Sesame Street Celebrates Black Hair

How adorable is Sesame Street! The latest you tube viral sensation is a song called "I Love My Hair". It shows a brown Muppet with a nappy fro singing about the many hairstyles she can wear. It's meant to encourage girls of colour to love their natural texture. Sesame Street head writer, Joey Mazzarino, whose adopted Ethiopian daughter, wished her hair was straight like Barbie, wrote the song. Mazzarino says he wrote the song to tell his daughter: "Your hair is great. You can put it in ponytails. You can put it in cornrows. I wish I had hair like you."

Here we are in 2010, and it's obvious that young girls of colour still absorb the message that straight, long hair is the ideal, a sentiment that sets up a lifelong struggle with their natural hair texture. This song celebrates the versatility of ethnic hair, something that's rarely shown in fashion images. It's a delightful teaching tool and I wish this had been around when I was young.