Check out this awesome video (page 2“> of a new Sesame Street character who sings about loving her gorgeous natural hair.
A worried dad—who happens to be a Sesame Street exec—created the brown muppet when his Ethiopian-born daughter bemoaned her natural, “fluffy” hair, wishing instead for flowing “Barbie” hair.Joey Mazzarino says he wrote the song after noticing his daughter playing with dolls.
“She wanted to have long blond hair and straight hair, and she wanted to be able to bounce it around,” he tells NPR’s Melissa Block.
Sporting a changing catalog of beautiful natural ‘dos, the muppet sings, “I don’t need a trip to the beauty shop, cuz I love what I got on top!”
“I Love My Hair” debuted on the Oct. 4 episode of Sesame Street. It was posted on the show’s YouTube page—and then women began posting the video on their Facebook pages.
African-American bloggers wrote that it brought them to tears because of the message it sends to young black girls.
Mazzarino says he began to get worried, but he thought it was only a problem that white parents of African-American children have. Then he realized the problem was much larger.
In writing the song, he wanted to say in song what he says to 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.”
What a beautiful and inspiring message for little girls everywhere.
