Like most people, braids on men never bothered me before, but the older I got the more they disturbed me as I found many traits I disliked seemed to be found in men with braids, or as I like to say, men who wear their hair like little girls.
The first thing I have noticed is that grown men with braids tend to either not have jobs, or very low paying jobs where they can basically get away with looking any old kind of way. You’ll never find a man with braids in any professional type of environment as there is most likely a dress code to adhere to and a man with braids would automatically be breaking that code. Let’s face it, nobody is gonna hire a braid wearing, beads hanging from the end Brotha to help run their company… they just aren’t.
I also find men with braids are extremely looks conscious to the point where they won’t work jobs that require them to cut their hair. Their hair is a part of their overall look and they are not willing to give that up… not even for a pay hike. It seems a lot of Brothas also keep braids in their hair as a way of bucking the White man’s system that demands they look a certain way. Now I am not against that at all. But if you are gonna buck the White man’s system you had better have your own to back you up.
But what I find most unappealing about men with braids is that they seem incredibly immature and not quite ready to grow up. I have yet to meet a Man that wore braids in his hair. I have met plenty of Boys, but not one man. Some of those boys were over 30 but their mentality that was that of a teenager. Rather than caring about the things adults care about, they care about the things of teenagers: looking cool, dressing fly and being down. Believe me I know of what I speak. When my ex decided to dump his family and hit the clubs again, he immediately ran out and got braids. I know you all think I’m reaching here but I am not. There is a direct link between immature, unemployed, baby daddies and braids.
Don’t believe me… pay extra close attention to the men you come in contact with who have braids in their hair. Mark my words, they will have 90% of the traits I mentioned above and then some.
Holla back y’all 
[tags]Black Hairstyles, Braids, Black Haircare, African American Haircare[/tags]
Some of you have to realize that the reasons many of our people wore braids and afros back in the day is not neccesarily why some of our young people wear them today.
There is no political point to braid and afro wearing hairstyles today.Everything is about the thug culture.
Snoop Dogg didn’t don an afro as a Black Power symbol.He wore his afro as a part of his pimp act.There was no political statement to that.His afro was nothing but an accesory.Snoop was repping 70′s thug culture and the Brothas today with the girly braids and uncoiffed hairdos are doing the same- only 21st century style.
Don’t try to attach a political or Black Power message to people walking around looking like girls and acting like thugs and homo-thugs.
These dirty braids that these guys are wearing is like the afro Snoop was sporting.It’s all a part of a husler’s image they are trying to project.
See it for what it is people…
Greetings!
I am in Kemet (Egypt) and have been here on and off since 2001. I let my hair grow to about a five-inch Afro and received mad push-back. I pressed on, and refused to defend my “right” to grow my hair -after accepting that my insistence on an Afro might cause me to miss a meal or two.
I recently cut my hair bacause I have no experience with long hair and ‘hair maintenance’ became a distraction to a last-minute dresser.
As with all things pertaining to the Afrikan in Amerikkkan experience -this seemingly superficial and “finger-pointing” opinion goes much deeper.
Those who reject our natural appearance and expression reject our Afrikan-ness, period. Whatever about us they can identify becomes a symbol of that rejection for mocking and scorn.
Lest we forget, the historical experience of Afrikans in the “new world” was the attempt by yt towards total elimination of all things Afrikan about Afrikan peoples.
There will ALWAYS be a negative response to any outward sign of ethnic expression of Afrikan-ness by “mainstream Amerikkka.”
Our challenge is to separate the wheat from the chaff.
It cannot be said with certainty that all Afrikan men who wear cornrows are effiminate, lazy, non-working immature wannabe’ thugs.
Some who wear cornrows exhibit some of and a combination of these traits.
Are cornrows the cause or even the effect? I can’t say, though I will assert that cornrows are likely not the core-issue.
The Sista’ spoke from her personal experience (if I read with comprehension).
My initial impulse was to immediately “come-back” with the Afro-centric response.
Catching myself (after reading other posts where my perspective is represented), my observation and fear is that men who wear braids will or have become “a sign and a wonder” that brandishes the Afrikan-male wearer as the “shiftless negro.”
Let’s be careful.
WE MAY NOT AGREE WITH EVERYONE’S POINT OF VIEW, HOWEVER EVERYONE’S POINT OF VIEW IS VALID!
I plead to to all concerned Afrikans who never receive relief from fighting and defending the Afrikan-image (globally) to not join the chior in assinating the Afirkan image and consciousness.
The economic impact of Afrikan cultural exression is an example of having to choose between free cultural expression and cultural assimilation in exchange for economic subsustence.
As long as Afrikans are economically dependent on the yt-supremacist capitalist system, we will struggle with concerns such as these.
While black-businesses are a means towards liberation, they are a stepping-stone that will not extend us immunity from the perceptions and prejudices of yte folks. Let us not do thier bidding amongst ourselves.
I also would caution against calling any and every Afrikan who outwardly expresses criticim of other Afrikan a “self-hater.” The truth still hurts!
Finally, the brids/cornrows are innocent! I *think* that we can move towards impacting the mentality of Afrikan men who are engaging in self-destructive behavior who happen to also wear cornrows while at the same time preserving the cultural value and beautiy of cornrows themselves.
If some of us are of the opinion that morphing into the “safe negro” for economic advancement is necessary to attain the material experience of Amerikkka, call it what it is and be honest about it -it is ASSIMILATION.
At the same time, it is SELF-DESTRUCTIVE to hide behind ‘cultural expression’ as a means of avoiding responsibility.
Much love and appreciation for the opportunity to learn, grow and share. If we don’t get there together, there is no “there” to get to!
Peace & Blessings!
I appreciate your straight-forwardness in bringing up this issue, and the way you’ve defended your position with just the right balance of humor & seriousness. What I’m learning from reading the comments is that we black people have a romanticized vision of ourselves that doesnt allow for questioning those things that are categorized as “our culture”. I was around in the late 1960′s when we first started wearing our hair natural, slaves no more to “European beauty standards”.
That went on until somewhere in the mid-seventies when the afro was overtaken by the jerri-curl, which as far as I could tell was like an advanced permanent…
I wish I’d asked the kinds of questions about the jerri-curl that you’re raising now where black men and braids are concerned…The re-emergence of straightened hair amongt black people in the midst of the black-consciousness movement…
How does the old saying go? Is it the clothes that make the man, or is it the man that make the clothes?
My hair has remained nappy all these years. As it turns grey & thins out, going the way of dust, I think its worth considering in this conversation as a reminder of why it’s important and at the same time it can be wholly vain thinking about these outward appearances including skin color. The great Equalizer.
vashti
Well it’s about time that SISTERS STARTED setting some standards for themselves. It looked to me as though sisters had all but given up on US REAL MEN. A few years ago when my oldest son was about three my ex and my son’s God mother braided my son’s hair and I HIT THE CEILING. I was FURIOUS and TWO BLACK WOMEN MIND YOU; both of whom I loved at the time tried to make me believe that I was wrong. But maybe that’s why OUR FAMILIES ARE IN SUCH DISARRAY. It seems OUR COMMUNITY HAS LOST THE ABILITY to tell the difference between a man and a boy pretending to be a man. We seem to WANT OUR CAKE and to be able to EAT IT TO. We want GOD TO FIX OUR LIVES and OUR FAMILIES but WE’RE NOT WILLING TO LIVE RIGHT. A man NEEDS TO HAVE THE APPEARANCE OF A MAN. If he doesn’t UNDERSTAND THIS BASIC TRUTH then he certainly can’t lead a FAMILY. And if he can’t LEAD A FAMILY then HE’S NOT A MAN. Being BORN MAN won’t make him a man. He NEEDS AN EDUCATION, A CAREER, A GOD, and A VISION. Without THESE THINGS he WILL NEVER BE A MAN…
Thanks Dave R. for representing for the REAL men!!! Brothers need to stop effeminate madness, and they know it, which is why they are so upset! Stop primping and build some schools and some hospitals for your people. Do some international trade and commerce. Get married. Something!!!
Some of you are bringing up several different issues in the post. You can see how difficult it can be to make the distinction between correlation (establishing and recognizing it) and causation. Some of you are talking about issues pertaining to manhood. Others are talking about issues of hairstyle. Some say there is some sort of connection between the two. Others say, or at least imply, that hair style is the root cause of the problem. For those who believe the hair style is the root cause, you need to think about the issue more. Maybe we can write a grant to supply every black family with some of those cheap Oster clippers I’ve seen at Walmart. We can pick a nice, safe European Holiday (Thanksgiving) and “scalp” everyone. The “buzz” generated will be tremendous. I’m being sarcastic, but I think you get my point. Do you think that eliminating braids will eliminate whatever problem you think is there? This sounds like the “George Bush method of problem solving”. And if you “think” about what that means, then you don’t subscribe to it.
Some of you are even worse. Let me find out we got some up and coming Bill Bennetts posting on this blog. 
Seriously though, I’m going to make a couple of observations. Feel free to disagree. First, Black men are convenient scapegoats for everything: Crime, Violence, Disease, Poverty, Dropout Rates, ect. I am not saying that we don’t suffer greatly from these issues, but I claim we are the scapegoats. There is no empathy or sympathy for the conditions we face. We are blamed for all of these issues. This, in turn, makes people less likely to do anything to want to change those conditions. It almost doesn’t matter what issue is being discussed. We could be talking about the record profits of Oil Companies. There will always be someone who will tie it right back to some failing in the Black man. I can already see a new blog entry. “Maybe if Black men weren’t so lazy, trying to start harems overseas, they would do a better job protecting those pipelines and gas prices would be so high”.:) And there would be plenty of people who would receive those comments and accept them at face value. Prop2 said, “Of course we all can name possibly a phone books worth of highly educated and well off Black Americans. However, they are the minority.” I wonder how many people commenting here really love black people and would fight for them understanding that we come in many different hues and have many different hair textures and styles. I’m not really surprised by many of the responses. You have to know your audience. I already know that anyone who is supports or defends anything associated with black people is facing an uphill battle. It’s the nature of this society.
I’ve noticed(again, these are just personal observations) that as soon as someone points the finger at black men (and this applies in other situations too) as the root cause of a problem, one or two things are usually true: 1) they are extremely frustrated and/or 2) they don’t fully understand the problem. I can understand the first one. The situation is bleak, but it is not hopeless. The second one is the more troubling of the two. You may claim that black men with braids are, by and large, immature, unemployed, criminals. I could claim that the reason this is so is because black women don’t keep their legs close. They’ll mate with anyone who flashes money or jewels like the plumage of a peacock. Am I right? If my claim bothers anyone then I would just defer to Rene’s comment (replacing sister for brother and vice versa),
“The fact that some of the Brothers are so sensitive about it indicates that the Sister is right on it. As Malcolm X once said, “If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that hollers is the one that got hit.”
Are we both right? I’m sure the miseducated within and without my community would agree. “Yes,” they would say, “the problem is with black people as a whole.” In any case, we would have all failed to see the problem in the larger context. The problem does not originate within us, but I think we all can agree that the solution does start with us. Until we begin to think more critically about these issues and drop the divisive finger pointing, we will never make any real progress, individually or collectively. But at least we can take solace in the fact that we are right (by gut feeling and/or consensus). In the meantime, the community continues to suffer. And isn’t it just like black people to sacrifice the health of the community for individual gain or aggrandizement? Ain’t it just like black people to not look at the bigger picture and focus only on what’s been placed directly in front of their eyes? Ain’t it???
People we’ve got to BE ABLE TO SEE the forest in spite of the trees. This is really NOT JUST ABOUT HAIR; It’s about a dangerous trend. It’s about a SLIPPERY SLOAP SITUATION that’s bound to end in tragedy for the black man. That situation is the feminazation of the black man. In the racist, sexist, classist society that we live in the black man is seen as a LIABLITY that needs to be done away with. I’m concerned that as time goes by more and more men will take on the appearance of A WOMAN and NOT EVEN BE BOTHERED BY IT. It’s a SUBCONCIOUS THING. Let me GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE. I’m a PROBATION OFFICER with the GEORGIA DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS and on NUMEROUS OCCASIONS I’ve had my probationers come to my office with THEIR DREADS, or BRAIDS tied into TWO PONYTAILS. We NEED TO BE CAREFUL BROTHERS and we NEED TO PRAY FOR DIRECTION. We’re AT A DANGEROUS TIME in our existance….1st Corinthians 13:11 says “When I was a child I thought like a child, talked like a child, and reasoned like a child. But WHEN I BECAME A MAN I put CHILDISH THINGS BEHIND ME….Take care family and GOD BLESS………….
I don’t know if I can agree that brothers who wear braids are necessarily effeminate since it has been pointed out here that men wearing braids ,as well as ear rings, dates back to black history in ancient Kemet (Egypt) where it can be shown that black men did in fact where braids. Unless you consider black men in ancient Kemet “effeminate” one could make a credible argument that “braids” are expression of modernized ancient black culture. I don’t think one can make sweeping generalization about black men who wear braids are effeminate.
What others are saying about this article:
1. Black Informant
2. The Effiminization Of Black Men
3. Afrocentric Online
be serious never mind those homo thugs that you got caught up with. look at the bigger picture. what about dredlocks. these styles have been around for years not just the 21 century. if you have a man who is secure in his manhood(not a wannabee) its sad to see so much self hate. DISGUSTING go date a white guy
I was born and mostly raised in Nigeria, West Africa, until I was 13yrs old. I have lived in the US since, and I am now 34. I never saw mature responsible professional black men with braids in Nigeria, and I don’t see them here. To claim that men wearing braids is a sign of your ‘african-ness’ is just an excuse for vanity. I’m sick of the bastardization of so-called ‘african’ culture. First off, Africa has way too many cultures to distill everything down to one ‘African’ culture. It’s time for black folks to stop using Africa as a scapegoat for why we don’t want to do what needs to be done.
Yetunde; what is it we need to do?
What are we doing wrong when we celebrate or learn who we are and where we come from?
Why do you imagine it to be a problem for blacks in America to make efforts to find and celebrate their roots in Africa?
“An excuse for vanity?” If I, as a man, told you that the only reason I began to grow my hair is because I began to study, care for and respect the history of African people across the continent, no matter the many cultures they resonate from, why am I vain to want to immulate and celebrate it.
People around the world celebrate their history and culture. But the African in America is told to conform, and get along and assimilate, play the game, forget about Africa, let it go.
Why?
Why must we forget who we are and let go of Africa, with her myriad of hues, lives, cultures, beliefs systems and beautiful bodies?
Less than seventy years ago, our parents were taught to bow their heads and dear not look a white man in the face, let alone talk anything impolite to a white woman, other wise the lynch mob was coming. We were taught to be good, polite smiling negros to survive in America.
And we bowed, and walked in the streets because we weren’t allowed to brush too close up against white folk. We were forced into a fear of living along side whites, and today, we are still teaching our children that in order to survive, we have to be good clean “African Americans,” and cut our hair, keep it neat, wear the right cloths, play the game and show those pearly whites. Don’t be too intimidating.
Are we afraid to continue the growth that we are destined to after becoming freed men and women. That was only part of the liberation of who we are.
Why are we still telling one another to be good negros to survive here in America?
I imagine its becasue we love one another.
For my christian brothers and sisters, when will you begin again to take stands like your predecessors. Do you believe your work to be done, so now all you have to do is wait for jesus to come?
How do you stand idolly (pun intended) by and let black men start homosexual churches and promote homosexual marriage in the name of jesus christ, but you look down on the brother who hasn’t had the proper models in front of him to teach him to be a man. So he gets his images from the television. But none of you good, law abiding folk, protest the images you see or receive on BET or any other movie. Ask yourselves, why is that every black movie that has come out in the past 15 years has a flamboyant homosexual who gets along so well with the women in the salon. Why do accept that yet criticize the young boy down the street becasue of his pants or his braids?
Someone spoke of priorities on this blog. Black Honey, what would it sound like if you told your sisters that you have grown tired of those men who try so hard to be women? Sister, I feel for you in your search for a good decent man. I really do. And we are here, looking for and finding good women. I can attest to having a gorgeous black woman myself. And it began rocky, and sometimes it still is, but we try, firstly to learn one another, before we reject one another. But that’s neither here nor there.
I’d like to see some of the same women who criticized all of the young men with braids here on your site, send letters to Tyra and ask her to get rid of the black man in drag on her show. Write letters to the movie producers who put black men in dresses and tell them that you are tired of that being the example of black men on tv. Please put an effort into addressing the exploitation of black women in videos.
To all those parents who let their children visit 106 and Park, ask them to stop. Keep your children away from the show that puts the same videos on tv daily. Turn the channel when it comes on. Yes, the television is nurturing our children today, so care about what they are watching. Talk your children into no longer buying one more cd where the video to a song as a half naked black woman in it. Boycot BET for the videos, make them change. We have so many opinions about ourselves, yet, some of the most horrific conditions that attack our community go unchecked. We heckle one another over hair, while predators pray on our children.
Your blog proves two things. There are so many black people who have access to multi media and so many of us are willing to respond, maybe even take action. I mean, some of the responses from the women here sounded as if they were ready to take picket signs to the street in protest of black men with braids.
Maybe that is the most pressing issue to some of you, but there is so much more ill that affects our communities than braids. So, I’m still looking forward to your next blog.
One Love
Miles
Now come on ladies. I find my Black men quite didtinguish with their braids.Considering the fact that it is a part of us and no carbon copy of anyones other lifestyle.Although when it comes to grooming for the ocassion whatever it may be some may need to reconsider before leaving home.
Dreads I find distinguishing, especially on an older man.But definitely not braids on anyone older than 5.
Wow, black sisters, is that all we can do with our day is insult our brothas? This blog is shameful.
Always quick to assume rather than defend. No better than your white counterparts, which you probably attempt everyday to imitate.
I know many black professional men WITH braids, both white and blue collar (though you probably don’t give our blue collar men respects for what they are doing).
Some tribes in Africa and South America wear their braids with pride.
How about you get out of your little box and see the world…you would be surprised on how foolish your generalizations are.
Stumbled across this blog post and was surprised at how differing the opinions were. I have worked in corporate America for years and honestly, I have not seen ONE man with cornrowed hair in those offices. I knew one gentleman with twists, one with dreads kept shoulder length and pulled back, but they were not in upper management positions. Now, these companies were not progressive lines of business (they were large financial advisory firms, insurance firms and professional consulting firms that dealt primarily in the US). I am aware that many companies that work in multi-ethnic and trans-atlantic business deals, that have exposure to varied cultures, and/or that have a younger management staff or CEO seem to be more accepting, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to exist here. While I do not agree with the blanket stereotype about men with braids, I do understand the frustration. As black women we deal with as much discrimination as the men do. It is hard to have to conform to social stereotypes in order to get better paying jobs, only to find that there are a selection of men who do not want to do that, and so therefore do not go after jobs that would require them to alter their appearance. No one is saying that they are not attractive (on some, not all) and no one is saying that there are not exceptions to the rule. I would wear certain styles of braids, but when I worked for the Investment Banking firm, I did not keep my cornrowed hair in long because I was not included in client meetings and not asked to travel to client events during that time – something I can directly attribute to my appearance as it is a direct reflection on the company. the same amount of time that is spent on buying the proper rims for a car, the proper shoes to go with the proper suit, the proper chain and earring – I want people, men and women – to spend that same amount of time just considering if their personal style preference is holding them back in any way…
And this is not just a black thing, because I have also yet to see a white person with dreadlocks, cornrows, or even micro braids in a high level position either. FYI