Racialized Fashion

“Black hair-styling may thus be evaluated as a popular art form articulating a variety of aesthetic ‘solutions’ to a range of ‘problems’ created by ideologies of race and racism”

I used this quote from the Mercer reading because I felt that when dealing with Racialized Fashions it captured what is occurring in todays society with cultural appropriation. Black hair-styling for black females is not just about the way the look, but it is apart of their identity and everything they have overcome. I used a video clip from Allure that shows how Black Women’s hairstyles have changed over the past 100 years. Over the past 100 years black women have had to undergo inconceivable turmoil not only for being black, but for being women. In times when life seemed nearly impossible to handle they could turn to their hair to let out their creativity and even their frustrations. Their hair represents everything they have overcome, and in the audio clip provided Amanda Stenberg discusses how Racialized Fashions appropriate black culture. For example, cornrows are not simply cornrows to black women as white women may see it. At a music festival white women may see corn rows as a “Style” or “Trend” they want to try, but for black women it is their culture and therefore their identity.

Citation:

AllureMagazine. “100 Years of Black Hair | Allure.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vd-AP_q2r4.

hypehairmag. “Amandla Stenberg: Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 Apr. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KJRRSB_XA.

Mercer, Kobena. Black Hair / Style Politics. 1987.