The Natural Hair Movement

“We live in a society where racism is often subtle, consisting of such micro-aggressions that collectively attempt to kill black women's spirits.”- Ama Yawson, Huffington Post 

To give some general background information, the natural hair movement is a movement designed to show and express that the natural hair of black people (though shown more through women) is perfectly fine the way it is, and does not need to conform to the ideal of straightness to be beautiful or seen as not dirty. It is also about women enjoying their natural hair, without having to worry about chemicals or procedures to ‘fix’ it. While some people worry that it has become an elitist way to look down on back women who choose to wear weaves or chemically straighten their hair [link] many women find it liberating and enjoy the community they have found in embracing their natural beauty.

"At its base level, the natural-hair movement is practical. It’s a vehicle for women to access bloggers, websites, and their peers to learn how to best care for and style their locks. But, that’s just the basics. The real “movement” of the movement has always been about black women finding self-acceptance." (Link)

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While there is a lot of positivity in the movement, I would like for focus briefly on the negative feelings that some people have. Some women feel like the natural hair movement is just a way for people to feel elitist. In the article linked above, the woman says that the people who used to look down on her natural hair are now the same people who look down on other black women for not having their hair in its natural state. She also points out that to a lot of people, "hair is just hair" and doesn't have any higher political implications. While all of these points are valid, and even true to individuals, the problem is also that for a lot of people, hair is not just hair, and something that has been used to make them feel bad about themselves or to portray them as "lesser." It has also been used as a tool to give unequal statuses to black women, and a way to portray them as 'other.' 

"Beauty is subject to the hegemonic standards of the ruling class." -Tracy Owens Patton

In her article, Patton talks about the ways in which Euro-centric beauty standards (such as light skin, straight hair, and a smaller figure) can be damaging to women who do not fit these standards, since they are portrayed as the only way for women to be beautiful, and thus, valuable. She states that "Women of color looking for answers through an introspective gaze or through their communities in order to counter White hegemonically defined standards of beauty is not a new occurrence.Historically and into modern times African American beauty has been disparaged. As much of the literature on African American women and beauty has pointed out, African American women have either been the subject of erasure in the various mediated forms or their beauty has been wrought with racist stereotypes." The natural hair movement is a way to fight back against these stereotypes and to show that black women's hair is perfectly fine the way it is. It is a way for women to set their own personal beauty standards and to try and take back power. It seems to be especially important for women to have this power because even today, their is still prejudice regarding something that should be as simple as hair and letting anybody choose to wear it how they want.

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Recently, there was also a news story about another little girl who was threatened with expulsion because according to her school's dress code, her natural hairstyle of locks was deemed a "fad hairstyle." Video can be found in this article. While there are many reasons a girl can be sent home from school, (due to sexist standards in dress code) hairstyles specifically wore by young black girls fall on this list, even though these 'hairstyles' are just their natural hair.

Debunking the myth of what is beauty would require Euro American women to say "the hell with what men think" and African American women would have to say "the heck with what all of White culture thinks"- Wilson and Russell 1996, 85

  

Sources:

Kenneth. "I Hate the Natural Hair Movement - Curl Centric™." Curl Centric™. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

Patton, Tracey Owens. "Hey Girl, Am I More than My Hair?: African American Women and Their Struggles with Beauty, Body Image, and Hair." NWSA Journal 18.2 (2006): 24-51. JSTOR. Web. 22 Nov. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4317206?ref=no-x-route:693717b1204f58362f4112988cf00336>.

Reporter, Daily Mail. "Bullied 12-year-old Girl Is Threatened with Expulsion from School for Refusing to Cut Her Natural Afro Hair." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

Klein, Rebecca. "Tiana Parker, 7, Switches Schools After Being Forbidden From Wearing Dreads." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 05 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

"Is #TeamNatural For Black Girls Only?" Refinery29. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

how do you see domestic violence?

Ray Rice is a famous football player who heated his fiancée, Janay Rice, in September, 2014.  This is a video called Ray Rice knocked out fiancée.

Since TMZ Sports posted it on the Youtube, it evoked an argument about whether Ray did it right or not. Some people stand by him and say, “this is what equality looks like”, “Women needs to understand that if you put your hand on a real man you'll get Knocked out”. Others disagree with that and think people are judging this event with extreme views of double standard, “NEVER hit a woman”, “I feel like you fans are blinded by your strange love for this football player… Women are fighting for equality, but the thing is, we don't have it. Men will never understand that constant fear. ”

This is a serious event about domestic violence, and it deserves our attention! People are supposed to realize that it is really wrong to beat your intimate partner, and even if you did it, you have to be regretful and feel sorry about that, especially when you are a celebrity. What celebrities do can influence a lot of people, and then, influence a whole community.

Last Sunday morning, Keith Olbermann, who are an American sports and political commentator and writer, shared this picture on twitter to critique the costumes.

See how strong the power of celebrity effect. To be honest, those pictures are very awful and disgusting, and make me feel really bad and shame on these people. People are building their happiness on other’s suffering. Those pictures make me feel like people are really enjoying Halloween, and ignored how serious this domestic violence event should be. These offensive moves are aggressive to the victim. searching Instagram hashtag #rayrice, we can see some pictures like the following.

 

Since domestic violence is a big, contemporary problem in our society, I really want to know how those people think about this event. Is there any meaning of sarcasm and ridicule? How do you guys see domestic violence?

Comments from Ray Rice knocked out fiancee----full video   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwTMJroTbI   

Ray Rice Halloween Costumes Combine Blackface, Domestic Violence Jokes    http://gawker.com/ray-rice-halloween-costumes-combine-blackface-domestic-1650963461

Novels: Implicit Racism Intertwined within the Novels of YA

Many blacks face implicit racism due to the stereotypes and assumptions that are created from a variety of sources that affects the way whites see them. This implicit racism spreads to novels that are being read by young adults from the characters that they read to the characters that they see on book covers. More whites are seen in novels and made more attractive, likable, and successful, in which authors believe will lead to more, often than not, greater likability and audience retention. However, from knowledge, one understands that the character and/or novel should gain a greater audience based on if the novel’s story and characters are well developed. As well as having a misrepresentation of blacks compared to whites in novels, Schutte discusses how book covers are intended to grab a large young adult audiences’ attention; thus portraying the idealistic white, or occasionally light skinned female character. Since book covers are made to grab a reader’s attention I will discuss the importance of why having only whites on book covers are so important and allow for the discussion of why whites are used more in novels and described as more likable for another post.

Schutte discusses how novel covers are often ‘whitewashed’ to fit the idealistic white female image, and how covers often tries to ignore race completely as to avoid receiving racist accusations; burying the concept a midst ambiguous ethnicity, silhouette figurines or blurred images. As to avoid offending a coloured audience, authors often avoid mentioning race completely, forgetting that white is a race itself and thus, in actuality, bringing race to the reader’s attention if the main character in the novel is not portrayed correctly on the cover.

On the covers to the above the author or publishing company white washed the main character by making the covers of the girl to be white rather than Native American even though her ethnicity is discussed numerous times because it’s detrimental to the plotline of the novels. Even with her ethnicity as an important concept to the plotline, it is still ignored when making the cover of the novels. Without knowing the author’s or publishing company’s reasoning when could suggest it was because they wanted to ignore ethnicity or race, however, if the novel itself is surrounded by the importance of the ethnicity, then displaying the correct ethnicity is essential. Thus making it known that the covers’ portrayals were done to fit the idealistic female image rather than fit the storyline in order to grab a larger audience attention. 

Age Group and Race/Ethnicity vs the Years 

Age group and race/ethnicity	1984	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1999	2004	2008	2012
Age 9 White	53	54	54	57	57	54	52	53	48*	53
Black	55*	58	54	55	59*	53	57	51	43	47
Hispanic	51	47	51	51	59	52	56	57	46*	52
Age 13 White	35*	37*	38*	36	37*	32	29	31	28	30
Black	34*	37*	31	36	17	31	33	26	23	23
Hispanic	32*	‡	21	‡	18	29	19	26	19	18
Age 17 White	31*	28*	35*	29*	33*	24	25	25	22	22
Black	31*	35*	20	15	16	21	22	14	19	17
Hispanic	26*	‡	‡	‡	13	20	‡	17	15	15

For better understanding of this chart and more like it you can view it here: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/main2012/pdf/2013456.pdf

However, from the graph below, one can see that in 2012, for age 17, approximately the beginning of the Young Adult group, while whites are said to read more, when compared to the sum of other races it is less. This chart only shows three races, let alone the other minority ethnicity and/or races that were not conducted in this survey. Thus, by pleasing only the white population of young adults, if they are actually pleasing them, the other thirds of the young adult readers are not pleased at all, and thus, the larger audience will discontinue to read the novels that are ignoring the implicit racism, which is the opposite of what the publishing companies were trying to complete. 

Schutte discusses the ambiguity technique that is used through lighting and angle of images on the covers to leave the characters’ race as undisclosed. Specifically on this cover, the character face is hidden from the lighting as well as from the angle from which he is drawn. In this novel, the character is a ‘famous African wizard.’ However, without reading the novel, one would not make that assumption. Even though this technique does leave race as an unimportant factor by making the character’s race ‘general’ on the cover, this technique is generally done only for minority main characters. Race or ethnicity only becomes insignificant if the character isn’t white because then the character is believed to bring in less audiences if the reader realizes from the cover that he or she is of a minority. As shown above, this is not the case. Even though the cover is what draws the reader in, it is the content that makes the audience read the novel, therefore, the cover can only do so much to help the author or publishing company become recognized.

Ambiguity is a technique that works but authors or publishing companies uses silhouettes as well. Novels that portray coloured characters often disguise their races with the usage of silhouettes in order to dismiss race as unimportant. Once again, race only become insignificant when the main character is coloured. Numerous novels to the left are shown with silhouettes of figures rather than a specific race in order for the reader to ignore race when buying the novel. However, this technique is used only if there is a minority main character, thus, the reader will eventually understand what race or ethnicity the main character has. Thus, if the author themselves are not contributing to the ambiguity or silhouette figures within their novel by excluding the race or ethnicity of their main character(s) than the covers should not exclude either. Often than not, the author discusses the race and ethnicity of the main character for a purpose or important reason.

However, Schutte only discusses the implicit racism that surrounds young adult books. Are other novels for different age group presented with this same problem??

For better understanding of this graph and for more like it you can view it here: http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/10/23/part-1-younger-americans-changing-reading-habits/

From the chart above, one can see that the young adult group, between ages 16-25 are using the internet more often than any other age group. Recent developments in media and technology can be seen as contributing to the racism we see on these novel exteriors. Increasingly popular apps are gaining vast social attention, amplifying the opportunities to portray racism in social context. For example, apps such as Photoshop now allow individuals to edit images in magazines/ads to fit their beauty standards. Without even meaning to, absorbing images/messages from social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) can cause one to develop implicitly racist ideologies. In prior generations, these recent developments did not exist. Rather, these racist ideologies stemmed from historical occurrences (slavery). This mind-set then gain a colourblind audience that does not see the novels as implicitly racist because they themselves has become implicitly racist without realizing it. Thus, Schutte targeting the young adult area would have a better impact because that is the group with the most influences on implicit racism which then leads to colourblindness.

As demonstrated in the chart below, young adult readers are being more exposed to these ideas of racist institutions in comparison to their older generational counterparts on the novel covers as well as in the novels from implicit racism. Thus, current day generations are being more exposed to present ideals of racist intention. 

For better understanding of this chart and more like it you can view it here: http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/10/23/part-1-younger-americans-changing-reading-habits/

Responsively, it acknowledged most often from the young adult groups thus young adults have created more room for backlash. It isn't hard to see why young adults are speaking about the racism developed in and on novels more often than any other age group. Many young individuals nowadays are taking offense to this idea of white washing, and lack of coloured characters, and are speaking out against such nonsense. Implicit racism is still prominent a midst novels, despite the efforts of the present day equality movements, however, positive changes are becoming slightly more prominent in these current trends. Many covers for instance, are choosing to depict characters as they truly appear, regardless of race. 

Thus, in conclusion, while implicit racism for Young Adult novels are becoming more prominent the fight aganist it is becoming stronger. More voices are being heard to go against such inequality forcing publishing companies to make the covers accurate according to the novels and making many authors actually try to write about a coloured main character. Just as discussed in class about colourblindness and white-washing, one can see that these issues are even ingrained into daily doings that one does not think twice about such as reading a book for enjoyment. Implicit racism, which was discussed in The New Jim Crow, can have an extreme impact on a group's life such as mass incarceration or small impacts that can eventually gather into something greater such as white-washing for novel covers. 

Biography

Schutte, Annie. It Matters if Your Black or White: The Racism of YA Book Covers. "The Yalsa Hub." Dec 10 2012. Assessed Nov 3 2014.  Website. http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2012/12/10/it-matters-if-youre-black-or-white-the-racism-of-ya-book-covers/

Zickuhr, Kathryn. Younger Americans' Reading and Library Habits. "Pew Internet." Oct 23 2012. Assessed Nov 3 2014. Website. http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/10/23/part-1-younger-americans-changing-reading-habits/

Trends in Academic Progress. NAEP. 2012. Assessed Nov 3 2014. Website. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/main2012/pdf/2013456.pdf