(ThyBlackMan.com) When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, it also placed the hair-loss condition, alopecia, which Will’s wife Jada claims to have, in the public’s eye.
Right after the assault, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley tweeted in support of Will Smith, but then deleted it. She originally tweeted “Alopecia nation stand up. Thank you, Will Smith. Shout out to all the husbands who defend their wives with alopecia in the face of daily ignorance and insults.” She later deleted that tweet, replacing it with a statement that she doesn’t condone violence.
I believe she deleted her initial tweet because she knows that she and Jada Pinkett Smith are perpetrating a falsehood to deceive black women about the truth of the real reason for their hair loss.
Like Jada, Rep. Pressley released a video to the public about her hair loss, blaming it on alopecia. “I do believe going public will help,” she says in the video published by The Root. “I’m ready now, because I want to be freed from the secret and the shame that secret carries with it.”
But what secret is she referring to: her hair loss, or that other condition called “traction alopecia” that tears out hair? According to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, the autoimmune disorder “alopecia areata” makes the body attack its own healthy hair follicles, “causing them to become much smaller and drastically slow down production to the point that hair growth stops.”
Three of the most common ways alopecia areata presents itself are in the form of patches of baldness (alopecia areata), no hair on the head (alopecia totalis), and complete hair loss on a person’s entire body (alopecia universalis). None of which Will Smith’s wife displays. These types of alopecia differ from traction alopecia, which happens when hair is stressed at the roots.
Johns Hopkins Medicine says black women in particular are prone to a type of hair loss called “traction alopecia” caused by excessive heat, chemicals, and tight hair styles that pull at the hair root, including some braids, extensions, and weaves. This is NOT an autoimmune disease; rather, it is a fashion choice that comes with a negative and significant future consequence.
In a statement to NPR member station WGBH, Pressley says she “hopes her video will inspire others to share their stories.” Going public doesn’t help our young little black girls because what “went public” wasn’t truthful. The claim of traction alopecia continues to harm black women and girls who continue to use heat, chemicals, extensions, and hair styles in the name of beauty. Pressley was happy that Smith slapped Chris Rock for protecting Jada’s, and by extension, Ayanna’s, secret.
The Congresswoman didn’t make peace with her “secret”; rather, she hid under the lie that her hair loss was alopecia when she full well knows that excessive chemicals, heat, extensions, and braiding caused her hair to fall out. This lets down all of our little black girls; we’re not accountable adults for perpetuating this lie.
“I think it’s important that I’m transparent about this new normal,” Pressley said. Never once did she say to our little black girls that lace front wigs will eventually pull your hair out; or that her signature unnatural Senegalese twists will make you go bald. Never once did Rep. Ayanna Pressley say it was “traction” alopecia that tore her hair out.
Jada Pinkett Smith, 50, has spoken candidly about her hair loss “struggle” since 2018, when she revealed her diagnosis, with no doctor present, to be the auto-immune disorder alopecia, on her Facebook Watch show “Red Table Talk.”
The actress and Red Table Talk host took to Instagram in December 2021 to share a video and offered an update on her hair loss journey. Like Rep. Pressley, Jada never states the possibility of traction alopecia tearing her hair out. Instead, she left out the word “traction” and blamed her hair loss on the autoimmune disease like she is sick in order to gain sympathy.
At this point in 2022, I think it’s time Jada Pinkett Smith and Rep. Ayanna Pressley tell the truth to our little black girls and women and keep alopecia out of their mouths. Tell the truth that “traction” alopecia will make them go bald at an early age and telling a lie about it won’t bring their hair back, but the truth may save a generation’s natural hair so they aren’t bald at age 50. Chris Rock is owed an apology by the Smiths and Rep. Pressley for perpetuating a cycle of deception that got him assaulted for no reason.
Staff Writer; Christopher Anderson
This brother is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, a member of the Baltimore City GOP central committee and lifelong community advocate. He currently lives in Baltimore and is an active presence in local and state Republican politics.