“Mrs. Obama gracefully handles taking up more space, and it goes beyond hair,” explained Mock. “It’s her height, her curves, her eyes, her voice. I just wanted more of her, and that hair was giving me more of her, and symbolically more of all of us — ‘us’ meaning brown girls who feel there isn’t enough space for us.”

NOTE: I discuss First Lady Michelle Obama’s photoshopped fro with Patrice Yursik of Afrobella and Image Activist Michaela Angela Davis in a The Root piece written by author Helena Andrews.