Lupita Nyong’o covers Grazia magazine’s November issue. Continuing to embrace her natural hair, Lupita rocked a sporty kinky fro’d pony tail, which Grazia retouched out of the photo and smoothed her hair. The UK magazine may very well not have intended to cause harm, but they did. Telling people of colour their natural way of being is not worthy of front, is an extreme insult and Lupita is not having it.

“Dont Touch My Hair”

Lupita took to Instagram to voice her disdain, and shock. She assumed the magazine knew her love of self, and wondered why throughout the shoot they said nothing of her hair, but retouched it to what you see in the above photo. Lupita posted the actual photos and hair style, which looks a lot more interesting and textured then what the magazine tried to do. Being a darker skinned Afrikan woman, its hard to gain access to magazines to show little girls and boys of colour they are beautiful, and with magazines erasing our naturalness, it doesn’t help.

Lupita Nyong’o’s Response:

“As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are. I am disappointed that @graziaukinvited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women’s complexion, hair style and texture. #dtmh”

As a reminder to the UK…

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