Straightening hair has been perceived as a way to be more acceptable to certain relatives, as well as to the white establishment…

In the face of cultural pressure, the thinking goes, conformists relax their hair, and rebels have the courage not to. In some corners, relaxing one's hair is even seen as wishing to be white.

We've covered this issue many times, as has the Times, and the discussion is ongoing. Frankly, the debate does get tiring. Saint Louis writes that many people of color ask: "Why can't hair just be hair? Must an Afro peg a woman as the political heir to Angela Davis? Is a fashionista who replicates the first lady's clean-cut bob really being untrue to herself?"

But a quote from Noliwe M. Rooks, the associate director of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton, struck me as as close as we're going to get to an answer. She was asked about what it meant when the hair of Sasha and Malia Obama was sometimes pressed straight, and said: "There's a complexity to who we are now. There wasn't an easy answer to why."

Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics [NY Times]

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Why Is Straight Hair The Epitome Of 'Style'?

Last April, Bret said that his hair is "combined of my [natural] hair and the finest extensions Europe has to offer. I do the show without [the bandanna] on all the time and they won't film me. They are like, 'Put your bandanna back on. It is your image.' It is my signature thing."

We did some investigating, and that shit doesn't look like extensions, but a straight-up wig — one that seems to be getting fuller, longer, and waxier as time goes by. Let's take a look at two decades worth of Bret's hair.

We know what he used to look like back in the day, when all he needed was some hairspray and a pick to get such volume.









But there has been a clear evolution in wig thickness just over the course of the three seasons of Rock of Love.
Season 1



Season 2



Season 3



It's now flowing.






This is probably the closest thing to his real hair, circa 2001.



And circa 2004.



These extensions from 2005 are very realistic.



But he quickly moved onto this look.



Which somehow turned into Fergie-with-a-goatee.



He has attempted to go sans bandanna a few times over the years, but the results are decidedly unfavorable.












This is our guess at what the true texture and thickness of his natural hair would be.