GREENSBORO, N.C. — A North Carolina author is celebrating after Greensboro and Durham city councils unanimously passed ordinances protecting against hair discrimination.
Arial Robinson, an N.C. A&T student, says growing up, she was told her hair was distracting, but now she embraces it.
This year, Robinson released a book titled Black Hair Care In Color: A Collection of Drawings. She gained social media attention by promoting the book with a photo and caption reading, "Marge Simpson is a Black woman."
“I wanted my hair to be very large," Robinson says. “I actually found a wig on Amazon. After I took the photos, I went into my editing software and made it larger.”
It garnered nearly 200,000 likes and shares. She says the goal was to talk about her hair journey and to celebrate Black culture.
“Black hair care is very powerful," Robinson says. "Black hair is very powerful, and I wanted to get to the foundation of our hair, which starts with the products we use.”
Other states, including Virginia, California, New York, and New Jersey, have passed legislation to ban hair-based discrimination. However, so far, there is no statewide law in North Carolina.