Cervical Cancer Awareness

Cervical cancer is the second biggest cancer killer of women worldwide.  We know that nearly all cases of cervical cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).  There are many types of HPV but we know that HPV types 16 and 18 are the most cancer causing.  That’s why there is a vaccine targeted to those two types.  There are many ways we can prevent cervical cancer.  For younger girls who have not yet had sex, the vaccine provides good protection against the cancer causing viruses.  For other women, regular screening at their doctor is important.  Screening means your health professional will take a Pap smear.  To do this, a cotton swab is used to gently take some cells from your cervix, no scraping is involved and it should not hurt. For other women, though more rare, they might have an HPV infection but it can just clear up on its own.  But all women should get a regular screening to make sure they are healthy.

Yet given all the things we can do to prevent cervical cancer, why do so many women die of cervical cancer? The answer is, it depends on where you live. In developed countries, which includes North America, Europe, and Australia, the risk of you getting of cervical cancer is only about 5%.  This is because there is regular screening to catch women who are at risk of developing it.  When they are screened, if there are any abnormalities the health professional will treat to prevent progression to cervical cancer.  In low income countries like Kenya, this does not happen as there are not enough resources to screen women. Therefore, over 80% of new cases and deaths due to cervical cancer are in low income counties like Kenya.

Women in Kenya suffer because there is no infrastructure in place to implement regular Pap screening.  However, many health professionals have looked at cheaper and more feasible alternatives to Pap screening. In Kenya, Dr. Megan Huchko from UCSF has helped to implement a cheap diagnostic called visual inspection with acetic acid. At HIV treatment clinics such FACES, where Dr. Huchko works, women can be seen for reproductive health services. As part of a routine check-up, women who attend the clinic have their cervix ‘painted’ with acetic acid, or plain table vinegar. Any abnormal cells turn white. These abnormal cells mean that there is an increased risk of cervical cancer, so it is important that they are removed. Women are offered removal, either through “shaving off” or freezing of abnormal cells in the clinic. A few studies have shown that this is a feasible and cost-effective method of cervical screening for women in low-resource settings.

Cervical cancer is a major risk to a woman’s health. High-income countries have procedures in place to screen women for this risk. Yet most women who live in low-income countries do not have these screenings, which leaves them more likely to die of cervical cancer.  Overall, it is important that we think about feasible solutions that can be used in low-income settings.

Follow me on twitter: @rubysinghrao.

Sexual Harassment, Rape, and Indignity in Indian Society

The week before Christmas, many of us were picking our outfit for the upcoming parties. In Delhi, however, lay a 23-year student fighting for her life after a brutal gang rape. She died yesterday. Her crime: taking the bus home after watching a movie. Her rape has set India on fire, and protests are rampant. It seems that the public is no longer willing to sit back and accept the government's complacent policies towards women.

Delhi, the capital of India, has one of the highest rape rates in the country. India has been deemed by some surveys to be one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman. Sexual harassment on buses and the streets is widespread. Lack of protection for women traveling and walking the streets is further impacted by corrupt police and government policies that fail to protect women. In this case alone, when a Magistrate went to the hospital to take a statement from the hospitalized victim about her horrific ordeal, the Magistrate reported repeated inference from the head of police. Indian Government also actively ignores the safety of women. A report in the Guardian newspaper told of Indian men who had been accused of sexual harassment (and in some cases rape) who had been allowed to stand in Indian elections. Bribery is rampant, the Police turn a blind eye, and politicians blame women and Western culture for provoking men. In a city of 20 million, 80% of women complain of sexual harassment.

It is no wonder that both men and women took to the streets to protest India’s complacent attitudes to women, particularly rape. The victim was traveling on a private bus after seeing a movie with a male friend. She was brutally attacked by six men on the bus and subjected to horrific abuse. Her companion was beaten with iron rods. Both were dumped on the side of a street after the ordeal. Her injuries were so severe that she had to have part of her colon removed. She was on a ventilator in critical condition for days and was flown to Singapore for specialist treatment. This woman died--all for traveling on a bus.

The protests following her story are not a reaction to her specific case. Rather, they are an accumulation of anger and frustration at numerous attacks on women which have been ignored by the authorities.  Earlier this year, there was public outrage after 12 men outside a bar assaulted a teenage girl. The attack was filmed by an off-duty TV journalist for 45 minutes. The girl later asked, “Why did no one help me?”  The public protesting are rightly asking why it is not safe for women to walk the streets.  Their anger highlights corrupt police and a government that for too long has swept this epidemic under the carpet.

The people of India have spoken. It is time for the government to act.

Follow Ruby on Twitter: @rubysinghrao

Abortion and Unnecessary Death: A Multicultural Issue

For too long the word abortion has been associated with politicians; it has become a slogan of where your politics lie. Last month, we saw a victim to the ping-pong of abortion politics. It took the death of Savita Halappanavar to bring a human face to this issue, an innocent victim killed by warped policy.

Savita Halappanavar died on October 28, 2012 of blood poisoning, after being denied a termination that could have saved her life. Savita has become an unlikely hero of the abortion rights movement. Extreme politicians such as the UK’s Nadine Dorris claim that women who seek abortions are young, reckless, or career women who have "convenience abortions." Savita was the antithesis of this. A 31-year-old dentist, a married Indian woman who had immigrated to Ireland. Savita was admitted into hospital miscarrying her 17-week-old pregnancy. She asked for an abortion and was denied.

 Her husband recollected "Savita asked if they could not save the baby could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said: 'As long as there is a fetal heartbeat we can't do anything.'" Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita (an Indian Hindu) said "I am neither Irish nor Catholic," but they said there was nothing they could do.  Ireland, a Catholic country, has some of the world’s strictest laws regarding abortion. The controversy before Savita’s death was that women in Ireland had to travel to Britain to receive an abortion. This, of course, created huge barriers in terms of time frame, cost, and access. And in Savita’s case she was too ill to travel to England.

PETER MUHLY / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Medical professionals take a Hippocratic oath to save a life first and foremost. Policy makers that value the unborn fetus as more important than the life of a woman, hinder this. When risk of prosecution looms over a medical professional's head, he or she has no incentive to save a woman’s life through abortion. The reality is that it often takes a tragic event like this to bring policy to the forefront of peoples' minds. Unfortunately, unlike other policies such as vitamin fortification that are supported across all organizations, abortion is throttled by religious intervention. Savita, a Hindu, became a victim of a policy against abortion heavily supported by the Catholic Church.

For many, it brought forward the concept that if you are Catholic you are under no obligation to have an abortion. Neither is a Hindu woman, but if a simple procedure such as removing a dying fetus to save her life is requested, this should be available to any woman regardless of religion.

Follow me @rubysinghrao.

Worldwide Gynecological Awareness Month: Interview with Dr George Sawaya

Every year over a million women worldwide are diagnosed with a gynecological cancer. September is Worldwide Gynecological Awareness Month, which incorporates the awareness of the following five major cancers: cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, and vulvar. 

Women in all parts of the world are at risk of gynecological cancers, but this risk is exacerbated in areas of the world where access to prevention and treatment is low. Over 80% of cervical cancer cases occur in the developing world, and lack of regular Pap smears and other interventional measures may contribute to this statistic

To cap off Worldwide Gynecological Awareness month, I spoke with Dr. George Sawaya, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California San Francisco. His current research is in cervical cancer screening with particular interest in new technologies, cost-effectiveness and utility, novel approaches to population-based screening and risk communication. Dr Sawaya has also served on the cervical cancer guidelines committee for the American Cancer Society and the US Preventive Services Task Force.


Ruby Singhrao: Death from cervical cancer is high in many developing countries but lower in North America, Europe and Australia. What measures have been taken in these countries to reduce the risk of cervical cancer?
Dr George Sawaya: The United States has had widespread screening for cervical cancer using the Pap smear since the 1950’s. The risk of cervical cancer is driven by how much screening is available in the population, at least for now. We don’t know yet what the effect of HPV vaccination will be on cervical cancer, so currently the cornerstone of prevention is ] early detection of pre-cancerous lesions with treatment before they turn into cancer.


RS: So it seems that cervical cancer is one of the few gynecological cancers that can be prevented.
DR GS: Yes, cervical cancer is the poster child for gynecologic cancer prevention since it aims to detect and treat pre-cancerous lesions., Screening for colorectal cancer works in a similar way. Screening for breast cancer, on the other hand, aims to detect early cancers, so the benefit is mainly in preventing cancer deaths.

On Gynecological Awareness Month

Every year over a million women worldwide are diagnosed with a gynecological cancer. September is Worldwide Gynecological Awareness Month, which incorporates the awareness of the following five major cancers: cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, and vulvar.

Women in all parts of the world are at risk of gynecological cancers, but this risk is exacerbated in areas of the world where access to prevention and treatment is low. Over 80% of cervical cancer cases occur in the developing world, and lack of regular pap smears and other interventional measures may contribute to this statistic. This series will explore these types of Gynecological cancers, compare western treatments to those in the developing world, as well as highlight resources for women. An interview with Dr. George Sawaya, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California San Francisco will also be included.

Skin Lightening: Dangers and Cultural Perils

Many people are aware of the dangers of tanning from UV exposure, with the link between skin cancer being well documented. On another shade of the spectrum, the use of skin lightening creams among almost every non-European race on the planet is far less documented and researched. Yet today in the West, women of all cultures and races are a growing clientele in dermatologist's offices, as a result of the side effects of harsh, often toxic, and sometimes carcinogenic skin lightening creams.

There is a wide range of reasons for skin lightening in non-white cultures. Most commonly, colonization is blamed, and the promotion of lighter skinned women in the media seems to have a direct link with the self esteem of women and their skin color. Sociologists have found that the idea of skin color and social success are linked. There are clear connections with lighter skinned individuals having greater socio-economic success in western economies. In countries like India, Thailand and the Philippines, marital success is considered to be related to the lightness of your skin.

Women may be aware of the dangers of skin lightening treatments, but as shown on the Tyra Banks show, no matter how great the risk to the woman’s health, the idea of being considered more "beautiful" or accepted in society negates the risk for many women. Furthermore, skin lightening has remained an underground movement. Most cultures who have grown up with it are aware of their mothers, sisters and aunts caking their skin in white lotions on the weekends or even nightly, yet no one talks about it. It is considered the secret beauty treatment. There has been no sustained campaign from medical bodies about the dangers of skin lightening (as there has been with UV exposure). Individual communities sometimes host awareness events, but the scale of such events hardly compares to the imprint of mass media and social norms.

Health risks with skin lightening comes from the unregulated and toxic products used in the creams. These include Hydroquinone, a substance banned in Europe and Japan for it’s direct carcinogenic link, with prolonged use it accumulates in the skin. However it is widely available in ‘alternative’ beauty stores in the USA, Canada and Europe. Mercury which strips the skin of it’s natural pigmentation, is well known for its toxicity, which can cause kidney and liver failure. More commonly known is the ingredient Hydrogen Peroxide which temporarily whitens the skin through oxidation. It is absorbed by the skin and can cause metabolic problems, resulting in pain and gastric issues. Its most visible side effect is the patchy depigmentation of the skin known as Vitiligo. Many times these unregulated underground creams do not list ingredients fully, so consumers can't know what is going on their skin. Side effects are vast and can include toxicity, burning, bruising and thinning of the skin as well as acne and depigmentation.

The reality is that no matter how much we preach about the dangers of certain chemicals, the message falls on dead ears. A sustained public health campaign is needed, with more research from the medical community resulting in an evidence campaign to warn against damages. Further action is needed by communities to tackle the social impact; this has been initiated by documentaries such as ‘Dark Girls’, which has done a fantastic job of highlighting the roots of this health destructive and overpowering detrimental process.

An Undiscovered Gem: Museum of African Diaspora

The San Francisco Bay area is a unique American city in that it feels like the whole place has been sprinkled with a hearty mix of diversity. The ability of SF to intersect different cultures also makes it the birthplace of many social and artistic movements.

It was here in San Francisco that I discovered the Museum of African Diaspora located on Mission Street soon after moving from London. I regularly enjoyed the Tate Museum and thought I would have a similar experience at SFMOMA. However, I soon discovered around the corner from SFMOMA is the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD).

Marion Coleman "Sound of their own"

Unique in it’s name, MoAD holds much promise of being one of the few places in the Western hemisphere that is solely dedicated to teaching the public about the wealth of African culture as a result of African diaspora. The Museum is small, but the staff and curators do a wonderful job of showing a range of exhibits that expand the mind about both art and culture. The last exhibition, Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Contemporary African American Quilts, showed visitors about the underground art of quilting. Featuring the work of quilters such as Marion Coleman and Ed Johnetta Miller, visitors were exposed and educated to the different multimedia components that are used in quilting. What was particularly compelling about this exhibition is it’s ability to tell the story of many aspects of Jazz, incorporating both the integrity and vibrancy of the Jazz artist. The vivid colorful pieces were a delight to the eye, but also made one think when seen up close about the about of stitching and thought that went into the piece.

Alice Beasley "Miles Ahead"

Last last January, the Museum appointed a new Director, Grace Stanislaus. Grace holds a Master's degree in Art History from Columbia University and was previously CEO of the Romare Bearden Foundation, set up in honor of the late artist Romare Bearden. With her knowledge and influence, Grace has brought Romare Bearden’s work to San Francisco and it is currently exhibited in the Museum. Grace has used her experience in the arts to inject an intellectual aspect into the Museum that encourages the visitor to think about exhibitions but also to take away sound knowledge that inspires further engagement. I have personally found I remember the exhibitions and look to find further information afterward. Furthermore, the Museum takes art and intellect a step farther. The Museum regularly has art, history, and sociology experts attend to give talks. The management has also taken art a step forward going "off the walls" and into performance. The Push Dance company is currently performing Dance across the Diasporia, inspired by the word "Mixed," referring to someone coming from a mix of cultures; the shows promise to educate and show that art forms can transcend across immigration borders.

Romare Bearden "The Dove"

Fat or Fit: The Great Divide

Five years ago while working in a leading UK hospital one of the doctors said to me, "Have you ever been to the United States and noticed there are two types of people -- anorexics and fitness freaks or obese people?" She certainly struck a chord, but then furthered her argument by saying weight had class implications. If people were rich enough, they hired a personal trainer and cook to stay ultra lean while the poor were depicted as lazy, or even worse so called "welfare queens." We started to discuss how the UK was mirroring this behavior: fat women were depicted as lazy layabouts and thin women, the middle class motivated waifs that went for a 10 mile run every day.

Woman and Fetus: Property of the State

The current climate in the some parts of the United States would make one think that being a woman making reproductive choices is a crime punishable by state. Wrapped up in the current anti-abortion rhetoric, women are suffering and being punished for crimes that the US usually portrays as inhumane and more prevalent in countries such as Iran.

Bei Bei Shuai, a Chinese woman living in Indiana, was pregnant with a child. She planned to marry her boyfriend until she learned that he was already married and would abandon her. In a highly agitated, anxious, and depressed state she tried to kill herself by ingesting poison rat poison pellets; she survived but her baby died. My instant reaction was that the mix of hormones during her pregnancy, the loss of her boyfriend, and the contemplation of her future was so emotionally unbearable, that she had a mental breakdown. I thought I would read that she had been taken into a psychiatric or mental health care center so that she could receive support for her mental health and to help her recover. Instead, I read that she was recently arrested and charged with murder and attempted foeticide. She is being held in jail and on trial facing life imprisonment.


The case raises some important issues about how individual US states view women. Lawmakers and regulators in some states clearly view the need to police and regulate many aspects of a woman’s physical body. These views also completely ignore the evidence and advice produced by health professionals and scientists around women's health issues. Morality and an ever growing body of Christian extremism are increasingly taking precedent of the mental and physical health of a woman.

In the case of Bei Bei Shuai, she has been put in jail for putting her unborn babies life in danger. Alexa Kolbi Molinas, a lawyer from the ACLU, eloquently explained the ramifications of this case. "If we allowed the state to put a woman in jail for anything that could pose a risk to her pregnancy, there would be nothing to stop the police putting in jail a woman who has a drink of wine or who smokes. So where do you draw the line?"

British Terror: The Kenyan Holocaust

Recently, several elderly Kenyans flew to London to sue and seek an apology from the British government for human rights abuses in the early 1950’s. These human rights abuses include the systematic torture, rape, and massacre of tens and thousands of Kenyans -- men, women, and children -- by the British. As many as 100,000 Kenyans were victims of these abuses, but the final number is just an estimate, because Kenyans never had a voice. Rather they were muffled and forgotten about, our story wiped out by the British pen of history.

Simultaneously, a trial began at The Hague to bring Kenyan politicians to justice for violence that cost the lives of over 1,000 Kenyans. The painful irony of the two court cases is that what the British did to my Kenyan people was no different than what the Nazi did to the Jews, yet British perpetrators of the Kenyan Holocaust were never held accountable. The difference lies in the fact that the Jewish community has had greater access to media and voice, to tell their own tragic and horrific story. The Kenyans never did. Our story remains in silence, undocumented and unheard, leaving the British open to deny involvement rather than apologize.

HPV Stigma in Women of Color

When the English celebrity Jade Goody found out she had cervical cancer at age 27, there was an outcry of sympathy in the UK, as well as a stampede of young women rushing to the clinics. Most didn't know why they were heading to the clinic, but they knew they needed a pap smear, and they hoped that if they got this procedure done, it would mean they wouldn't die of cancer.

Goody, a darling of reality TV, found out about her cancer diagnosis on Bigg Boss, the Indian equivalent of the show Big Brother. She was on the show to try to make amends for previous crass and racist statements she made about the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. (Goody herself was mixed race--half white and half West Indian.) Once diagnosed with cervical cancer, Goody immediately flew back to London where the general public worried, empathized and supported her in her journey.

The reaction in India was completely different. Members of the public went so far as to burn effigies of Goody. Many thought that she deserved to die for insulting Shetty, and she was being punished karmically by this devastating disease. Those who knew about the link between HPV (a sexually transmitted infection) and cervical cancer suggested that she had brought the disease upon herself.


But the attitudes of Indian men and women toward Goody's disease raises questions about the kind of support available to Indian women who have HPV. Because most forms of cervical cancer are linked to HPV (which is sexually transmitted), there are moral and ethical implications for women diagnosed with cervical cancer, especially in countries or cultures where monogamy and virginity-until-marriage is the norm. A study by Cancer Research UK looked at attitudes of HPV testing among Indian, Pakistani, Afro-Caribbean and White British women, and found that all of the women were confused about whether or not cervical cancer was linked to a sexually transmitted infection (in most cases it is). While all the women surveyed said that if they were diagnosed with HPV they would suspect their husbands of infidelity, only Indian and Pakistani women surveyed expressed fears that they would be blamed for contracting the virus from a man other than their husband.

Women's Boxing: Increasing Popularity and Assessing Risk

In 2009, women finally joined men in Olympic boxing. It has been a long time coming. Although women have been documented as boxing for over 100 years, professional bodies have only recognized women’s boxing in the last fifteen years. Fights before that time were outside the fence of regulation. But are things really that different now?

Boxing as sport has been around since time began, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. However, boxing for fitness has really taken off in the past ten to fifteen years. Its integration into gyms and the modification for cardio classes has made it accessible to more people than ever before.

I discovered boxing through a gym coupon. I was 200 lbs in my early 20s, at university, and living with an abusive landlord. My self-esteem was low and at that point in my life I was just trying to make it. I was aware my body was struggling, and I knew something needed to be done because I couldn't run 50 feet without feeling like my heart would explode out of my chest.

When a friend presented me with a coupon to a "bitch boxing" class I took it as a laugh. Once there, I was greeted by Cathy Brown, then a European flyweight champ. Fit, charming, and attractive, by the end of the class she had me in my own puddle of sweat. The class was basic technique and although I felt like the heaviest one there and a bit of a fool, seeing Cathy and her strength as a women boxer made me determined to get fit.

Boxing has become a big hit for inner city girls who deal with the realities of surviving day-to-day life. The level of focus, commitment, discipline, and structured training of boxing provide people with the ability to gain some control over various aspects of their life. As a sport, it builds character as well as strength and fitness, and you feel better about your life as a result.

However, the more time I spent in the sport the more I began to wonder if boxing can be as detrimental as it can be constructive. The very nature and history of boxing shows it as a male-dominated, male-marketed sport with many instances of male aggression toward women in the gym still remaining vastly underreported. The rules of fighting might be clear on paper, but there is often just not enough regulation within daily routine.

Babyface Boxing in Pacifica, California provides training for girls as young as eight years old. I went to one fight and while protective headware was worn I could clearly see their head's flipping back. The young girls were mainly Latina and Black females of poorer socioeconomic groups, and many of the parents thought their daughters had the chance to make it big. Unfortunately, not even five percent of male boxers make it to a professional level where they are earning a decent salery. Female boxers often have to rely on other outlets to help market their sport and most don't have the big name like Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, or the model-like looks of Cathy Brown. Finally, placing girls in a combative environment around the age of puberty could be sending them the message that they can fight their way through life's problems rather than teaching girls how effective conflict resolution can be achieved using clear communication.

While I was attending a lecture by the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Stanley Prusiner, I was also struck by the lack of research surrounding female-specific injuries in boxing. Dr. Prusiner showed a direct link between time spent boxing, head injury resulting in brain trauma, and often degenerative disease in the brain. Many boxing advocates claim the damage to women is no different than in men, but I question this. Hardly any research has been conducted on the possible difference in physical damage that women can incur from boxing. Research has shown that repeated physical trauma to the breast can cause excessive cell proliferation preceding cancer. Also, enforcing the no punches below the belt rule remains a challenge, making women's uteruses potentially more at risk. We do know for a fact the internal organs of boxers get damaged in this sport, but without further research how much this affects females is unknown.

Even with potential risks, the reality is that boxing has caught on for women due to the fact it is an incredibly empowering way of getting in excellent shape. All sports come with built-in risks, yet as the rise of professional women's boxers continue along with popularity of the sport within gyms, health professionals need to research the risk of serious and detrimental injury to women boxers. Without more research and with a continued lack of support for tighter regulation in the daily boxing environment, women's boxing will remain a fast-growing sport with speculative, rather than well-documented health risks.

Bikini and the Burqua: Two Polarities of the Same Extreme

In honor of this week's International Women’s Day, it is important to recognize that international women have multitude ways of expressing themselves whether in behavior, clothing, or culture.

Dr Hawa Abdi and Daughters

America's commercial domination around the world often promotes that women should be drinking Pepsi in a bikini showing off an unattainable body while dripping in diamonds. Western media represents the free woman as someone who is confident enough to wear a bikini, allegedly so free from oppression she runs on the beach with her mermaid locks bouncing. This is contrasted with the Muslim woman presented as oppressed and beaten down, forced to wear a cloth on her head by Muslim men who terrorize not just their women but the whole stability of the western world. People who "buy" the preceding rhetoric clearly have no idea about the scope of oppression and commodified manipulation that western women are subjected to and little knowledge about the wonders of the Islamic culture as well as the power of Muslim women.

Is Popular Culture Bleaching Out Cultural Identity?

Last week a friend turned my attention to Beyoncé’s new look at the Grammys. Normally, I'm not drawn into celebrity culture. Vapid and unattainable, it makes me depressed and overly concerned. But the recent pictures of her took me aback. Blonder and fairer than ever, Beyoncé looked like she had morphed into Gwyneth Paltrow.

As a pop culture role model for women, Beyoncé stands tall. She is an intelligent, attractive, and well-spoken performer and she is also an ardent businesswoman, even holding her own against her partner Jay-Z, the successful rapper. Undoubtedly, she exists within an industry where she has to emulate "a look." For a while, I couldn’t tell the difference between her, Shakira, and Jennifer Lopez -- some of the most culturally diverse performers in mainstream music. Yet, their styles seemed to blend seamlessly into one another. Largely emulating the original material girl, Madonna, these performers are walking advertisements for various brands -- be it hair, make up, clothes, shoes, or cars. On one side, the argument is that these women have in a capitalistic, male-dominated industry been able to create their own lucrative deals and take charge of their own money. But, what about their identity? Are the effects of celebrity-driven culture removing important aspects of their cultural identity?

Beyoncé is a lighter-skinned woman of color. While she usually has the highly moneyed, honeyed hair she had for the Grammys, she has also experimented with various hair colors and styles. However, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a British writer and journalist who grew up in East Africa with ancestry from Pakistan, much like my own parents, was up in arms about Beyoncé's appearance at the awards. She wrote in the Daily Mail accusing Beyoncé of betraying her African-American cultural heritage and of betraying women of color.

I do think in the entertainment industry, where hair is an art form in and of itself, accusing Beyoncé of trying to "be white" is too simple and unfair. As a woman of color, I have done all sorts of things with my hair. Naturally, I am dark chocolate with big waves. But I’ve had light brown, orange, straight, and kinky hair. I’ve partly shaved my head and also had pink and red spikes. I was never trying to look white or wash out my cultural identity. Rather, I was trying to have as much technicolor fun as I could with my hair. I was "experimenting." What then is the problem with Beyoncé’s recent image?