Black Hair Narratives

“The white founding fathers justified their exclusion of Blacks from the new republic by imbuing them with a set of attributes that made them unfit for citizenship. The men who crafted the nation’s government, such as Thomas Jefferson, claimed that Blacks lacked the capacity for rational thought, independence, and self-control that was essential for self-goverance. Racist thinking dictates that Black bodies, intellect, character, and culture are all inherently vulgar”(8-9).

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body. Random House, 1997.

“Hair is political, sociological and can be, although it is not always, a barometer of a person’s state of mind.”

-Marita Golden

Don’t Play in the Sun: One Woman’s Journey Through the Color Complex

“Race is the major organizing principle of American history, American life, really, and it is the one also that Americans are the most uncomfortable about. It’s the subject that they circle around, the subject that they invent codes to talk about. . . . It’s the subject that, many Americans think that it has to do with the past, but it’s very much the present, and I think also that it’s the most misunderstood, the most potentially contentious, social subject in America.”

-Chimamanda Adichie

‘Americanah’—International Authors’ Stage. Filmed May 19, 2014, in Copenhagen, Denmark. YouTube video, 1:18:32. https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=b8r-dP9NqX8

(Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2014, 2:32–3:05)

“Critical pedagogy, the sharing of information and knowledge by black women with black women, is crucial for the development of radical black female subjectivity (not because black women can only learn from one another, but because the circumstances of racism, sexism, and class exploitation ensure that other groups will not necessarily seek to further our self-determination). This process requires of us a greater honesty about how we live.”

-bell hooks

Black Looks: Race and Representation

Braids, weaves, twists, afros, and jheri curls; the evolution of Black hairstyles is simultaneously the story of the Black experience in America. Black people throughout the diaspora have been notoriously creative and innovative in expressing style through culture; especially when it comes to hair. However, this relationship with hair has also been historically fraught. Black hair has been framed by Western societies as negative and undesirable; therefore, leaving Black communities vulnerable to specific types of discrimination. By restricting the way Black people groom and adorn themselves, society effectively silences them. In this course, we will look at the ways that Black individuals and communities have resisted this silencing, even if this relationship with hair has often been ambivalent at best. By analyzing popular culture, literature, film, and academic texts we will try to untangle some of the complicated discourse around black hair.