I've read some things where people are like, 'Beyonce wants to be white' because she has blonde highlights in her hair, but it's ridiculous. You know, she is who she is, and she's a very proud black woman. I know people with natural hair that are the least black inside; you know, it doesn't matter.
My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive.
To her credit, Madam Walker discerned that black women wanted to conform to white Victorian models of beauty. She was aware of the double- sidedness of her products - helping black women appear more European in look, with straight hair - but she always maintained that she was simply selling products that promoted hair growth.
The moment in The Bell Jar when Esther Greenwood realizes after thirty days in the same black turtleneck that she never wants to wash her hair again, that the repeated necessity of the act is too much trouble, that she wants to do it once and be done with it, seems like the book's true epiphany. You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended into philosophical heights.
Beyonce has very clear ideas - she knows exactly what she wants. The thing which she then also has over other celebrities is that she has an amazing voice. She's incredibly talented, and she's an amazing dancer - she's complete. Few are like Beyonce.
My mother was a woman. A black woman. A single mother. Raising two kids on her own. So she was dark skinned. Had short hair. Got no love from nobody except for a group called the Black Panthers. So that's why she was a Black Panther.
A woman will test you to see if you are what you say you are. Any woman that you fall in love with: She loves you too, but she's going to try you; that's her nature. She has to know that she can depend on you; she has to know that you will stand up for her. She has to know that you will back up the children that she brings in the world for us.
You know Beyoncé, man. She's very quiet about how she does things. She doesn't like to let everybody know what she's about to do.
I get my highlights touched up with Susan Henry at Shades in Beverly Hills. She developed hypo-allergenic hair color products with no ammonia because she's allergic to others; she's an incredible colorist. She does balayage instead of the foils, and I'll go and she will do my entire head of highlights in an hour.
The woman turned and went slowly into the house. As she passed the doors she turned and looked back. Grave and thoughtful was her glance, as she looked on the king with cool pity in here eyes. Very fair was her face, and her long hair was like a river of gold. Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver; but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings.
And one of the things that I learned was you can't generalise at all about a woman in a veil. You can't think you know her story, because she will confound you over and over again. She may be an engineer or a diplomat or a doctor. Or she may be an unbelievable babe with bleached hair down to her waist.
I think it's huge that I'm wearing my natural hair texture on ABC in prime time. As Dr. Rainbow Johnson on 'Black-ish,' I think my hair is part of the reality of this woman's life. She has four children and is an anesthesiologist and a wife. She doesn't have a lot of time to fuss with beauty, so her look is pretty simple.
What I like about The Sims is that I don't have a normal life at all, so I play this game where these people have these really boring, mundane lives. It's fun. My Sims family is called the Cholly family. I don't know why I picked that name; it's kind of random. The teenage daughter is my favourite, because I just had her go through this Goth phase. She's really kind of nerdy and she just became a concert violinist, which is pretty huge for the family. And she got into private school. But she started wearing black lipstick and she dyed her hair purple. It's pretty huge.
Because she knows what it's like to live in a world of black, and black, and the tiny bit of white, but when she escaped it, she didn't find the rainbow of colors, the dresses, the singing, the dancing. She only found ugliness.
I think that's something that we as black people in this country have been robbed of. I compare it to my brother's wife, who is Hispanic. She was born in America but her parents are from Honduras. She speaks Spanish. She knows the culture. But most black people, we were robbed of that. We don't know our heritage.
You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.
She and I just don't see eye to eye together. She's a square. She keeps telling me that I'm too interested in chess, that I should get friends outside of chess, you can't make a living from chess, that I should finish high school and all that nonsense. She keeps in my hair and I don't like people in my hair, you know, so I had to get rid of her.