Social Report

In June, then-Glamour Associate Editor Ashley Baker was forced to resign, after numerous readers responded to her recent comments suggesting African American women should not wear their hair in natural “afros,” according to ABC news.

Baker was invited to speak at Clearly Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, a prominent New York law firm, to discuss corporate dress. Baker started to conduct the presentation, when the first presentation slide featured a black women executive wearing an afro.

According to The American Lawyer, Baker said “it was shocking that some people still think it [is] appropriate to wear those hairstyles at the office. No offense…but those political hairstyles really have to go.”

After Baker’s comments quickly spread over the Internet, and numerous Glamour readers sent letters to the magazine expressing their concern, Cindi Leive, editor, posted a response letter online.

During the course of [Baker’s] talk, she commented to the audience that Afros were “a Glamour Don’t” women in the group, several of them African American, immediately objected to her words, offended at the idea that their natural hair was being termed inappropriate.

I, and the rest of Glamour management, first found out about their incident two months later, when reports of the presentation were published in The American Lawyer magazine – and I was appalled at the remark.”

For years, black women used hot combs to press their hair straight. Later, black women started to use chemical products or relaxers to better straighten their hair. This method was and is still widely used by many black women. However, recently more black women have begun to wear their hair natural and without chemicals. They have found that some of the perms cause extensive hair damage.

In “Bias against hairstyles reveals a possible racial divide,” the New Jersey Media Group included the following:

One reason the black community was shocked by the Glamour employee’s statements was that [Baker] was basically saying black women’s hair is unfashionable or wrong. From that it is not a far leap to think she was implying ‘unattractive.’ And that, in order to be presentable at work, black women have exactly one hairstyle choice–straightened.

Glamour readers wrote numerous letters to the editor and sent e-mails, voicing their opinions and concerns. The following are statements from readers Leive included in her response:

“First off….our natural hairstyles, as the word implies, are NATURAL! We were born with them! We did not come out of mother’s womb with a perm!”

“I have always looked to your magazine for diversity and thought-provoking articles, but the thought of one of your editors being culturally idiotic makes me shake my head. As much as I love your magazine…I’m a bit surprised.”

To read the entire ABC news article, visit abcnews.go.com.

To read Cindi Leive’s response letter, visit glamour.com.

Leive did a NPR interview with Desiree Cooper. Listen at Weekend America.

To read the full article written by the New Jersey Media Group, visit New Jersey Media Group’s web site.