To be a group insider you have to keep the group's secrets--that means you have to know what the group's secrets are.
I was in my twenties, and finally just beginning to feel ease with my place in the black community, but I didn't know the secret about black women's hair. I remember I was in a mixed (meaning not all-black group) and someone (a white woman) asked me about why my straightened hair looked so shiny. I said glibly (and truthfully) that I hadn't washed it for five days--it was all natural oils. "Black people," I explained, "don't wash their hair every day." (I was a fount of cultural wisdom.) We all laughed politely.
I didn't think anything of the exchange until some days later when in a conversation (with black women) I learned that I had made a serious faux pas. It's NEVER a good thing, to tell white people that black people don't wash! It plays into racist stereotypes.
Oh God! I felt so ashamed. I didn't know that this was a secret. I didn't know.
Now, I read in the New York Times that the secret (not shampooing every day) is no longer a secret. In fact, it's all the rage with white people too. The Times reports:
“There’s this whole new breed of young fashionable girls who are getting that once-a-week shampoo and blow dry and just milking it,” said Johnny Lavoy, the owner of Moda-Rey Salon and Spa in West Hartford, Conn. They grew up, he said, “thinking you have to wash your hair every time you shower, but they’re realizing that natural oils are good for the hair.”
Ah ha! It's no longer a secret? Can I tell now?
