White judge tells Afro-wearing Black beauty pageant teen her hair isn’t finished. The Beauregard Parish Queen of Beaufair Pageant was held on the 17th of September 2022 and led to a racist incident with a young black girl Taliyah Cockburn who wore a large beautiful afro during the pageant.
Taliyah Cockburn was the only black contestant in the 14 – 15-year-old division in the Beauregard Parish Queen of Beaufair Pageant in Louisiana. The parents discovered this comment after the pageant when they were allowed to read the judging sheet and saw the comment “hair not done”.
Here’s what the judge said on the score sheet: “Slow down, finish hair, pretty color dress.”
When the parents of the child pursued the issue, they were told the pageant was looking for girls with “smooth silk hair”, not rough hair.
Watch the full interview with the contestant and her parents on Roland Martin here:
While another black judge, Stacey Simien-Dickens followed up supporting the statement made by the white judge about the young child’s hair, she went on to add that the judge had not in fact been trained properly and was unable to recognize that the child’s hair had been styled.
Before the interview, she commented on youtube:
“HI! I was one of the judges at the pageant in LA I just saw the video interview of I am also the current president of the LA pageant judges association and this was not a race issue. There is an expectation of grooming among other things in pageants. Her sister competed and was more groomed than she and she placed. It’s not about her the child was not put together as a whole. Please don’t make this a race issue bc we have plenty of things that are racial issues that need highlighting here in LA but this is NOT one of them. It looked like she has been mistreated but it’s partially her family to blame for putting her up there and not having her completely put together to compete in that type of pageant.”
This is an issue of systematic racism and bias even in the beauty pageant industry that simply needs to change.
