Melanie Fiona Sparks Backlash with Comments on Mixed Heritage and Hair Growth
“Good hair” is a loaded phrase in the black community, as it often excludes kinkier textures and tighter coils in preference of straight locks or loose curls. It’s a sensitive topic, and the firestorm surrounding Melanie Fiona’s comments to Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles and Care Guide shows that the wounds are still fresh.
Here’s an excerpt from Fiona’s feature in the June/July 2012 issue:
SBH: What’s the secret to your gorgeous long hair?
Melanie Fiona: I was born with a full head of hair, and my mom wouldn’t let me cut it until I was 12! I’m mixed – my mom is Black and Portuguese and my dad is Indian so I have a good mix for growth.
Some bloggers were outraged that Fiona would attribute growth to her mixed roots. Ebony of Longing4Length.com writes:
“In the future when asked this same question, a much better response would be “I’ve been blessed to always have a head full of hair and never had to concentrate on growing it long.” You can acknowledge your ethnicity but that whole ‘good mix for growth’ girl, if I were part of your PR and marketing team, that statement would be forever banned from your vocabulary! Secondly, where have you been Melanie? Did you not get the memo that we are trying to do away with the term “good hair” in all of its traditional uses?! I need to send her one of those popular t-shirts with the slogan: I got good hair – I got African in my family! Shoooo, she needs the accompanying earrings too! Or maybe we need to have Rev. Al Sharpton conduct a public funeral for the phrase good hair as he did for the N-word!”
What are your thoughts, Clutchettes? Was Melanie Fiona’s “good mix for growth” comment tactless and offensive? Or is being read into too deeply?
i think she is not try to offend anyone she was blessed with the hair she has so was i and i am not mixed but do have arab blood but that or my african blood has nothing to do with my hair it just dna
I see nothing wrong with her saying a good mix for growth. If one races hair grows long naturally, adding that to your own heritage would be a greater probability that your hair would grow long. She didn’t say good hair, she said good mix (greater probability). Also if we want to ban phrases the word kinky should be never used. It has a negative connotation. Use curly or ribbon, because that’s what it is.
no ma’am. a rose by any other name still a rose. my tightly curled and coiled hair IS kinky. i forget whether it is 4b or 4c. depends on the weather, the product, so many things. nothing wrong with the words, kinky, nappy. it’s the intent, how you use them and all of who we are that makes us who we are. i think we need to stop looking at ourselves through other eyes. i’m kinky and i know it. the fact that others think my hair is bad makes me smile. i know it is not.
By the way, white races who have straight hair have to deal with tangled hair, but do not define their hair as a race, as tangled, the way black hair is defined as kinky. Hair may tangle naturally just as it may kink naturally, but one race’s hair is defined by this tendancy and the other is not. Why is that? Therefore, kinky is an insult.
Comments like the ones made by Melanie Fiona are the reason why at least every other day some black person wants to ask me “what you mixed with?” :rolls eyes: I used to get angry when every person-especially men-wanted to know “where you’re from?” (And I’d answer “USA, the south”. Both of my parents are black and I’m proud of it. I’ve had hair since I was a little girl and it falls in between bra strap and waistline-no split ends, fine textured hair. Some folks grow hair and some don’t and it’s not a race thing. Black people used to have more hair too before we started doing all of this stuff to it. Just the other week I was in a restaurant where a black man started yelling at me from across the bar “what are you, Creole? Cape Verdean? Spanish? You regular black?” And he just stared in disbelief when I nodded “yes” to regular black. Comments like these perpetuate this myth. I went to an HBCU where the majority of us had our own hair and it was long. I don’t know if it’s still like that because it was years ago, but we as black people need to be happy with ourselves. Yes, I am proud to call myself “regular black”-whatever that means.
I see no issue with her comment. Everything doesn’t have to be made into such a big deal. Her heritage does play a large part as to why she has the grain of hair she does. Why would anyone be offended by that? I honestly believe that those who get offended by “mix hair” or “good hair” comments, have insecurity issues. If one loves their hair as much as we all like to proclaim these days, then someone’s comments in regards to their OWN hair, shouldn’t cause a ruckus.