How to Stand Next to a Black Woman and Hold Yourself Back from Touching or Staring at Her Hair

In the new issue of Brevity, Nicole Cyrus offers up an essay posing as a professional resume, revealing some of what it means to be a black woman “who wants to rock her Afro in business settings.”

Here’s a portion:

Accomplishments

• Received positive feedback from colleagues on her brown-bag meetings, despite her refusal to repeat or expand her talk on black hair textures.
• Recovered from chest pains and stomach cramps after she cropped her hair into a pixie, thanks to a mishap with a flatiron.
• Taught black women inside and outside the company how to explain dramatic transformations in their appearance—such as haircuts, use of wigs and hair weaves, and, in extreme cases, headscarves—because of bad relaxers or overheated hair styling tools.

Now by all means, go and read the rest.