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For generations, Black women and girls have carried the weight of an unspoken but relentless demand: conform. Conform to Eurocentric beauty standards, conform to professional norms never designed for us, conform to classrooms, boardrooms, and social spaces that police our identities as much as our presence. And nowhere is this pressure felt more intimately than on our heads.

Natural hair, kinks, coils, curls, locs, twists, braids, has never been “just hair” for us. It is culture. It is ancestry. It is resistance. It is the living, breathing history of a people whose very bodies were legislated, judged, and ridiculed. Yet in 2025, Black women and girls are still being shamed, penalized, or outright excluded simply for wearing the hair in the form that grows naturally from their scalps.

Hair discrimination isn’t new; it’s embedded in the fabric of Western beauty ideals. During slavery, Black women were stripped of autonomy over their appearance. Later, in the 18th-century Tignon Laws in Louisiana, Black women were legally required to cover their hair to make themselves “less attractive” to white men.

Hair discrimination has a long and documented history, rooted in both Western beauty standards and social pressures within Black communities. During slavery, Black women were denied autonomy over their own appearance, and in the 18th century, Louisiana’s Tignon Laws legally required Black women to cover their hair, ostensibly to make them “less attractive” to white men.

Today, overt legal restrictions are gone, but the policing of Black hair persists in subtler forms. Workplace and school codes—often using terms like “unprofessional,” “untidy,” or “distracting” continue to enforce Eurocentric standards. At the same time, Black women and girls often experience judgment and shaming from within their own communities. Family members, peers, and even elders may criticize natural styles, offering comments such as “your hair is messy” or “you should straighten it.” While sometimes framed as guidance, these remarks can carry the same message as external discrimination: the natural hair of Black women and girls is still frequently treated as unacceptable.

For many Black girls, the policing starts early.

From being sent home because their afro is deemed “too big,” to being told their braids violate “dress code policy,” to being asked if their hair is “real,” the emotional impact is severe. For some, school becomes the first place they learn their identity is a problem to be corrected.

Even in adult life, the battles persist.

Black women report being passed over for promotions, given “suggestions” to straighten their hair, or told their natural styles are “not client-friendly.” The pressure to chemically alter, heat-damage, or hide their hair still hangs in the air of corporate America like an unspoken expectation.

What does it do to a Black girl to be ostracized for wearing her hair in a simple natural ponytail?

It creates a quiet, lingering fatigue. The kind that comes from navigating daily microaggressions in classrooms and social spaces, teachers making offhand remarks about “messy hair,” peers whispering or excluding her, and administrators enforcing dress codes that treat a pulled-back ponytail as unacceptable. Even when the style is practical and low-maintenance, it can be framed as rebellious, unkempt, or distracting.

For many Black girls, it becomes a constant negotiation between expressing themselves naturally and conforming to systems, schools, social circles, and overall societal expectations, that implicitly punish authenticity. The message is clear: even in a style as simple as a ponytail, their natural identity can make them feel othered and unwelcome.

Black women’s hair is a story. A timeline. A language. It holds the memory of braiding patterns used by enslaved ancestors to map escape routes. It carries the symbolism of locs as spiritual connection. It reflects the survival and creativity of protective styles born out of necessity and turned into artistry. When the world tells us to change that, it is telling us to cut ourselves off from our roots. When we tell it to each we emphasize that we aren’t valuable in our natural state.

Ending natural hair discrimination requires more than legislation it demands a cultural shift. Schools must revise policies with Black children at the center, not as an afterthought. Workplaces must define professionalism by competence and contribution, not hair texture. Media must depict Black hair as ordinary, not exoticized, political, or niche.

True progress also comes from within our own communities. Black women who uplift young girls and celebrate natural hair, regardless of style or complexity, help cultivate pride and resilience that counteracts the scrutiny from outside. Supporting one another is as essential as changing external systems. Sometimes you have to sweep around your own front door.

BY: BEWITTY Staff

Havana, Cuba — Assata Shakur, the revolutionary whose name became a global symbol of Black resistance and U.S. state repression, has died at 78 in Havana, where she lived in exile for more than four decades. Her daughter confirmed the news, saying her mother “took her last earthly breath” surrounded by family.

Shakur’s life defied neat categorization. To U.S. officials, she was a convicted killer, fugitive, and “terrorist.” To many Black activists, she was a political prisoner, a survivor of state violence, and a living witness to the costs of liberation struggle.

Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in Queens in 1947, Shakur spent part of her youth in the Jim Crow South before returning to New York. She came of age during the 1960s uprisings and entered activism through student organizing.

In 1970, she joined the Black Panther Party, though later criticized its internal contradictions. Drawn to a more militant vision, she aligned with the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a clandestine group that carried forward armed resistance against what they saw as an American war on Black life. She renamed herself Assata Olugbala Shakur, Swahili and Yoruba names meaning “she who struggles” and “savior.”

On May 2, 1973, Shakur was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike with two BLA comrades. A confrontation with state troopers turned deadly: Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed; Assata herself was badly wounded.

In 1977, she was convicted of Foerster’s murder and sentenced to life in prison, despite her insistence that she had not fired a weapon. Supporters pointed to medical evidence her gun arm was paralyzed by a bullet as proof she couldn’t have fired. To them, her trial reflected not only bias, but the wider criminalization of Black radical dissent.

Two years later, in 1979, Shakur escaped from prison with the aid of allies. After years underground, she surfaced in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum in 1984.

The U.S. government never stopped pursuing her. In 2013, she became the first woman placed on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list, with a $2 million bounty. Yet Cuba refused to extradite her, framing her as a political exile rather than a criminal.

In Havana, Shakur lived relatively quietly, raising her daughter and writing. Her memoir, Assata: An Autobiography (1987), became a cornerstone of radical literature, recounting her youth, trial, prison years, and flight to freedom.

Her words influenced generations of organizers, from the hip-hop era to Black Lives Matter. Rappers like Public Enemy and Common referenced her in their music. Activists cited her not as a fugitive, but as a guide for understanding state violence, racial injustice, and the resilience required to fight them.

Assata Shakur’s life and death remain polarizing. For many others, especially in the Black liberation tradition she is remembered as a freedom fighter, targeted because she dared to confront America’s racial order.

Her death will reignite old debates: What does justice mean in a nation that has historically denied it to Black people? Who gets labeled “terrorist,” and who is remembered as revolutionary?

Assata Shakur died far from the country of her birth, still branded a fugitive by the U.S. government. Yet for many, her name will live on as a synonym for resistance, survival, and the unfinished struggle for Black liberation.

“Revolution is about change,” she once wrote. “And the first place the change begins is within ourselves.”

BY: BEWITTY Staff

Across Black pulpits nationwide, a growing chorus of pastors and faith leaders is rejecting recent portrayals of Charlie Kirk as a Christian martyr calling for a clearer reckoning with his words, his record, and what it means when religion becomes a pedestal for partisan politics.

The controversy erupted after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on a college campus in Utah; in the aftermath, many conservative Christians and political figures celebrated him as a martyr of the faith. Yet, for many Black clergy, that veneration clashes sharply with Kirk’s history of rhetoric they believe has marginalized people of color, immigrant individuals, and civil rights institutions. What they see is not sainthood, but a selective memory at best, and a theological distortion at worst. 

Rev. Howard-John Wesley of Alexandria, Virginia, put it plainly: “How you die does not redeem how you lived.”  Kirk’s death, they emphasize, deserves grief and justice, but does not erase or justify statements and actions that many consider divisive or harmful. 

A particular point of contention is the comparison being drawn by some between Kirk’s death and the assassinations of civil rights icons—especially Martin Luther King Jr. Black pastors say these analogies are not just misleading but also deeply insensitive. For example, Rev. Jamal Bryant of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia decried the idea that Kirk and King are comparable beyond the fact that both were killed by white assailants. “After that, they got nothing else in common,” he said. 

Others raise concerns about the broader movement to cast Christian nationalism in saintly terms—using Kirk’s death to seal his legacy in ways that obscure or condone his past rhetoric. Rev. Freddy Haynes III of Dallas made note that much of what Kirk said “was racist, rooted in white supremacy, nasty and hate-filled,” while still acknowledging that murder is never justified. 

But it is not all outright rejection. A number of Black clergy do acknowledge aspects of Kirk’s appeal his emphasis on conservative Christian values, his faith identity, his appeal to ideas about free expression and traditionalism resonate with segments of the Black church. For some pastors, his death is undeniably tragic, and his role in public conversation complex. 

Still, the dominant message from Black faith leaders is that martyrdom is not a status to be conferred lightly. They warn against the sanctification of political beliefs, especially when those beliefs are tied to rhetoric that many believe undermines the dignity and equality of others. The pulpit, they argue, should be a place of moral clarity not political spectacle.

As this debate unfolds, it lays bare deeper tensions in American Christianity: Who gets to be called a martyr? What does Christian witness demand of us when faith and politics intersect dangerously? And how should communities reckon with public figures who are both believers and controversial actors?

For Black churches, the answer seems to be that honoring a life rightly includes calling out its faults, and that grief for a death need not and should not silence critique.

BY: BEWITTY Staff

In an unprecedented milestone, The Clipse, the legendary rap duo of brothers Pusha T and No Malice, have become the first rap group ever to perform at the Vatican. Known for their razor-sharp lyricism and authenticity, The Clipse brought hip-hop into one of the most known spaces in the world, marking a fusion of art, faith, and history.

The performance, which shocked fans and observers alike, took place during a Vatican cultural event aimed at highlighting the power of music to bridge divides and inspire dialogue across generations. For decades, the Vatican has been synonymous with choral hymns, classical compositions, and sacred traditions. Inviting The Clipse to perform represents a recognition that rap, too, carries profound musical weight.

On stage, Pusha T and No Malice delivered a set that balanced their signature lyrical grit with themes of redemption, struggle, and perseverance. No Malice, who has long been outspoken about his Christian faith, emphasized the historic nature of the moment: “To stand here and bring our story, our art, and our truth to a place like this shows that hip-hop has the power to reach every corner of the world.”

For fans, the sight of The Clipse rapping within Vatican walls symbolized more than just a performance it was validation that hip-hop has earned its claim to global spaces many moons ago.

Critics and supporters alike are calling the event a turning point: the Vatican’s acknowledgment of rap not just as entertainment, but as a form of storytelling with depth, spirit, and the ability to spark reflection.

The Clipse’s groundbreaking performance at the Vatican will likely be remembered as one of the most unexpected collisions of worlds & proof that music, no matter the genre, can transcend boundaries even if controversial.

BY: BEWITTY Staff

Washington, D.C. — The National Urban League has declared a “State of Emergency” for Black America in its 2025 State of Black America report, citing a series of escalating threats to civil rights, equity, and justice across the United States.

The annual report outlines what the organization describes as “urgent and systemic challenges” impacting Black communities, including the deterioration of federal civil rights enforcement, increased digital censorship, and legal pushback against diversity initiatives.

Among the report’s most pressing concerns is what the League describes as a “hollowed-out” Civil Rights Division within the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the League, the division has been weakened and allegedly repurposed to pursue political retribution rather than protect marginalized communities.

The report also warns of a surge in online extremism and censorship, with progressive voices increasingly shadow-banned or silenced on major platforms. At the same time, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are under legal attack—most notably with lawsuits that forced the Fearless Fund to suspend grant-making efforts directed at melanated women.

In response, the National Urban League announced a multi-pronged legal and policy strategy aimed at confronting these challenges head-on.

Key initiatives include the launch of a new Equitable Justice and Strategic Initiatives Division, a policy platform known as the 21 Pillars for Public Safety, and the formation of the Fair Budget Coalition, which aims to influence the development of a more just and equitable federal budget for fiscal year 2026.

“Our communities are facing a coordinated assault on the hard-won gains of the civil rights era,” said Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League. “This is a defining moment that demands bold action and unwavering resolve.”

The full report is available on the National Urban League’s website and is expected to play a central role in upcoming policy discussions heading into the 2026 budget cycle and election season.

BY: BEWITTY Staff

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BY: BEWITTY Staff