Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American WomenWe all know there is a politics of skin color, but is there a politics of hair?In this book, Noliwe Rooks explores the history and politics of hair and beauty culture in African American communities from the nineteenth century to the 1990s. She discusses the ways in which African American women have located themselves in their own families, communities, and national culture through beauty advertisements, treatments, and styles. Bringing the story into today's beauty shop, listening to other women talk about braids, Afros, straighteners, and what they mean today to grandmothers, mothers, sisters, friends, and boyfriends, she also talks about her own family and has fun along the way. Hair Raising is that rare sort of book that manages both to entertain and to illuminate its subject. |
Contents
Beauty Race and Black Pride | 23 |
Advertising Contradictions | 51 |
Broadening Representational Boundaries | 75 |
Gender Hair and African American | 97 |
In Search of Connections | 115 |
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Common terms and phrases
A'Lelia Afri African Ameri African American communities African American culture African American female African American hair African American newspapers African American women African ancestry Afro Alice Walker American beauty American female identity American middle class American women's bodies appearance argued beauty products believed Black Pride Black Women Booker century Charlotte Forten Grimké class of African comb concerns construction cosmetic manufacturers critique desire discourses discussed dominant economic editors F. B. Ransom Feminist gender Grimké Hair Grower hair straightening hair-care products hairdressing hegemonic issues letter to F. B. look Louis Palladium Madam C. J. Walker meaning of hair ment Negro offered photograph position race readers relationship result scalp significance social society straight hair strategies style suggests tells texture tion Tuskeegee Institute W.E.B. Du Bois Walker agents Walker Collection Walker Company Washington Whereas woman Woman's Voice working-class African American writer York Age