a black girl

The Beauty Battle Royal

Monday, February 11, 2008

A black girl was chilling in contemplative hibernation, reevaluating the content of her blog (and by that I mean, not thinking about it at all) when she opens her email and finds a message from a mindful sister that gave her notice of some crazy ish on the internet that needed some vigilant lip pursing.

Okay out of third person.

This email I received made me aware of an online blog/mag named Jezebel with a centrally white readership that is asking for pictures of embarrassing hairstyles from Black women. (I’m not even going to the not-so-ironic-irony of the name of the magazine.) In light of a past two years of white-supremacist fetishization over Black women’s hair (i.e. Imus, Boortz) you’d think white folks would just pretend they don’t have an issue. Instead, the recent years has merely given permission for frank white-centered discussions about how different, crazy, wild, and wacky Black women look.

I’m actually not offended by the idea itself. We (women across the racial spectrum) all have embarrassing photos of our hair at one point or another—particularly if we’ve lived more than two decades. For example, I have a picture of an ear-to-ear bang via the 80s that is absolutely INSANE and in my teens I rocked a wave-nuveau which was inevitable for me in killer Kali. Sisters can crack up about it as much as I do (especially those who know what I wave nuveau is!). But in the real estate of thought its all about context, context, context. There is a way in which this racialized voyeurism (i.e. white chicks wanting to specifically look upon Black chicks) lends itself to a Beauty Battle Royal of sorts. A spectacle of excessive Blackness through black hair, that also is a reminder to Black women of the unattainability of Eurocentric beauty.

Look but don't look, they say. Don’t desire this thing, this thing is not yours.

The racial context of this contest raises an eyebrow, and rightfully so. I would like to see how this whole thing pans out—how far viewers comments go to dance around their horror, awe, and amazement of the gravitational defiance of Black women’s hair. Lets see how many or how few comments directly drop the p word (I don’t mean pussy.) to describe youthful female blackness. We’ll see if "nappy" even comes up, with arms folded, lips pursed, eyebrows raised.

We’re looking at them, looking at us. Defiantly.

And so the post blackness of my generation allows that much. Allows the chance for the white gaze to do its thing as it will (they will even look at us as we look at them). As we watch, analyze, and understand ourselves in the process. I’d hope we’d heal, as is the call for much of our "take the power back" discussions. Not through this kind of ish, but in spite of it. I cringe when "take the power back" means join them in their jeering and peering. It’s as sad as teased children making fun of themselves in the face of bullies. I’d hope that we’d heal not by joining them, but by putting the burden where it belongs, in the arms of white supremacy. By pointing to the irreverent and insensitive racism. By gazing back. Relentless, unforgiving gazing back. This has certainly been a process for me.

An un named uber leftist white woman with… matted hair tries to make comparisons to my locks and share "hair stories." I simply reply no, and look at her (as to not embarrass her in the professional setting we were in) so as to remind her that her hair is blond, long, and fine, and her eyes are blue. "We" have no shared hair stories this was not MLK’s dream.

I’m with a friend who has been invited to her neighbors’ house. Her neighbors are a white lesbian couple who have recently adopted a black baby boy. They hem and haw around the issue that they don’t know what to do with his hair (acknowledges collective exasperated sigh from sisters everywhere). What they’ve told me is that they wash his hair every day and put tea tree oil in it. They still don’t know why his hair is dry. I give some basic pointers for the sake of the poor kid and hope the books we’ve given, along with the little djembe my friend has given him will give him some smoke signals early on.

(I’ll discuss the unhealthy black hair generation to be raised by "colorblind" gay white folk some other time.)

This is not to say that I cannot talk to white people about hair in general. This can happen (and it has with white folks who know that there are hair differences not only visually, but historically), what cannot happen is a conversation about hair that assumes a similar and parallel history when it comes to my embodiment as a Black woman. I cannot be the one to consistently educate white people on Black hair and the politics of it. Ignorance of some of these basics is merely evidence of white supremacist notions of racial and aesthetic normalcy that results in a "what’s the difference?" "black people are so sensitive" response to Don Imus or Neal Boortz’ comments on Black hair that reveal a deeply historic and psychic fetish about Black hair.

The very moment calls for a direct and serious gaze back. To let folks know that they are looking, and looking as if difference merely belonged to us. To let them know that our sensitivity is rooted in a history that has maintained whiteness as normal and default. That we are gazing back not only to neutralize their gaze, not only to reveal to them their outright racism, but to access our embodied power, to challenge the fetish. To take off our blindfolds in this battle royal.

Labels: black women, blogging, history, nappy headed ho, race, racism

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