By Linda Jones

America expects Michelle Obama to project an image of sophistication and near perfection.

By most accounts, she has pulled it off.

After more than 100 days in her role as America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama has garnered high marks for her personality, her wardrobe and even her physique.

And she definitely knows how to wear her hair-in styles that are fashionable and politically correct.

Her perfectly coiffed flips and bobs, reminiscent of Kennedy First Lady “Jackie O” and of June Cleaver, the suburban housewife character of the 60s sitcom “Leave It to Beaver,” are styles that are “safe,” meaning they don’t make waves.

While anyone who is in the public eye and high positions of power should wear styles that are well-groomed and attractive, African-American women have an extra burden of deciding whether it would be wise to embrace hairstyles that are more in keeping with their ethnic roots.

“As potentially half of the public face of America, Ms. Obama in locks or cornrows would be a bit too ‘in your face,’ even with her Harvard degree and her attorney status,” says Arizona State University English Professor Neal A. Lester, who studies African-American literature and culture and has written about black hair issues.

Mainstream America considers styles that reflect the European aesthetic more acceptable and less likely to offend. African-inspired hairstyles don’t get the same respect.  To describe someone as having “nappy” hair is still widely considered a derogatory remark. The word “nappy,” which merely describes the kinky texture of hair, is practically considered profane. In some circles, “nappy” is euphemistically referred to as “natural,” which is considered a more polite, palatable and socially acceptable description.

Wearers of natural hairstyles are also no strangers to being perceived as subversive or social misfits. Many African-American women who have chosen to wear natural hair styles have had their politics, patriotism, and even their hygiene come under attack. Their Afros, braids, locks and twists have been deemed unprofessional. Many who have worn these styles in the workplace have been demoted or fired for refusing to go straight.

The media is fully aware of how certain hairstyles worn by African Americans can feed negative stereotypes. One case in point was the satirical cartoon that ran on the cover of the July 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Then-candidate Barack Obama was dressed in Muslim garb as a way of suggesting that he is a terrorist.

The sketch showed Michelle toting an AK-47, dressed in combat boots and fashionable fatigues and bumping fists with her husband in an African-American salute of solidarity known as “the dap.” To round out the angry-black-radical-revolutionary woman’s image, cartoonist Barry Blitt adorned Michelle Obama with a billowing Afro hairstyle, a la Angela Davis.
In real life, Michelle Obama plays it totally safe with her hair. Whether her style choices are intentional, they are decidedly apolitical. “This is no different from Condoleezza Rice and her visits to the beauty salon for her perms,” says Lester of Arizona State.

“There is a reason that Oprah, Beyonce, Mo’Nique, Patti LaBelle, Tyra, and Queen Latifah haven’t gone the way of Whoopi Goldberg,” Lester explains. The reason is that there is clearly a public persona that makes these women culturally less threatening with straightened hair.

“I am not saying that these women are betraying their blackness,” Lester says. “I am saying that the pattern of self-acceptance has not made its way into the realm of unstraightened hair.”

Philadelphia Inquirer fashion columnist Elizabeth Wellington, who wears locks, describes Michelle Obama’s hairstyle as “nebulous.”

“It can be the style of a Democrat or a Republican,” says Wellington. “If she wore her hair naturally, it would freak out segments of America. Her hairstyle is what people think is acceptable, even black people. Locks and natural hair do not carry that kind of cache.”

Despite longstanding negative perceptions about natural hairstyles, prominent black female politicians have sported the look over the years and kept their seats. In the UK, Dawn Butler and her locks have served on the British Parliament since 2005. Congressional Black Congress member Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick had a long run with cornrows before going back to a relaxed style. Several other longtime members of Congress wear or have worn Afrocentric styles. D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and the late Texas representative Barbara Jordan dared to wear Afros during the 1970s, when the style was widely viewed as a symbol of militancy and an unabashed expression of cultural pride.

Norton, who remains firmly rooted in Congress with her Afro, has even touted the virtues of wearing natural hair publicly. “Nothing is more liberating than letting your hair be naturally what your hair is,” she said during a National Public Radio interview several years ago.

The signature natural hairstyle of Cynthia McKinney, the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia, was two thick braids wrapped around her head. Washington Post Fashion columnist Robin Givhan has suggested that McKinney, who is savvy to the politics of black hair, used that particular style to project a certain image.
“The style seemed calculated to portray her as the underdog,” Givhan wrote in one of her columns about McKinney. She wrote that McKinney’s style was “purposefully out of fashion. Aggressively not slick, ostentatiously humble.”

When McKinney finally retired her braids and started wearing a natural “twist out” style, it prompted a litany of derogatory and racist comments on blogs and on radio. One of the most offensive remarks was made by syndicated radio commentator and Libertarian Neal Boortz, who said that McKinney’s new hairdo made her look like a “ghetto slut,” in relation to the March 29, 2007 incident in which McKinney reportedly struck a Capitol Hill police officer while trying to pass a security checkpoint.

As much as natural hairstyles get people all worked up, there is no evidence that political wives who wear them can derail their husband’s political aspirations. Philadelphia’s personable First Lady Lisa Nutter, who has been described as a woman with class, wore locks while her husband Michael served on the city council and didn’t bother to cut or conceal them when he decided to run for mayor. Nutter won handily, and when African-American women of power, influence and success are mentioned in the media, Lisa’s name has shared billing with the likes of Oprah and Michelle.

To roughly paraphrase a line by songstress India.Arie, Michelle Obama is not her hair.
Whether she continues to flaunt the flip like First Lady Jackie Kennedy or opts to wear locks like the First Lady of Philly, Michelle Obama’s real character should not be superficially determined by what she wears on top of her head. It should be determined by the intelligence that dwells within it.

Linda Jones is a Dallas-based journalist and writing coach. She owns  ManeLock Communications  (www.manelockcommunications.com ) and is founder of  A Nappy Hair Affair  (www.nappyhairaffair.com)  She is author of “Nappyisms:  Affirmations for Nappy Headed People and Wannabes!” and “It’s Only Temporary . . . A Journal for Surviving Loved Ones.”