Shining in the Sun: Remembering Gladys M. James and The Poro School of Beauty (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
If This Shop Could Talk: A Discursive Analysis of The Liberatory Function and Development of African American Beauty Salons and Culture" explores the intersection of political consciousness, aesthetics, and community development engendered in quintessential and atypical locales of African American beauty culture with an emphasis on the African American beauty salon as a discursive space. As it seeks to expand limited understandings of African American beauty culture, this analysis employs Afrocentric, Black Feminist, and Womanist theoretical perspectives as it traverses temporal and geographic boundaries. As proclamations of Black pride and beauty are juxtaposed in present day society against a multitude of headlines that detail stories of discrimination based upon hair, this work addresses matters of how and why Africana women assert such prideful proclamations amidst injustice. How do African American women know that there is power in beauty? Why do African American women believe such a thing? Why do African American women engage in beauty culture and beauty salons? This work focuses on 20 th through 21 st century America, by exploring Black beauty culture concepts and byproducts including trends, styles, community activism, and consciousness as connected to African history in Kemet, African history in West Africa prior to the Transatlantic slave trade, and African history in America between the 16 th and 21 st centuries. This work employs discourse analysis and Afronography to reveal and assert the existence of a unique epistemology within Africana women's beauty culture that has been employed in the subversion of oppression and the assertion of Black female identity in America. An Afronographic research study accompanies this analysis and iv represents qualitative findings from interviews conducted with women who identify as persons of African descent and members of intergenerational family beauty practice, where women in their families preceded them in beauty service provision. The researcher's perspective is also included throughout the work as she is a licensed cosmetologist and member of an intergenerational family of beauty practice. Ultimately, this work suggests that there is a unique, significant, and sacred agency that exists in the phenomena, traditions, history, and locations of African American beauty culture which has generated aesthetic creations in hair, skin and nails that rhetorically shift paradigms, in addition to words, actions, and feelings that foster an epistemology that can aid in the liberation of Africans in the United States and abroad. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank The Ancestors for providing me with strength and guidance during this journey of mind, spirit, and community. To my mother, siblings, grandmother, and stepfather your love was the steam that allowed me to face challenges and opportunities in this journey with optimism. My dear friends, thank you for the limited conversations, although they were short and infrequent, they helped to keep me centered. To my Temple University Africology family, thank you for your support, open minds, enthusiasm, and grounding; I truly feel that I am amongst family when in your presence.
Visual Representations of Feminine Beauty in the Black Press: 1915-1950
Abstract Utilizing advertisements and some pictures from The Chicago Defender, The Crusader, The Crisis, The New York Amsterdam and Ebony this paper explores the extent to which the Black press supported the use of chemicals to bleach the skin of African American women between 1915 and 1950.
Everyday Hair Discourses of African Black Women
Qualitative Sociology Review, 2017
Hair for African Black people has always had meaning. In the past, elaborate hairstyles communicated their status, identity, and place within the larger society. In present day society, hair continues to be a significant part of being an African Black person. Especially for women, who attach a number of different meanings to hair. This study casts more light on young African Black women’s everyday perceptions of hair and uncovers the meanings they attach to hair and beauty. This is done by looking at how the intersections of race, gender, and class impact on their everyday perceptions and experiences of hair. The literature indicates that the hair preferences and choices of Black African women tend to emulate Western notions of beauty. This is due to a great extent to the historical link between Black hair and “bad” hair associated with old slave days. But, the narratives of participants contradict this normative discourse in many ways and provide new insights on hair — insights tha...