a black girl

Black hair, white fetish Part I

Friday, April 27, 2007

This is a long one. It's broken up into two parts. This is part one.

So, here we are again: back to Black women's hair. Somehow with war, genocide, AIDS, and any other number of things threatening the lives of humans (mostly of color) on this planet we come back to the issue of Black women’s hair.

Recently, Don Imus was thankfully fired from his post at WNBC for referring to the women of Rutger’s basketball team as "nappy headed hos." This statement was of course followed by a media frenzy that included an interesting twist: blaming hip hop for the source of Don Imus' comfort with saying "nappy headed hoe." As if, somehow, white men weren't saying derogatory things about Black women’s hair and sexuality before the onslaught of hip hop in the 1970s. This also comes up as the boys from the Duke lacrosse team are released from charges of rape of a Black woman. Let’s not act like the shit ain't linked. I could go there. I could go down the road of how Imus' invocation of hip hop is purely a way to distract attention from himself, and dissemble what could be a fruitful conversation about the U.S. American audience’s complacency for violence verbal or physical against Black women’s bodies. But I want to stay on a topic that seems benign in all of this. The issue of Black women’s sexuality is certainly hot, and certainly needs healing. (For Black women in the DC metro area, please contact me, as I will be having a circle on May 3rd to discuss issues around the body for Black women.) I am going to talk about that. But first, I would like to make a small observation.

So Don Imus gives us the double whammy of referencing Black women’s hair, and Black women’s sexuality in one poignant moment that reveals, I would argue the psychological underpinnings of U.S. American fears, fetishes, whatever of Black women’s hair. Let me focus on it as a fetish: white people have a fetish around Black women’s hair. Well, actually white people have a fetish around Black women’s bodies period. Here I am talking about hair. Hair that is a combination of awe, disgust, fear, and hatred. It is as if our kinky roots are what Joseph Conrad calls The Heart of Darkness. Our bodies have been the maps of imperialism, and our hair strikes a chord of dread (no pun intended, but get why you don't call my hair by that word) and fascination in their hearts.

Let me back it up. I made a generalization. I said white people have a fetish around Black women’s hair. Just wanted to acknowledge that. No apologies, challenge me on that later.

As I was saying, white people have a fetish around Black women’s hair. I don’t know the source of this. I think looking into this will require a space as a chapter in my dissertation. I do have a few ideas. Don Imus’ comments reveal that fascination. How exactly does Black women’s hair become the marker for an entire basketball team that includes white women? This is clearly evident of a predisposed fixation of Black women’s hair. But he ain’t the first one in recent history. Can we back up almost exactly a year ago when another radio personality, Neal Boortz described Cynthia McKinney’s neo-afro as making her look like a “ghetto slut.” That’s not the only thing he gives us. Boortz goes on in a spiraling psychological (here is a moment where I invoke the postmodernist ability to make up my own words) Conradian descent into the depths of his fear, hatred, and awe of this Black woman’s hair. May I share?

It just flies away from her head in every conceivable direction. It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. It's just hideous. To me, that hairstyle just shows contempt for -- no, it's not an Afro. I mean, no, it just shows contempt for the position that she holds and the body that she serves in. And, I'm sorry, there's just no other way to -- it's just a hideous and horrible looking…

More on this issue here.

Let me be specific. It is the "natural" that frightens white folk the most. No such comment has made of one of the most prominent Black women in pop culture at this moment: Beyonce. (Outside of the Black community's whisperings on how bad her weave can be.) Boortz can barely contain his contempt for the natural. For him it actually "shows contempt" for her position as a government official. Black women’s hair in this state is something that can never be professional, that is always tied to our "primitive" roots, and most of all locates us on the lower rung of an aesthetic and moral hierarchy. Black women's kinky hair is evident of our sexuality. Note how Boortz references in horror "It just flies away from her head in every conceivable direction. [...] It's just hideous [... It’s just hideous and horrible looking."

[continued on next blog]

Labels: black women, culture, don imus, duke lacross team, nappy headed ho, Neal Boortz, racism, sexism

uttered by a black girl at 6:19 PM. | 1 comments

1 Comments:

Hi, I feel what you're talking about with the way you feel black people should stick together and that you would put forth more of an effort if you knew that we would. I would too. Every time I speak out about the things that make us weaker, lots of "attitude" is directed my way.

By Anonymous, at 2:45 PM