Now enjoying Sundays off, Black women would take the day to style their hair, uncovering it for church services but keeping it wrapped Monday through Saturday.
To straighten their hair, Black women would often use a mixture of lye, which could burn their skin, and other harmful chemical treatments to become "presentable" towards white standards.
Madam C. J. Walker, an African American businesswoman, achieved great fortune and recognition for widening the teeth of the hot comb, as well as the modern perm, which would straighten afro-textured hair and become a staple in the black community.
In 2016, a mixed race woman in Scarborough, Ontario, who was working at the retail chain ZARA, was asked to remove her box braids because her hair style was considered unprofessional.
The woman gained representation through the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), and filed a case with the Quebec Human Rights Commission based racial and gender discrimination.
[15][16] First Nations people in Canada have also experienced discrimination and harm due to wearing hair styles that do not conform to Eurocentric view.
In the Dominican Republic, hair straightening is done for the same reasons it is done in the United States and the diaspora for convenience and to conform to western beauty standards.
[27] Indonesians living in the west half of New Guinea (Papua Barat) who are Melanesian are often racially profiled or insulted for their curly hair by their own countrypeople elsewhere outside the island who are straight-haired and of Austronesian stock.
[28][29] In August 2019, a Papuan student who participated in anti-racism protests at Jayapura was interrogated and beaten by police officers while his dreadlocks were forcibly cut off.