MIXED you’re supposed to have long hair'? That’s not true and very misleading," the Grammy-winning rapper wrote in the post along with a series of photos of herself rocking her natural hair.
The hip-hop superstar, whose given name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, was born to a Dominican father and an Afro-Trinidadian mother and grew up in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City. She said that there's a misconception about the hair textures of Black women who have mixed heritage and opened up about her hair care routine -- a topic that she has been documenting on her pinned Instagram story, "HAIR DAY."
"Being mixed don’t mean your hair is always long and curly, that wasn’t my case," she wrote, sharing a photo of herself with an afro as a child.
"Since I was a child I have problems with managing my hair and couple years ago I find different methods that work for me and look at my length now," she added, referencing additional photos she shared of her natural hair growing over the past few years.
Cardi said there's a misconception that women with her hair texture can't have long, natural hair and encouraged her fans to check out her Instagram story documenting her hair care routine where she shares some hair care tips that she learned over the years.
The rapper, who has more than 114 million followers on Instagram, shared an uplifting message to celebrate natural hair, telling her fans, "I want women of color with tighter curl patterns to know that you don’t have 'BAD HAIR' there’s no such thing as bad hair. [And] 'good' hair don’t mean a certain texture. ALL HAIR IS GOOD."
The "Invasion of Privacy" rapper has opened up about her hair journey in the past and shared the recipe for her moisturizing avocado-based hair mask that she uses to care for her 3-year-old daughter Kulture's hair.
The issue of hair bias has generated debates about racism and beauty standards and has come into focus in the political sphere amid a reinvigorated social justice movement and the rise of Black Lives Matter.
Several cities and states have taken action to combat the issue through "The Crown Act," a law that bans discrimination against race-based ethnic hairstyles in workplaces and schools.
There are currently no federal laws that address hair discrimination, but the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is advocating for making the Crown Act law in all 50 states.
According to the NAACP, as of June 2021 the Crown Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” has been signed into law in 28 municipalities and 13 states: California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, New Mexico, Delaware, Nebraska, Nevada and Oregon.
Federal legislation to tackle the issue of hair discrimination was reintroduced in both chambers of Congress in March 2021 by New Jersey Democratic lawmakers Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Sen. Cory Booker.
ABC News' Jacqueline Laurean Yates contributed to this report.
