Solange’s Ode to Blackness After four years of musical silence, Solange Knowles gracefully gifted her fans with her new album, "A Seat at the Table." Her songs set the internet buzzing with appreciation and positivity as she attained her first number one album. Per the Huffington Post, “Solange’s new album is a bold, pro-black masterpiece.” The album spoke about the journey of an African American in this world and how hard it is to be proud and celebrate life as a black person. Over the past few years, racial tensions in America have heightened and Black America undergoes the daily struggle of witnessing the killing of unarmed black men and women. It goes beyond police brutality to highlight black experiences from different angles. Her album …show more content…
The video is soulful. Color played an important part in her music video. Her use of natural lighting and earthy colors were beautiful. It added to the laidback and mellow mood. Classic hair moments were shown when Solange and her dancers displays a vast range of hairstyles, most of which were throwbacks. These include beaded braids, brushed-out curls, crowns of looped braids, short and long Afros, and finger waves on both men and women. These hairstyles were undeniably gorgeous and the portrayal was thoughtful and reflective as it aimed to remind all females to step out of the norm and embrace their hair in any way they desire. The best moments in the music video are when there were black women embracing their natural hair with different textures and …show more content…
The message is important because we live in a world where it is prevalent for the black culture to be exploited and appropriated. This topic became controversial when Zendaya was bashed because of the dreadlocks she chose to wear to the Oscars red carpet while Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner was praised for wearing dreads and recreating black hairstyles as their own. Blacks were outraged by the double standards while many opposed, claiming that it is just hair. To this date, black women struggle in the professional world because the hair that naturally grows from their scalp is banned and considered unprofessional. They are forced to protest for their natural hair to be accepted. It is a constant struggle for black women as their hair has always been
Alice Walker’s short creative nonfiction, Dreads uses imagery to convey her narrative about a hairstyle that was inspired by singer, Bob Marley. Dreads are defined as a “hairstyle in which the hair is washed, but not combed, and twisted while wet into braids or ringlets hanging down on all sides”, according to howtogetdreads.com. Imagery was chosen for this paper by the depth of Walker’s illustration of beauty that natural hair has that might seem to be abonnement or not professional by society standards. This reading sparks interests just by the title a lone. That people have mixed feeling about dreads, some might see it as being spiritual; or as a political statement. However, Walker loves the way her natural hair is supposed to form without
On February 7th during Super Bowl 50, Beyoncé took the field during the halftime show and shocked the world. She performed her new song “Formation”, which addressed all the criticism she received throughout her career, praised her African features, and paid tribute to Black History Month symbolizing The Black Panthers, Malcolm X, and Black Lives Matter Movement. This shocked everyone because they never thought out of all people Beyoncé would perform such a “racist” song. This performance received a lot of negative feedback which caused people to protest the NFL headquarters and say that she is promoting violent attacks against the police. Beyoncé’s super bowl performance was her way of stating she is unapologetically
She admires the African American history, the art of African American hairstyles, and she has even attended one of the top HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in the country. While that has not given her the “rite of passage” to blackness, it has made her the laughing stock as she is being ridiculed by the media for wanting to be something she is not. The question still remains why that is the case. There are millions of people that do anything in their power to pass off as a different race in order to obtain the job or mate they desire. Although the extremes typically go viral on sites like Youtube and Instagram, it never really makes the news. Why is this one story in particular getting so much coverage? The only reason that comes to mind when trying to answer that question is the fact that someone is actually giving up the privileges that come with being white and trading it in for all the hardships that come with being black. More often than not, when Blacks make the news, it’s usually to report rapes, murders, kidnappers, robberies, shootings, riots, and wrongful killings of the youth by police officers and terrorists. If it’s not regarding that, it’s about the U.S. education system that continues to welcome the achievement gap between white children with a high
She states, “Individual preferences (whether rooted in self hate or not) cannot negate the reality that our collective obsession with straightening black hair reflects the psychology of oppression and the impact of racist colonization” (Hooks 540).
In this paper I’m going to show how African Americans have used hip hop and black hair are two ways in which African Americans embrace their culture and fight oppression. However, as we have reviewed in many classes, oppression is not easily escaped. So in this paper, I’m going to show how cultural appropriation is used as a way of oppressing black culture. So this paper is an expansion of what we have learned in the class.
...nd attractive. It creates a double consciousness that is difficult to reconcile. Carla Williams argues that “given the legacy of images created of black women… it is an especially complex task for contemporary black women to define their own image, one that necessarily both incorporates and subverts the stereotypes, myths, facts and fantasies that have preceded them. (Wallace-Sanders et.al, 196) The root of the problem lies within our society. While very culpable, mainstream music and advertisements are not the only promoters of female objectification; the key is unwinding the inner tensions between these two groups. There is a need for the promotion of female solidarity, regardless of their skin color. We need to rid society of the evil of racism—only then will conceptions surrounding African Americans parallel and be as positive as those surrounding white women.
It is this form of prejudice that has more to do with skin tone rather than race. This mentality oppresses and criticizes those with darker skin tones and those that deviate from one desired appearance. It is for this reason that many Black women have gone out of their way to assimilate to society’s beauty standards or attempt to be “white”. What this simply means is that these Black women have gone to extreme lengths to appear light skinned and to make their natural hair as “white” looking as possible. This is partially due to the racist and colorist mentality in this society but also because there is a huge market in making Black women feel as if they are unworthy of being called beautiful because of their skin tone and hair. In Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair” he states that within his own community each individual spends an average of five thousand dollars a treatment on an attempt to get “good hair” and that the industry that is responsible for pushing this upon Black women is worth about nine billion dollars. The effects of this colorist mentality can be seen throughout history take for example during the Supreme Court case “Brown vs The Board of Education” (1954) in which it was deemed unconstitutional for a State to enact laws that created segregated schools solely for Black Americans. One of the pivotal
It is one of the first things people see. It can make or break you. “If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they are not happy.” This was said by one of the people being interviewed in the documentary, and the meaning basically means that relaxed hair equals happiness and un-relaxed hair equals the opposite. Yet, the nature of "relaxing" is not very relaxing. It is a long, tricky and expensive business whose purpose is to get black women's hair to resemble European hair – the idea is to "relax" the white people who come into contact with black women. Furthermore, black hair products are largely controlled and manufactured by white people. Rock shows that black women have made this style their own – it is no cultural cringe to white
As it opens with imagery reminiscent of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, an event that devastated the black communities in the areas affected. The delayed assistance in New Orleans by the U.S. government stirred some controversy that led many to question how much America really cares about its black communities. Nonetheless, Beyoncé’s video is full of imagery that is associated with black culture, including historical references to black communities in the south. But what is really important about “Formation” are the lyrics. With lyrics like “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana, You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas Bama” and “I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros, I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils,” Beyoncé is undoubtedly declaring her pride for her blackness as well as defending her child Blue Ivy who has always been scrutinized for the way her hair looked. Thus, this song is obviously geared toward the Black community which is obvious due to the lyrics and the imagery in the music video. To put it plainly, this song is a proclamation of Black pride and shouldn’t be thought of in any other way. However, after performing it at the Super Bowl people of other ethnicities became aware of the song and became offended by her performance as well as the lyrics. Controversy arose as people pointed out her backup dancers were dressed similarly to the Black Panther
By the twentieth century, slavery had damaged black pride, and made it known that black features were inferior. When it came to black women and their hair, black women desperately wanted to match the standard of “white” beauty. Walker’s solution to this was to create a look that was Afro-American without trying to imitate whites. Walker spoke about beauty emphasizing that to be beautiful does not refer to the complexion of your skin, or the texture of your hair, but having a beautiful mind, soul, and character.
The film, Out in the Night documents a 2006 case in which a group of young African American lesbians were accused of gang assault and attempted murder. The film portrays how unconscious bias, institutional discrimination and racism contributed to the convictions of seven African American lesbian women. Three of the women pleaded guilty to avoid going to trial, but four did not. Renata Hill, Patreese Johnson, Venice Brown, and Terrain Dandridge maintained their innocence and each were charged with several years in prison. I cried through out the documentary because it dawned on me that it’s not safe for women, especially gay women of color. The four-minute incident occurred in Greenwich Village where Dwayne Buckle sexually and physically harassed
Stereotypes are harmful because they affect those who are struggling with their identity. I think Wolfe included typical African American stereotypes such as the basketball player described by Miss Pat, the African American woman with “attitude” and “a healthy head of kinks” described by Janine, and Aunt Ethel who portrays the “down-home black woman.” In The Hairpiece, the woman is being persuaded to either be the sociality
Being a black woman in this society and seeing how sexism is the number one seller in this society makes it really hard for Mclune (2015). Mclune (2015) discusses “Notes of a Hip Hop Head” by Kevin Powell stating “Socioeconomic” is the reason for the sexism in the hip hop field and it is a way to keep the black females quiet (p.222). Kevin Powell states “But just as it was unfair to demonize men of color in the 1960’s solely as wild-eyed radicals when what they wanted, amidst their fury, was a little freedom and a little power...” (Mclune, 2015, p. 221-222). Mclune (2015) clarifies that Powell completely overlooks that females also have a hard life and an insufficiency, yet they still have to overlook the objectification that black men bring to the table. Even though sexism is not the answer, it will always sell no matter
“Hollywood is an industry that gravitates toward trends, but the natural hair movement has gone unnoticed and unaddressed on small screens all across the country” (Gordon, 2015, para. 4). Recently, the shows that are rated high, black women are wearing weaves and wigs instead of their natural, unprocessed hair. When analyzing Olivia Pope from scandal or Gabrielle Union from Being Mary Jane we all see that they obviously wear weaves and wigs. Even though natural hair is missing from hit TV shows, some stars, such as Lupita Nyong’o, the 12 Years a Slave star has strutted the red carpet with their natural hair on display. Only time will tell when more roles will feature women like Tracee Ellis Ross; starring in ABC’s new comedy Black–ish, sporting the big natural hairstyles that more and more Black women have been embracing. I believe actresses have fear of being limited by their natural hairstyles and that’s why weaves and wigs continue to dominate the
This paper will argue that to be a Black woman with natural hair, is deviant in the eyes of white culture. Natural hair is regarded as unkempt, unclean, and unprofessional (Thompson 2009). American society seeks to demonize the hair of Black women because natural hair disregards Eurocentric beauty standards (Robinson 2011). To rebel and wear one’s hair naturally comes with a price - especially in the workplace and school environment - because there are discriminatory dress-codes that prevent Black women from meeting institutional requirements (Klein 2013). Black women face discrimination for their natural hair due to the power imbalance of white men in work and educational structures.