My mother's white, and she didn't know how to do my hair, so I had something that I always call white-mama hair.

Often hair is the way we are differentiated in this culture. To me the decision to straighten your hair is deeply political.

I think television is one of the last real bastions of the white beauty standard, but still in many industries the workers can be replaced by someone who's willing to play the game or who looks like the person in charge. And this is a problem for all women, not just women of color.

My parents pressed upon me that "In this world, you are a black woman," so I was political about my hair and would not straighten it.

There came a point when I wanted to do television, and I didn't think the Afro was going to play, so I made a very difficult choice - to straighten my hair.

My mother's white, and she didn't know how to do my hair, so I had something that I always call white-mama hair.

When I have my Afro and walk down the street, there's no doubt that I'm black. With this [straightened] hair, if I talk about being black on air, viewers write and say, "You're black?!" I feel [straightening your hair] is giving up a sense of your identity. Let's be honest: It's an effort to look Anglo-Saxon.