Hair Raising
Sep. 3rd, 2007 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheI'm on a roll, so why stop, right?
This is not one of my best written papers, but my prof thought it was right on. I post it because I hear a lot of people, including some of my friends, wonder aloud what the big deal about African American women's hair is.
Hair Raising: A Review of Culture and Values
Noliwe M. Rooks' book Hair Raising, while ostensibly detailing the political and social ramifications of hair styling in African American women's culture, also captures the intricate symbols and symbolisms that permeate throughout all American culture. Many of Rooks' points coincide with those posed in other books studied this semester, including White Women, Race Matters by Ruth Frankenberg and Prisoners of Culture by Elliott Gruner. Rooks shows us how even the simple act of styling one's hair can bring up such complicated and revered notions as home and country, freedom, revolution, and belonging.
Rooks starts her book by illustrating how her mother and grandmother differed in opinion in the debate of Rooks straightening her hair in the 1970s; her mother wanted Rooks to keep her hair "natural," meaning in the kinky, curly state, while her grandmother had no problem with Rooks wanting to "straighten" her hair, saying that it would be easier for Rooks to advance in society with straightened hair and that that would be one less fight she would have to handle. This small anecdote is central to Rooks' main argument, which is that the personal is political (to borrow the feminists' popularized phrase) and that even the small act of changing one's hair has major cultural implications.
Generalized further, this anecdote conjures up the diametrically opposed notions of revolution and belonging. While African American culture is not the dominant culture in the United States, one can safely state that there is a dominant African American culture, from which stem smaller subcultures. Because African Americans have been and still are often seen as the Other in American culture (see Frankenberg, pp. 16-17), their culture has been defined by the boundaries of exclusion. For centuries, this exclusion was based on the "inherent" differences between the races, most often based on the physical attributes of those races. African Americans were seen as inferior in every way, even down to their "bad" and "ugly" hair (Rooks, p. 35). In this light, it is understandable why Rooks' mother and grandmother had such differing opinion as to the nature of Rooks' hairstyle. For Rooks' mother, natural hair was one of the ways African American women could band together and find inclusion even in their excluded state, for while being shut out of the dominant society, these women could find solace and acceptance in their own culture. For Rooks' grandmother, however, the larger picture was of gaining acceptance into the dominant culture of American society. Straightening one's hair was as simple an act as wearing business clothes; hair was not seen as a symbol of revolution but rather as an absorption of dominant values. Stated simply, natural hair was a rejection of the dominant culture, while straightened hair signaled assimilation into that culture. Hair, placed in the context of these two arguments, became a symbol for much greater and larger social conflicts.
Hair also brings up the issue of the identity one finds in relationship to one's community and even to which community does one belong. Gruner, in his Prisoners of Culture, speaks of the American self, attributing this self such characteristics as "religious" and "patriotic" (Gruner, p. 82). While African Americans have been popularly stereotyped as "religious," the patriotism of African Americans has often come under fire. The discussion of hair underscores this point of contention. Hair places itself in the discourse of inclusion and exclusion: if natural hair is a rejection of dominant culture, then it is also a rejection of dominant values. Thus, how can one be patriotic to a country of which one does not share its most commonly held and revered values? Alternately, straightened hair can symbolize the acceptance of these values and can also signify a tacit agreement to "play by the rules" of the dominant society; hence, those with straightened hair are allowed to blend into the fabric of dominant society and their patriotism is questioned less. Therefore, those African Americans with straightened hair are seen as "more American" than their natural-hair counterparts. As Frankenberg says, actions and practices that do not comply to those committed in the dominant culture are seen as "not really American" (Frankenberg, p. 202). Those African Americans who continue to use their hair to struggle against the dominant social order can then be dismissed as non-Americans and effectively ignored.
This idea brings to the fore the issue of acculturation and the subsequent social implications. People often fear that acculturation means not the acceptance of the dominant culture but the loss of the original culture. This fear is based on the idea that culture is tangible and thus able to be "bounded." However, even as Frankenberg advances the idea of the need for an Other, she stresses that culture is fluid and dynamic, changing as times themselves do (Frankenberg, pp. 193, 202). Even as this idea is advanced, however, the dichotomous nature of the argument surrounding hair—that one is either for African American culture and will then wear one's hair in a natural style, or that one is for the generic American culture and will then wear one's hair artificially straightened—necessitates an Other, some opposite by which one can situate oneself. Consequently, as this debate continues and further exacerbates the notion of inclusion and exclusion of dominant and sub- cultures, the fluidity of culture cannot be recognized and so all cultures will continue to be perceived as bounded, segregated from each other and with defined boundaries.
This argument also calls into question the idea of the "melting pot," a quintessential American belief that stresses the notion that all people, once in this country, can meld together and live amongst each other without issues of class, race, or other such social divisions coming between them. The melting pot, at the core of its myth, emphasizes the stripping of all "extraneous" cultural ideals and boiling all people down to some basic essence: once all people have been reduced to some common idea of the "American," then all associations and functions in which those Americans participate will be governed by a shared set of beliefs, policies, and understandings. Thus a common and shared culture will be formed and all cultural misunderstandings will cease. This myth, however, can be quickly refuted by the insistence on the notion of the Other, which, if one extrapolates Frankenberg's assertions, is an idea that all cultures require in order to preserve their own "culture," or, in other words, the practices that each culture claims as special and their own; in a dichotomous relationship and discourse, there must be something against which one can measure oneself. Thus there cannot be a true melting pot, where everyone sheds his or her individual culture to adopt that emphasized by the dominant culture. There can only be homogeneity, where all strive to fit the image of the true American, or heterogeneity, where all recognize that differences will occur but strive to not let those differences interfere with the normal and everyday transactions of life.
Homogeneity in this context effectively means acculturation, while heterogeneity signifies multiculturalism. While multiculturalism in present-day society is an idea that is held in high esteem, it is commonly recognized that homogeneity lends itself to easier and more understood transactions in society. Loren Demerath has stated that people create definitions of situations, which, once commonly defined and understood, increase the efficiency of interactions; ambiguity, on the other hand, leads inevitably to miscommunication. Also, Meithe and Meier, referring to Kornhauser, state that "community characteristics thought to increase social disorganization included such factors as population change and heterogeneity: these factors interfered . . .with communication processes and feelings of common purpose among residents" (Meithe & Meier, p. 22). Acculturation, on the other hand, lends itself to clarity and common definitions and goals. Yet acculturation, for many subcultures, is something against which to struggle.
The problem with acculturation in present-day society is that it flies in the face of the melting pot, ironically enough. The melting pot, in addition to the ideal of cultural intermeshing, has also signified universal acceptance for all people. Therefore, the idea of multiculturalism fits better, as multiculturalism brings to mind all-inclusion. While acculturation and assimilation fit better in terms of interactions and feelings of commonality, they as ideals are shunned. The upholding of heterogeneity may foster popular feelings of inclusion but also may in the future lead to division and the cessation of open and implicit forms of communication.
At first glance, it seems unlikely that something so seemingly insignificant as a hairstyle would signify such large and commanding social issues. However, Rooks tells us that, beginning in the 1960s, the choice of a natural versus a "relaxed" hairstyle for African American women was not only a fashion choice but was also a political action. This emergence of such signification occurred during the era of political strife for nearly all African Americans in the United States, the Civil Rights era. According to Rooks, her mother's main argument against relaxed hair was "there could be no true understanding of and pride in my ancestry if I chose to straighten my hair, and she voiced great concern regarding my self-esteem and beliefs about my identity in relation to the larger society" (Rooks, p. 3). This sentence seems instrumental, as it touches on the main aspect of Rooks' argument. Hair has been inflated to be a signal of one's identity with either the dominant or one's own culture; natural hair means that one has kept one's ties with one's "true" (and bounded) culture, while relaxed hair means that one has relaxed also one's struggle against the dominant, "bad" culture. Relaxed hair means that one has gone over to the Other. One has acculturated. One has conceded.
Hair, seemingly small and innocuous, has become a major symbol for women in African American culture due to the recent past and sociopolitical forces that have shaped that culture. Hair, in this context, can introduce such complex social issues such as inclusion and exclusion, the melting pot idea, acculturation and assimilation, homo- and heterogeneity, and the amorphous ideal of cultural pride. These are all associated with the ideas of revolution, the struggling against the oppressive norm (as all Americans celebrate in the retelling of the story of the American Revolution), and belonging, the identification of being inside and having a place in some culture or community. Hair takes on a broader scope, a larger significance. Hair begins to mean, perhaps, too much.
References
Chudacoff, Howard P. How Old Are You?: Age Consciousness in American Culture. 1989. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Demerath, Loren. Lecture. Deviance and Social Control. September 9, 1996.
Foley, Douglas E. The Heartland Chronicles. 1995. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. 1993. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gruner, Elliott. Prisoners of Culture: Representing the Vietnam POW. 1993. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Miethe, Terance D. and Meier, Robert F. Crime and its Social Context: Toward an Integrated Theory of Offenders, Victims and Situations. 1994. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rooks, Noliwe M. Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. 1996. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Scott, Shauna L. Two Sides to Everything: The Cultural Construction of Class Consciousness in Harlan County, Kentucky. 1995. Albany: State University of New York Press.
This is not one of my best written papers, but my prof thought it was right on. I post it because I hear a lot of people, including some of my friends, wonder aloud what the big deal about African American women's hair is.
AMS 235 (Anthropology of American Culture)
May 12, 1997
Noliwe M. Rooks' book Hair Raising, while ostensibly detailing the political and social ramifications of hair styling in African American women's culture, also captures the intricate symbols and symbolisms that permeate throughout all American culture. Many of Rooks' points coincide with those posed in other books studied this semester, including White Women, Race Matters by Ruth Frankenberg and Prisoners of Culture by Elliott Gruner. Rooks shows us how even the simple act of styling one's hair can bring up such complicated and revered notions as home and country, freedom, revolution, and belonging.
Rooks starts her book by illustrating how her mother and grandmother differed in opinion in the debate of Rooks straightening her hair in the 1970s; her mother wanted Rooks to keep her hair "natural," meaning in the kinky, curly state, while her grandmother had no problem with Rooks wanting to "straighten" her hair, saying that it would be easier for Rooks to advance in society with straightened hair and that that would be one less fight she would have to handle. This small anecdote is central to Rooks' main argument, which is that the personal is political (to borrow the feminists' popularized phrase) and that even the small act of changing one's hair has major cultural implications.
Generalized further, this anecdote conjures up the diametrically opposed notions of revolution and belonging. While African American culture is not the dominant culture in the United States, one can safely state that there is a dominant African American culture, from which stem smaller subcultures. Because African Americans have been and still are often seen as the Other in American culture (see Frankenberg, pp. 16-17), their culture has been defined by the boundaries of exclusion. For centuries, this exclusion was based on the "inherent" differences between the races, most often based on the physical attributes of those races. African Americans were seen as inferior in every way, even down to their "bad" and "ugly" hair (Rooks, p. 35). In this light, it is understandable why Rooks' mother and grandmother had such differing opinion as to the nature of Rooks' hairstyle. For Rooks' mother, natural hair was one of the ways African American women could band together and find inclusion even in their excluded state, for while being shut out of the dominant society, these women could find solace and acceptance in their own culture. For Rooks' grandmother, however, the larger picture was of gaining acceptance into the dominant culture of American society. Straightening one's hair was as simple an act as wearing business clothes; hair was not seen as a symbol of revolution but rather as an absorption of dominant values. Stated simply, natural hair was a rejection of the dominant culture, while straightened hair signaled assimilation into that culture. Hair, placed in the context of these two arguments, became a symbol for much greater and larger social conflicts.
Hair also brings up the issue of the identity one finds in relationship to one's community and even to which community does one belong. Gruner, in his Prisoners of Culture, speaks of the American self, attributing this self such characteristics as "religious" and "patriotic" (Gruner, p. 82). While African Americans have been popularly stereotyped as "religious," the patriotism of African Americans has often come under fire. The discussion of hair underscores this point of contention. Hair places itself in the discourse of inclusion and exclusion: if natural hair is a rejection of dominant culture, then it is also a rejection of dominant values. Thus, how can one be patriotic to a country of which one does not share its most commonly held and revered values? Alternately, straightened hair can symbolize the acceptance of these values and can also signify a tacit agreement to "play by the rules" of the dominant society; hence, those with straightened hair are allowed to blend into the fabric of dominant society and their patriotism is questioned less. Therefore, those African Americans with straightened hair are seen as "more American" than their natural-hair counterparts. As Frankenberg says, actions and practices that do not comply to those committed in the dominant culture are seen as "not really American" (Frankenberg, p. 202). Those African Americans who continue to use their hair to struggle against the dominant social order can then be dismissed as non-Americans and effectively ignored.
This idea brings to the fore the issue of acculturation and the subsequent social implications. People often fear that acculturation means not the acceptance of the dominant culture but the loss of the original culture. This fear is based on the idea that culture is tangible and thus able to be "bounded." However, even as Frankenberg advances the idea of the need for an Other, she stresses that culture is fluid and dynamic, changing as times themselves do (Frankenberg, pp. 193, 202). Even as this idea is advanced, however, the dichotomous nature of the argument surrounding hair—that one is either for African American culture and will then wear one's hair in a natural style, or that one is for the generic American culture and will then wear one's hair artificially straightened—necessitates an Other, some opposite by which one can situate oneself. Consequently, as this debate continues and further exacerbates the notion of inclusion and exclusion of dominant and sub- cultures, the fluidity of culture cannot be recognized and so all cultures will continue to be perceived as bounded, segregated from each other and with defined boundaries.
This argument also calls into question the idea of the "melting pot," a quintessential American belief that stresses the notion that all people, once in this country, can meld together and live amongst each other without issues of class, race, or other such social divisions coming between them. The melting pot, at the core of its myth, emphasizes the stripping of all "extraneous" cultural ideals and boiling all people down to some basic essence: once all people have been reduced to some common idea of the "American," then all associations and functions in which those Americans participate will be governed by a shared set of beliefs, policies, and understandings. Thus a common and shared culture will be formed and all cultural misunderstandings will cease. This myth, however, can be quickly refuted by the insistence on the notion of the Other, which, if one extrapolates Frankenberg's assertions, is an idea that all cultures require in order to preserve their own "culture," or, in other words, the practices that each culture claims as special and their own; in a dichotomous relationship and discourse, there must be something against which one can measure oneself. Thus there cannot be a true melting pot, where everyone sheds his or her individual culture to adopt that emphasized by the dominant culture. There can only be homogeneity, where all strive to fit the image of the true American, or heterogeneity, where all recognize that differences will occur but strive to not let those differences interfere with the normal and everyday transactions of life.
Homogeneity in this context effectively means acculturation, while heterogeneity signifies multiculturalism. While multiculturalism in present-day society is an idea that is held in high esteem, it is commonly recognized that homogeneity lends itself to easier and more understood transactions in society. Loren Demerath has stated that people create definitions of situations, which, once commonly defined and understood, increase the efficiency of interactions; ambiguity, on the other hand, leads inevitably to miscommunication. Also, Meithe and Meier, referring to Kornhauser, state that "community characteristics thought to increase social disorganization included such factors as population change and heterogeneity: these factors interfered . . .with communication processes and feelings of common purpose among residents" (Meithe & Meier, p. 22). Acculturation, on the other hand, lends itself to clarity and common definitions and goals. Yet acculturation, for many subcultures, is something against which to struggle.
The problem with acculturation in present-day society is that it flies in the face of the melting pot, ironically enough. The melting pot, in addition to the ideal of cultural intermeshing, has also signified universal acceptance for all people. Therefore, the idea of multiculturalism fits better, as multiculturalism brings to mind all-inclusion. While acculturation and assimilation fit better in terms of interactions and feelings of commonality, they as ideals are shunned. The upholding of heterogeneity may foster popular feelings of inclusion but also may in the future lead to division and the cessation of open and implicit forms of communication.
At first glance, it seems unlikely that something so seemingly insignificant as a hairstyle would signify such large and commanding social issues. However, Rooks tells us that, beginning in the 1960s, the choice of a natural versus a "relaxed" hairstyle for African American women was not only a fashion choice but was also a political action. This emergence of such signification occurred during the era of political strife for nearly all African Americans in the United States, the Civil Rights era. According to Rooks, her mother's main argument against relaxed hair was "there could be no true understanding of and pride in my ancestry if I chose to straighten my hair, and she voiced great concern regarding my self-esteem and beliefs about my identity in relation to the larger society" (Rooks, p. 3). This sentence seems instrumental, as it touches on the main aspect of Rooks' argument. Hair has been inflated to be a signal of one's identity with either the dominant or one's own culture; natural hair means that one has kept one's ties with one's "true" (and bounded) culture, while relaxed hair means that one has relaxed also one's struggle against the dominant, "bad" culture. Relaxed hair means that one has gone over to the Other. One has acculturated. One has conceded.
Hair, seemingly small and innocuous, has become a major symbol for women in African American culture due to the recent past and sociopolitical forces that have shaped that culture. Hair, in this context, can introduce such complex social issues such as inclusion and exclusion, the melting pot idea, acculturation and assimilation, homo- and heterogeneity, and the amorphous ideal of cultural pride. These are all associated with the ideas of revolution, the struggling against the oppressive norm (as all Americans celebrate in the retelling of the story of the American Revolution), and belonging, the identification of being inside and having a place in some culture or community. Hair takes on a broader scope, a larger significance. Hair begins to mean, perhaps, too much.
Chudacoff, Howard P. How Old Are You?: Age Consciousness in American Culture. 1989. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Demerath, Loren. Lecture. Deviance and Social Control. September 9, 1996.
Foley, Douglas E. The Heartland Chronicles. 1995. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. 1993. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gruner, Elliott. Prisoners of Culture: Representing the Vietnam POW. 1993. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Miethe, Terance D. and Meier, Robert F. Crime and its Social Context: Toward an Integrated Theory of Offenders, Victims and Situations. 1994. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rooks, Noliwe M. Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. 1996. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Scott, Shauna L. Two Sides to Everything: The Cultural Construction of Class Consciousness in Harlan County, Kentucky. 1995. Albany: State University of New York Press.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-03 07:20 am (UTC)Such as here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-03 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-04 12:49 pm (UTC)Going off the top of my head, I'd say that still counts as "straigtening."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-04 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 04:15 pm (UTC)I grow my hair long partly due to vanity, partly due to it placing me as counterculture. Hair, like many personal grooming choices, can be political.