Why Tina Lawson Giving Beyoncé, Solange And Kelly Rowland Art History Lessons As Kids Is More Important Than You Realise

‘I want hair like Julia’, I announced to my mum. I was sat on her bed, probably crossed-legged with an expression of fiercely ignorant determination that only a chubby cheeked five or six-year-old could get away with, watching as she did her make up in the big sliding mirror of her wardrobe doors. Just like we always did.

Mum paused, which she never usually did, to ask me why. ‘What’s wrong with your hair, princess?’, she questioned. I sighed in the dramatic, audible manner of a child who had only recently learned what a ‘sigh’ was. ‘You can do this with her hair’, I said, trying to flick the stubby tails of my cornrowed afro in the breeze of an imaginary wind. ‘But mine doesn’t move properly’.

Mum told me I was beautiful, of course. And tried to reassure me that my hair was just as nice as my best friend Julia’s straight, dirty blond, wind compliant hair. But I wasn’t prepared to drop it that quickly. A little while later when mum thought she’d managed to distract me with permission to play with one of her new Bourjois eyeshadow palettes, I whispered that a boy called Douglas had made fun of my fuzzy braided hair at school a few days earlier.

I don’t really remember what happened next very clearly. Well, not much more than an assumed lesson in ‘sticks and stones’ and how it didn’t matter because I had nice hair like my mum, my grandma, my aunties, my cousins and a wealth of other beautiful black women who stood proudly in the frames hung on our living room walls. But I do remember it as being the first time I was ever felt conscious of not looking ‘right’.

It was by no means the last time I was made to feel that way growing up with best friends who were white and running around in playgrounds with boys who didn’t know any better. But it doesn’t make it any less sad, silly or frustrating.

In an interview with SurfaceSurface magazine, Solange Knowles spoke about how her mother, Tina Lawson, filled her beauty salon and home with a nearly 100-piece collection of art by African and African-American artists. Tina went on to tell Surface that she would gather Solange, her sister Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland (who lived with them when she was about 11 years-old) together to talk about the art work ‘to teach them that beauty comes in all different colors and forms and for them to feel regal and song and powerful’. The importance of which is invaluable.

The effect of Tina’s mini art history lessons? ‘It really had a resonating effect on all three of them, because they’ve always been really secure in their beauty and grace.’ And doesn’t every little girl deserve to feel that?

We know too well that the image of beauty has often been dominated by western features and ideals. And it’s a line of consciousness that no one, at the age of five or forty five, can say hasn't had an influence on their own sentiments towards the typically narrow definition of ‘beautiful’. But the impact, as we know, can be lessened (or even changed) as we work towards a more diverse spread of women on catwalks, in TV shows and on the cover of magazines.

Tina Lawson took matters into her own hands to make sure that her children knew that they as individuals and their heritage in the wider sense* is *beautiful in a world that doesn't often celebrate the rich variety of ethnicities, backgrounds and races that fills it. And while we wait for a truly level playing field to take effect across the world, I, if I ever have kids of my own, intend to do the same.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.