What is Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ all about…?
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ is a beauty pageant designed for African American girls between the ages of 5 to 13. It is designed to encourage them to embrace their natural hair and their brown skin. It is not a typical beauty pageant with the wigs, weaves and makeup. Oh no, it is something much bigger and meaningful than that. It is a competition to showcase how all of the girls win. Every girl who participates in Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ contests is a winner.
All girls receive trophies just for participating. They will leave with answers to questions such as why they wear their hair natural, why they are proud to be natural and what being natural means to them. Also, it is our desire to turn the word Nappy into a “Happy” word. It is not a negative word just as our hair is not a negative thing. It is something beautiful that should be embraced and it is our goal to make the image of natural hair something to be proud of.
Although the topic is of hair, this program obviously has a much deeper meaning than just hair. It is about embracing the skin they were born in; being proud of their heritage; and understanding where they fit into a world that may not always embrace who they are naturally.
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ competitions foster self esteem in the girls. They feel “Happy” and special just like the individual God made them to be. With so many negative stereotypes and messages that abound, it is necessary that we put this program to the forefront to counteract some of the daily negativity these children encounter. You have rap songs calling girls and women derogatoy names, everything but beautiful, you have negative stereotypes of black girls with natural hair and darker complexions. There are advertisements that encourages negative behavior and the list goes on.
Furthermore, there are several documentaries and studies that point to our children and how they perceive images of themselves. The most recent was done by Anderson cooper of CNN. He just recently did a segment on how children deal with racism. It revealed that many of the children both black and white, had better opinions of the lighter dolls and negative opinions of the darker dolls. It also showed how little black girls perceived their “Nappy” hair as negative and refused to wear non relaxed hair. Little miss “Happy” Headed™ competitions along with parents, the media, educators, and community activists and businesses are out to change this image. It is not uncommon for young black girls to look at natural haired black girls and scold them for not wearing a relaxer! That can only be as a direct result of a mild form of self hate.
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ is a Movement. A Movement where the adults of our community stand up and say “No more! No more negative stereotypes against our young women; no more defamatory name calling and no more telling them their hair is not “good” hair or their skin is not the right complexion. We have to create an environment that celebrates all of their beauty. We as a people come in 32 different shades. Just like the color wheel every shade is essential to beauty. The same applies to our hair. There are over 20 different textures of African descent hair. It has to be celebrated not just tolerated it can happen with adult intervention and programs such as Little Miss "Happy" Headed pageantry.
We can no longer sit idly by and just let the television and the media raise our youth and just hope things will change or that our children will "get passed" this. We have to be more proactive instead of reactive. We have to do something about this before we look around and have a nation of ill-informed, miseducated, low self esteem misfits. It just does not have to be that way.
You don’t have to be black to embrace the movement but you have to be black to understand. Join us as we take the Mission of Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ to the nation of reaching our girls and making a difference one brown girl at a time.
If you can reach one, you can teach one.
Leola Anifowoshe,
Founder
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ is a beauty pageant designed for African American girls between the ages of 5 to 13. It is designed to encourage them to embrace their natural hair and their brown skin. It is not a typical beauty pageant with the wigs, weaves and makeup. Oh no, it is something much bigger and meaningful than that. It is a competition to showcase how all of the girls win. Every girl who participates in Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ contests is a winner.
All girls receive trophies just for participating. They will leave with answers to questions such as why they wear their hair natural, why they are proud to be natural and what being natural means to them. Also, it is our desire to turn the word Nappy into a “Happy” word. It is not a negative word just as our hair is not a negative thing. It is something beautiful that should be embraced and it is our goal to make the image of natural hair something to be proud of.
Although the topic is of hair, this program obviously has a much deeper meaning than just hair. It is about embracing the skin they were born in; being proud of their heritage; and understanding where they fit into a world that may not always embrace who they are naturally.
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ competitions foster self esteem in the girls. They feel “Happy” and special just like the individual God made them to be. With so many negative stereotypes and messages that abound, it is necessary that we put this program to the forefront to counteract some of the daily negativity these children encounter. You have rap songs calling girls and women derogatoy names, everything but beautiful, you have negative stereotypes of black girls with natural hair and darker complexions. There are advertisements that encourages negative behavior and the list goes on.
Furthermore, there are several documentaries and studies that point to our children and how they perceive images of themselves. The most recent was done by Anderson cooper of CNN. He just recently did a segment on how children deal with racism. It revealed that many of the children both black and white, had better opinions of the lighter dolls and negative opinions of the darker dolls. It also showed how little black girls perceived their “Nappy” hair as negative and refused to wear non relaxed hair. Little miss “Happy” Headed™ competitions along with parents, the media, educators, and community activists and businesses are out to change this image. It is not uncommon for young black girls to look at natural haired black girls and scold them for not wearing a relaxer! That can only be as a direct result of a mild form of self hate.
Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ is a Movement. A Movement where the adults of our community stand up and say “No more! No more negative stereotypes against our young women; no more defamatory name calling and no more telling them their hair is not “good” hair or their skin is not the right complexion. We have to create an environment that celebrates all of their beauty. We as a people come in 32 different shades. Just like the color wheel every shade is essential to beauty. The same applies to our hair. There are over 20 different textures of African descent hair. It has to be celebrated not just tolerated it can happen with adult intervention and programs such as Little Miss "Happy" Headed pageantry.
We can no longer sit idly by and just let the television and the media raise our youth and just hope things will change or that our children will "get passed" this. We have to be more proactive instead of reactive. We have to do something about this before we look around and have a nation of ill-informed, miseducated, low self esteem misfits. It just does not have to be that way.
You don’t have to be black to embrace the movement but you have to be black to understand. Join us as we take the Mission of Little Miss “Happy” Headed™ to the nation of reaching our girls and making a difference one brown girl at a time.
If you can reach one, you can teach one.
Leola Anifowoshe,
Founder
Sponsor Little Miss "Happy" Headed Pageant