Hair matters: Beauty, power, and black women's

consciousness. (Book reviews/comptes rendus).

Ingrid Banks
New York as well as London: new York University Or College Press, 2000; 197 pp.
Ingrid Banks begins Curly Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, along with Black Women's Consciousness
simply by revisiting a controversy in which occurred in November 1998. a white teacher, operating
in a predominantly black and Hispanic school throughout Brooklyn, gave the woman's students
Carolivia Herron's children's book, Nappy Hair; to end up being able to read: non-white mother and
father discovered out, the neighborhood http://blogbocarosa.com/ was outraged, the youngsters
were silenced, the actual media was engrossed, Herron spoke out, your teacher has been defamed,
and nappy hair/Nappy Curly Hair had been identified as politically charged as well as
contested corporeal (ex)tensions. Though Herron's children's guide is seemingly an affirmation of
blackness, along with black femininity -- black pride for that pre-teen -- these celebratory
characteristics are, at least momentarily, insignificant. Just what can be significant with regard to
Banks, along with the reader involving Head Of Hair Matters, would always be the chaotic,
contentious and interconnected understandings associated with black hair, black women's hair, and
black politics. Thus begins a series of interviews together with black ladies that reflects the
complexiti es involving black hair/style politics.
Banks' objective is to give rise to current and historical discussions within the particular black hair
debate -- a new debate which includes concerned men and ladies inside the black diaspora since
transatlantic slavery. Drawing on important critical race and head of hair theorists -- Orlando
Patterson, Patricia Hill Collins, Susan Bordo, Noliwe M. Rooks, Kobena Mercer, and thus on - Banks augments discussions of black locks through inserting the actual voices and experiences
associated with black females to the debate. Rather when compared with relying strictly on
literature, fiction as well as analyses of specific styles -- which can easily be the way black hair is
typically discussed throughout academia Banks sets your voices of your ex interviewees alongside
political, social along with economic assumptions about black ladies and wonder culture. Thus,
black women's voices are woven into academic debates in order to illustrate how black
female subjectivities complement along with contradict theoretical readings of black women's lived
experiences. hair matters, Banks contends, because black women performing hair, thinking head of
hair along with talking locks gest ures to issues way beyond grooming techniques, physique image,
esthetics.
Hair Matters will be split up into five chapters -- or even sessions -- whichbroadly include the
particular notable head of hair issues within black women's lives: goodhair (hair that will moves)
versus negative hair (nappy hair); hairalteration/chemical relaxation; internalized racism;
femininity,sexuality, along with curly hair length; curly hair as well as individuality/agency;
authenticityand hairstyles (are dreadlocs, regarding example, more authentic than a weaveor a
perm?); and, black hair, consumption and popular culture. Theseissues are usually discussed in a lot
more detail through Banks and the interviewees as well as linkednot just for you to questions
associated with adornment, but additionally for you to the
complexities involving black knowledge production: just how do employment opportunities,
mothering, internalized racism and/or class reflect hairstyle choices, styles and also histories -along with vice versa? The interviewees, which range from ages 13 for you to 76, reveal your ways

identity and race politics are historically, subjectively along with contextually specific and
component of a larger raced continuum. Banks for that reason locates the particular in betweenness associated with black hair/style politics -- race, racism, whiteness and blackness tend to be
interrupted as well as reaffirmed by simply private narratives and experiences. Importantly, Banks
really does not want to end up being able to existing an either/or discussion -- she understands that
black hair is contradictory along with pulls this ambiguity from the woman's participants.' Inside
each chapter, and intertwined in the participants' responses, tend to be head of hair matters
that are oppressive, resistant, as well as oppressive/resistant just about all with once. This
particular is particularly interesting and provocative during the emphasis team chapter, where
females involving similar ages and occupations debate along with disc uss race, gender and hair.
The limitations of Curly Hair Matters are, unfortunately, discovered amongst the really voices along
with interpretations which result throughout the text therefore interesting. Because this text is
based on ethnographic research, the writer offers the ability in order to tune the particular
contributors responses in accordance with a specific agenda. Though Banks comprehensively
outlines your ex methodology and also the problems encompassing interview-based research, about
the initial read of the text it became apparent in which specific participants were chosen in
very particular ways: the principal objective teams aside, various women's narratives along with
experiences were, at least with regard to me, curiously tidy. Although Banks tends for you to make
obvious that she wants to illuminate your political and social tensions involved in black female head
of hair maintenance, type and choice, your ex categorizations as well as questions (for example, Is
Actually straightening your locks a kind of self-hatred?) frequently reproduced previously
existing theories, thus limiting the particular complexities involving black beauty culture. This was
particularly evident within the 1st 3 chapter s: ladies with dreads had been seemingly a lot more
politicized (and "authentically" black) than these using relaxed hair, whilst those along with relaxed
locks were appeared much more carefree (not as feminist? not as black?) compared for you to those
with dreadlocs -- even though these females had different occupations, lived in different
cities/communities and, importantly, were of various ages. At times, this conflation regarding
specificities managed to get seem as though black ladies usually are not becoming along with
continually renewing on their own own -- instead it offered a new sort of static studying of black
hair/style politics in which disregards (re)inventions and (re)negotiations that come with age,
geography, economics, and thus on. Banks really does find a means to find out of this predicament
at times by simply asking the ladies to be able to revisit childhood memories as well as the changing
politics regarding fashion; however, these particularities could happen to be explored more to
demonstrate how race, racism and blackness each shift and also seemingly stay the particular
same.
Hair Matters can always be a distinctive contribution for you to western black feminism andcultural
politics as it disrupts along with augments active theoreticalframeworks that discuss the relationship
between black women, bodyimage, beauty, whiteness and racism. This particular is surely an crucial
text becauseBanks highlights the approach the everyday, along with narratives concerning
theeveryday-ness of hair, are generally inflected simply by dominant discourses and also howblack
women re-negotiate blackness as http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=4527 well as
subjectivity by utilizing an experientiallevel. The idea is actually not just a text that solely analyzes
consumption statistics,advertisements, "famous" hair, as well as Madame CJ Walker -althoughBanks notes your relevancy of those sources. Instead, by approach of theinterviewees, the
(im)possibilities involving blackness are understoodaccording to age, occupation, class, family, wellknown culture, and, ofcourse, hairstyle. The idea can be within the actual complexities -- the
particular interviews andBanks' interpretations of which -- that the strengths with the textlies. Even
though the text, in times, doesn't push the particular contradictorinessand continui ty involving
blackness and also black womanhood, it is actually a meaningfulreading of, along with contribution

to, feminism in which pushes the actual boundaries ofblack feminist thought.
Note
(1.) I'm considering with the arguments introduced by simply Patricia Hill Collins along with bell
hooks, regarding example, which in turn claim that black females are always currently oppressed by
simply their hair, too as Lisa Jones' and Kobena Mercer's a lot more positive spins about hair, which
suggest that black hair politics are usually part of a larger cultural re-fashioning and should end up
being study only as unique black aesthetic contributions. See Kobena Mercer, "Black Hair/Style
Politics," within his Welcome to the Jungle (New York as well as London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 97128; Lisa Jones, Bull etproof Diva: Tales of Race, Sex and Head Of Hair (New York: Anchor Books,
1994); bell hooks, "Selling Hot Pussy: Representations of Black Females Sexuality in the Cultural
Marketplace," in the girl own Black Looks: Race along with Representation (Toronto: between the
actual Lines Press, 1990), pp. six 1-77; Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Believed (New
York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 79-82.