tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/black-hair-30088/articlesBlack hair – The Conversation2023-10-09T13:32:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135992023-10-09T13:32:37Z2023-10-09T13:32:37ZSho Madjozi: the pop star using traditional culture to shape a fresh identity for young South Africans<p>South African rapper <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/sho-madjozi">Sho Madjozi</a> is a bold and colourful presence in pop culture, as famous for her catchy lyrics as for using traditional clothing and dance in a fresh way. </p>
<p>The musician, actress and poet is also one of very few young South African artists working in a minority language, Xitsonga. With 12 official languages in South Africa, Xitsonga is the first language of only about <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf#page=29">4.5%</a> of the population, mostly in the rural northern province of the country called Limpopo. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tsonga">Tsonga people</a> also live in neighbouring Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Eswatini.</p>
<p>Yet, in 2019, “<a href="https://twitter.com/shomadjozi/status/1367138022676963329?s=61&t=tS_HwqEZjVfiFydTA2hItQ">village girl</a>” Sho Madjozi burst onto the world stage with her hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9bGITkIHmM">John Cena</a>, winning a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/tshisa-live/tshisa-live/2019-06-24-watch-halala-sho-madjozi-bags-a-bet/">BET award</a> in the US for Best International Newcomer. By 2021 she had established herself as <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2019-06-02-sho-madjozi-wins-big-at-sama25/">best female artist</a> at the South African Music Awards.</p>
<p>But Sho Madjozi is about more than music. She’s also about setting trends – through reinventing Tsonga costume, hairstyles and dance. She’s done this in a way that helps shape her region’s cultural identity. </p>
<p>Cultural identity is not something that’s fixed. Identities change, transcending time, place and history. Sho Madjozi shows how this happens when she mixes the authentic culture of the Tsonga people with popular global culture to produce a unique – or hybrid – identity and performance style.</p>
<p>We recently published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2023.2227293?scroll=top">research paper</a> that analyses this. We place her as an artist whose work demonstrates a fascinating interface between the “authentic” (Tsonga culture) and the “hybrid” (an innovative new voice, with innovation and novelty being central to the global culture industries).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H9bGITkIHmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>We conclude that by merging popular and traditional cultures, Sho Madjozi is the latest in a long line of young African artists who help shape youth culture identity. In the process she shines a light on a lesser-known ethnic group, keeping traditional knowledge alive so that others may learn from it and be inspired by it. </p>
<h2>Who is Sho Madjozi?</h2>
<p>Sho Madjozi was born Maya Christinah Xichavo Wegerif, from a biracial union between her Swedish father and Tsonga mother. This provides a further fascinating framework for the idea of authenticity and hybridity in her work. </p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">colonialism</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> suppressed indigenous cultures. Apartheid, introduced by a white-minority government, was a policy based on separate development for different racially categorised people. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01884.htm">law</a> banned sexual relations between people categorised as black and white. Yet people fell in love across the colour lines. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s mixed parentage creates a hybrid form of identity because of historical processes of cultural contact, transformation and change among different peoples of the world. </p>
<p>As if to underscore the in-betweenness of her cultural heritage, a considerable part of her youth and childhood was spent in Senegal in west Africa. This also demonstrates the notion of circulation that characterises the contemporary <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/world/africa/who-are-afropolitans/index.html">Afropolitan</a> (a generation that is both African and cosmopolitan). </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi chose proudly to adopt a Tsonga signature style in her stage career. She <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/sho-madjozi-it-makes-sense-for-me-to-rap-in-xitsonga-10990362">says</a> that, for her, blackness means “not erasing everything that I am … and never accepting a form of beauty where it’s as far away from me as possible”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A_EeqZcZ6dI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>She makes it clear that a pure native identity is simply no longer available. In its place comes a moving map of cultural images and an ever-changing sense of self.</p>
<h2>Costume, hair and dance</h2>
<p>Characteristically, Sho Madjozi adapts and reinterprets the Tsonga tinguvu skirt, commonly called the <a href="https://makotis.com/xibelani/">xibelani skirt</a> as it’s used to perform the traditional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">xibelani dance</a>. The xibelani skirt is gathered in the waist, accentuated at the top of the hips and consists of many layers of fabric that create a distinctive volume when the wearer dances in it. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/the-history-of-the-xibelani-a-look-behind-sjo-madjozis-signature-look-20200226#">reinterprets</a> this skirt. She pairs it with modern fashion items, sometimes shortening it or making it longer, reinventing its form. This contrasts and merges indigenous culture with fashion, tradition with modernity, and the local with the global. </p>
<p>She also incorporates vibrant Tsonga colours (pinks, yellows, purples, blues and greens) in her creative reinterpretations of costume. She does the same with her <a href="https://briefly.co.za/entertainment/celebrities/158996-sho-madjozis-iconic-hairstyles-4-stunning-earned-john-cena-hitmaker-queen-colourful-hair/">hair</a>, weaving bright Tsonga colours into it, adorning it with beads, experimenting with traditional accessories in her cornrows. </p>
<p>The xibelani <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">dance</a> is also central to Sho Madjozi’s act. It’s native to Tsonga women, where girls learn it to celebrate their heritage and perform it on special occasions. Xibelani means “hitting to the rhythm”. The dancer shakes their hips, exaggerated by the skirt, with the whole body following. This is often accompanied by hand clapping and whistling.</p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s colourful and iconic redesigns of Tsonga costume are signs of what it means to be Tsonga in southern Africa today. She uses popular urban youth culture to spread Tsonga xibelani culture in a national space. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ut3lDyGoqVU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>She does so in a time when young South Africans often find themselves grappling to retain traditional cultural values in an ever-changing and fast-paced globalising world. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>Traditional costume often represents old ways that resist change. Sho Madjozi’s innovations around xibelani speak differently. Through her performances, social media image and public profile, she rises above conventional attitudes that often perceive minority ethnic groups as the conservative gatekeepers of unchanging cultures. </p>
<p>She presents Tsonga tradition and culture at the cutting edge of positive identity formation. She does so in ways that inspire, attract and convince other young South Africans to embrace local cultures in their own construction of urban identities.</p>
<p>She acts as a cultural agent for the transmission of positive change and values across ethnic, national and international boundaries. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi embodies the words of <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/taiye-selasi">Taiye Selasi</a>, the young British-born, US-based writer, photographer and cultural activist of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin. Selasi <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/03/27/175466870/debut-novel-tackles-african-immigrant-stereotypes">says</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What distinguishes (Afropolitans) is a willingness to complicate Africa … we seek to comprehend the cultural complexity, to honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy, and to sustain our parents’ cultures.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Costume, hair and dance allow her to modernise Tsonga culture – and help shape youth identity.Owen Seda, Associate Professor in Performing Arts, Tshwane University of TechnologyMotshidisi Manyeneng, Lecturer in Costume Theory and theatre costumer, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023192023-04-17T12:44:32Z2023-04-17T12:44:32ZThe complex relationship between Black gamers and Hogwarts Legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520335/original/file-20230411-22-kd0zun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=268%2C7%2C4846%2C3251&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The bestselling title is already a serious contender for the Game Awards' Game of the Year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-for-hogwarts-legacy-behind-hamleys-on-27th-march-news-photo/1249859350?adppopup=true">Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the computer game <a href="https://www.hogwartslegacy.com/en-us">Hogwarts Legacy</a> was released in February 2023, some critics wondered whether the controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling – whose Harry Potter franchise inspired the game – would hurt sales.</p>
<p>Those supporting the trans community <a href="https://gamerant.com/hogwarts-legacy-social-media-boycotts-jk-rowling-goblin-rebellion/">had called for a boycott</a> of the game. </p>
<p>The British author has become a bête noire of many people in the trans community, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23622610/jk-rowling-transphobic-statements-timeline-history-controversy">repeatedly expressing and supporting views</a> like the unfounded belief that trans women are a danger to cis women.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the game, which gives players the opportunity to be young wizards making their way in the Potterverse, has proved immensely popular, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/gaming/news/hogwarts-legacy-sales-850-million-1235533614/">selling north of 12 million copies</a> in the two weeks after its launch. It’s already sold more units than the bestselling game of 2022, and it’s seen as a serious contender for the Game Awards’ <a href="https://thegameawards.com/">Game of the Year</a>.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://analoggamestudies.org/2018/09/rules-as-written-analyzing-changes-in-reliance-on-game-system-algorithms-as-shifts-in-game-capital/">social scientist who studies gaming subcultures</a>, I’ve been particularly interested in Hogwarts Legacy’s large following among Black gamers, who, like millions of others, seem more than willing to overlook the calls to boycott the title.</p>
<h2>‘That wizard game’</h2>
<p>In 2017, Rowling infamously <a href="https://twitter.com/sistersinead/status/922849074667315200">supported social media posts</a> seen as transphobic. Some fans wanted to know whether her beliefs were misconstrued or if she herself actually held anti-trans views.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"922849074667315200"}"></div></p>
<p>Since then, she’s doubled down on her beliefs, <a href="https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/">penning a long post replete with stereotypes</a>: that the trans movement is a “cover to predators,” and that it’s “seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class.” Her refusal to reconsider these views has drawn the ire of queer communities and their allies, and Rowling’s supporters and detractors routinely spar on social media. </p>
<p>When Warner Bros. Games announced in September 2020 that it would be producing Hogwarts Legacy, those angry about Rowling encouraged gamers to refrain from purchasing the title.</p>
<p>While Rowling didn’t make the game or offer any developmental input, some LGBTQ activists believed that the game’s success would signal a tacit acceptance of her views on gender. Some of them even refuse to reference the game by its name, instead calling “<a href="https://indiecator.org/2023/03/17/the-hogwarts-legacy-controversy/">that wizard game</a>.”</p>
<h2>‘Black folks done took over Hogwarts’</h2>
<p>While the enthusiastic response to the game may have dismayed some activists, I saw it as a testament to the powerful draw of the franchise, which has attracted millions of fans through books, movies, apparel and <a href="https://www.thetopvillas.com/blog/travel-guides/a-guide-to-harry-potter-worlds-and-attractions/">theme parks</a> over the past 25 years. </p>
<p>In the game, players assume the role of a new student at Hogwarts School, where they learn magic before putting on the famous “<a href="https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Sorting_Hat">sorting hat</a>” and embarking upon a shadowy quest to earn the respect of their instructors.</p>
<p>The love of this world – and the nostalgia it evokes – seems to supersede the problematic views of the creator.</p>
<p>And yet the game’s popularity among Black gamers might come as a surprise.</p>
<p>The Harry Potter books always had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_fandom">a broad legion of fans</a>. Many American students – including Black students – were introduced to the Potterverse <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/12/31/678860349/how-harry-potter-has-brought-magic-to-classrooms-for-more-than-20-years">in their school years</a> and retained a love for the characters and their adventures.</p>
<p>While J.K. Rowling included a handful of characters who were people of color in her books, <a href="https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-characters-of-color-who-deserved-more-parvati-patil-blaise-zabini-dean-thomas-cho-chang/">their scant representation</a> could be read as tokenism, at best. And long before the trans controversy, some Harry Potter fans criticized Rowling for what I call “hindsight representation”: long after the books were published, Rowling claimed that certain characters were of different ethnicities or sexual orientations, without directly highlighting their diversity in the texts.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, gaming boards dedicated to Black gamers <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/HarryPotterGame/comments/1102df3/as_a_black_gamer_i_can_honestly_say_that_this/">were abuzz after the release</a>. The game has gained such a foothold in the Black gaming community that one Facebook commenter <a href="https://www.facebook.com/james.weems3/posts/pfbid02Hk1cQcnHmaJucqWPtWxwfzusAgyExigRpjbvW6qkYExcLWxu2Q7cikb3eGn4w4RLl">triumphantly announced</a> that “Black folks done took over Hogwarts and turned it into an HBCU” – a reference to historically Black colleges and universities.</p>
<h2>Gaining a foothold in a white male world</h2>
<p>Gaming subcultures have long been what sociologist Eric Dunning calls “<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10382826295924019814&hl=en&oi=scholarr">male preserves</a>” – spaces dominated by men. These spaces are not necessarily exclusionary; women and minorities can freely take part.</p>
<p>But if you aren’t a white man, it’s important to adhere to the norms and expectations in order to be accepted into the community. </p>
<p>Communication scholar Mia Consalvo has written about how gamers work to acquire what she calls “<a href="https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4389/CheatingGaining-Advantage-in-Videogames">gamer capital</a>” – expertise, slang and accomplishments that reflect status in gaming subcultures. The requisite benchmarks, the language used and the knowledge that’s valued have traditionally been dictated and determined by white men. </p>
<p>So in order to <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479818433/the-privilege-of-play/">gain clout within gaming networks</a>, gamers tend to downplay their race, gender or sexuality. And because of a default thinking that the gamer on the other side of the screen is a white male – and a prevalence of games that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3144592.3144602">historically ignore issues of race, gender and sexuality</a> – diversity in the gaming world can be easily erased. </p>
<p>For these reasons, it’s been easy to ignore or dismiss the presence of minority gamers, and Black gamers often struggle to be seen. </p>
<p>In recent years, however, that’s started to change.</p>
<p>In games like Forspoken and Dungeons & Dragons, developers have prioritized different genders, races and ethnicities to acknowledge the diversity of players. In the newest edition of <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/1-human">Dungeons & Dragons</a>, for example, the image of “human” for the race descriptions is a Black woman. In <a href="https://forspoken.square-enix-games.com/en-us/">Forspoken</a>, gamers play as Frey, a young Black girl from New York. </p>
<p>And this is related to what I see happening in Hogwarts Legacy. Many Black players are applauding the game’s character creator, which offers a great deal of flexibility in making avatars. In particular, those who want to play as Black characters have a vast range of skin colors, hairstyles and hair textures to choose from – <a href="https://kotaku.com/black-hair-games-character-creator-options-kinda-funny-1850170200">choices most digital games lack</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A screen grab of a Black avatar from 'Hogwarts Legacy.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518890/original/file-20230402-3782-qrjkaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hogwarts Legacy offers a range of possibilities for creating Black characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steven Dashiell</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As scholars like Kimberly Moffitt have pointed out, <a href="http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=978-1-57273-880-5">hair is a central element</a> of African American identity. Complex and thoughtful options for hairstyles in video games represent a significant shift in the recognition of Black gamers – one that challenges <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086221097635">the kind of erasure in gaming subcultures</a> that my research has identified.</p>
<h2>Separating the work from the creator</h2>
<p>How does this square with Rowling’s transphobia, and the calls to boycott the video game? </p>
<p>And, does this speak to the age-old belief from political science that Black Americans are <a href="https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/3336-many-black-people-are-conservative-but-not-the-way-most-think">socially conservative</a> and therefore more likely to overlook homophobia or transphobia? </p>
<p>I would say no. </p>
<p>Black popular culture has a complicated relationship with the separation of artists from their work. Disgraced luminaries like R. Kelly, Kanye West and Michael Jackson generate sometimes paradoxical associations for Black people: They’re iconic Black artists who, in their personal lives, have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64736677">committed crimes</a> or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/entertainment/kanye-west-antisemitism-anti-black/index.html">expressed hateful ideas</a>.</p>
<p>So many Black gamers are primed to separate Hogwarts Legacy from Rowling, particularly since the game makes huge strides in representation.</p>
<p>Furthermore, research overwhelmingly shows that a large majority of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2023/02/16/black-americans-views-on-transgender-and-nonbinary-issues/">younger Black Americans are not socially conservative</a>. </p>
<p>So in my view, their desire to be represented in games that have long excluded them serves a broader goal that likely outweighs any negative feelings toward Rowling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Dashiell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite calls to boycott the game by trans activists, the game has proved wildly popular – particularly among Black gamers.Steven Dashiell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1586052021-05-14T12:46:32Z2021-05-14T12:46:32ZNew teachers face complex cultural challenges – the stories of 3 Latina teachers in their toughest moments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396125/original/file-20210420-23-1ghs1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C0%2C8115%2C6123&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Identity and race play significant factors in the first-year experiences of Latina teachers in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/high-school-teacher-and-students-in-classroom-royalty-free-image/1264702811?adppopup=true">RichLegg/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gun control. Hallway decorations. Hairstyles.</p>
<p>Those aren’t the things I expected to be stumbling blocks for three Latina educators that I helped prepare to become schoolteachers in recent years. But each situation came up in their classroom or in the course of their jobs at various elementary and middle schools in the state of Indiana, where I teach. Their situations are indicative of a time in our society when we are called to more closely pay attention to issues of racism and social justice.</p>
<p>I’m tracking these former students – along with three others – as part of a study I am doing on the first-year experiences of Latina teachers. As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d7Q3n0UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">educator who helps prepare future school teachers</a>, I believe these experiences help shine light on some of the expectations that students, parents and school administrators might sometimes have of classroom teachers. Conversely, my research also shows some of the culturally dicey situations that schoolteachers may have to navigate once they get a classroom of their own.</p>
<p>On a broader level, my research shows the complex interactions that can take place within schools with student bodies that are becoming <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/education/teacher-diversity/">increasingly diverse</a>.</p>
<p>With that in mind, here are three examples based on the experiences of three former students of mine in their first year of teaching. All names in the following examples are pseudonyms.</p>
<h2>Gun control</h2>
<p>When Ms. Raymond, a sixth grade social studies teacher, discussed the Second Amendment, Mary, a white female student, expressed her view that Democrats wanted to take everyone’s guns away and that people needed guns in their home for protection.</p>
<p>Ms. Raymond clarified that some people want to see laws passed that make guns less accessible. That same day, Mary’s parents reached out to Ms. Raymond and insisted she meet with them in person. After Ms. Raymond refused to meet in person due to COVID-19 restrictions and her own sense of safety, the parents refused to meet via Zoom or discuss it over the telephone and instead explained their concerns via a messaging app the school uses for teachers and parents to communicate.</p>
<p>Mary’s parents claimed in their messages to Ms. Raymond that Mary felt Ms. Raymond is biased against her opinions and prevents her from stating them by not calling on her. They said Ms. Raymond should allow all students to speak their opinions, even if she doesn’t agree with them, which Ms. Raymond believes she does. They also insisted Ms. Raymond not speak to their child individually because she feels “threatened” by Ms. Raymond. They asked that the homeroom teacher, a white male teacher, be present during any further one-on-one interactions with Mary. The principal agreed that the student should be accommodated in order to make her feel more comfortable.</p>
<p>Ms. Raymond believes this is a move to undermine her position as a teacher. It also serves to uphold the stereotype of Latinas as being loud, hot-tempered and volatile, as indicated in the suggestion that she made the student feel “threatened.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A female teacher wearing a mask conducts her zoom class." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399068/original/file-20210505-17-1vshczw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Classroom discussions around race can be difficult to navigate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gladys-alvarez-a-5th-grade-teacher-at-manchester-ave-news-photo/1228141222?adppopup=true">Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hallway decorations</h2>
<p>Ms. Sanchez teaches in a school district where the dual language program is prominently featured on the district’s website. And with good reason. The teachers in this program have gone above and beyond to make the students feel welcomed and part of the school community.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, however, the principal told the teachers in the program – including Ms. Sanchez – that they couldn’t do certain activities, such as decorating the school hallways with student work, unless they involved the other teachers in the same grade level but who are not part of the program. This happened after those teachers – veteran white teachers – complained that they weren’t being invited to participate in dual language program activities. As a practical matter, Ms. Sanchez says this means the dual language program has to involve white teachers who know neither the students nor the program.</p>
<p>The irony of the situation, according to Ms. Sanchez, is that the non-Spanish-speaking teachers were always welcome to participate in the dual language program activities – they just didn’t want to stay after school to do it.</p>
<p>In effect, while the district promotes the dual language program on its website to create an image of diversity and inclusion, the dual language program in Ms. Sanchez’s school has little autonomy, and she feels it is subjected to white surveillance and control.</p>
<h2>Hairstyles</h2>
<p>During a sixth grade science lesson that was fully online due to the pandemic, several Black girls began to comment on the hair of a white student, Amy, because her hair was braided in small cornrows with beads, seemingly in emulation of a hairstyle typically worn by Black girls.</p>
<p>“Ms. Gonzales, do you think Amy is culturally appropriating right now?” one Black female student asked.</p>
<p>Rather than address the matter on the spot, Ms. Gonzales told her students that these types of conversations are important and that they would address it two days later.</p>
<p>That day, Ms. Gonzales spoke with her team and the principal. Her team concluded that this is a conversation that obviously matters to their Black female students and that waiting two days to talk to them was too long. The principal agreed, adding that racial equality is a key part of their school and the only way to show students this is by hearing their voices. </p>
<p>She also spoke with Amy, the white student who explained that she just loved her friend’s braids and wanted to style her hair the same way, so she had her aunt do her hair. After watching a couple of videos and reading a book with Ms. Gonzales about Black hair, Amy came to realize how it could offend some of her Black peers. Ms. Gonzales also spoke with Amy’s mother, who was supportive and understood why Black students were offended.</p>
<p>Before getting into the full conversation of cultural appropriation, the class discussed what it meant to “pull people in” kindly to these kinds of conversations and not singling people out. Ms. Gonzales also discussed a bit of how Black women’s hair has been discriminated against, <a href="https://www.essence.com/hair/tignon-laws-cultural-appropriation-black-natural-hair/">historically</a> as well as in <a href="https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/the-roots-of-the-crown-act-what-employers-need-to-know-about-hairstyle-discrimination-laws.html">contemporary times</a>. </p>
<p>She also brought in opinions from Black friends and colleagues on how they feel about white people wearing Black hairstyles, as well as Tik Tok videos of persons of color explaining why it’s cultural appropriation or not.</p>
<p>At the end of the meeting, which her mother also attended, Amy decided to make a statement which in part said, “I understand that I had my hair done and it offended some of my peers of color. I love the Black culture and I wanted to respect it. I didn’t know I would be offending the Black culture, and I thought I would be called out in a positive way and not a negative way.”</p>
<p>Ms. Gonzales said she received a lot of backlash from co-workers outside of her team who told her that having such conversations is wrong. Ms. Gonzales defends her actions, saying she sees it as important to provide a space where all students can voice their feelings and learn about issues such as cultural appropriation.</p>
<p>As these three accounts indicate, teachers in their first year of teaching must navigate various concerns – and sometimes concerns that conflict – among parents, students and administrators. Knowing this in advance can help teachers better prepare for the various cultural dilemmas they are likely to face in today’s classroom and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Sosa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dicey cultural situations and power struggles await Latina teachers in America’s schools.Teresa Sosa, Associate Professor of Education, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1592902021-04-20T15:10:36Z2021-04-20T15:10:36ZAfro hair: How pupils are tackling discriminatory uniform policies<p>There has been much <a href="https://irr.org.uk/article/irr-responds-to-commission-race-ethnic-disparities-report/">criticism</a> of the report recently published by the UK government’s Commission on Ethnic and Racial Disparities, chaired by Tony Sewell. Pundits have deplored its denial of institutional racism in Britain. A recent act of student resistance highlights how flawed the report is, and how racism affects schooling. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/pimlico-academy-pupils-stage-protest-over-discriminatory-policies">In March</a>, hundreds of pupils at the Pimlico Academy, a secondary school in west London, demonstrated against changes to the curriculum, the flying of the union jack outside the school and, crucially, discriminatory uniform policies. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/25/not-seeing-ourselves-represented-union-jack-row-at-london-school-shows-divides">The protests began</a> months earlier, in September 2020, when the school introduced new rules, banning colourful hijabs and hairstyles that “block the view of others”. </p>
<p>By not mentioning race, these regulations attempt to hide behind a thin veneer of neutrality. As the students have made clear, however, this does little to obscure how these uniform rules discriminate against Muslim students and Black students.</p>
<h2>Recent cases</h2>
<p>Discrimination against afro-textured hair is not limited to Pimlico Academy. Several high-profile cases in recent years have made the issue increasingly difficult to ignore. </p>
<p>In 2017, after starting at secondary school, <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2017/09/14/mother-of-boy-ordered-to-cut-dreadlocks-accuses-school-of-racial-discrimination-6927022/">Chikayzea Flanders</a> was placed in isolation because his dreadlocks - symbolic of his Rastafarian culture and religion - were deemed to be in breach of the school’s uniform policy. He was threatened with exclusion unless he cut his hair. Around that same time, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45521094">Ruby Williams</a> was repeatedly being sent home because her afro hair too was deemed unacceptable. </p>
<p>These are just the cases that make the headlines. But, as the 2019 <a href="https://www.worldafroday.com/hair-equality-report">Hair Equality Report</a> suggests, many more cases simply do not. This study, done in response to the UK government’s education inspection framework, saw the World Afro Day collective along with researchers from De Montfort University conduct a survey of 1,000 respondents. They found that one in four adults had had a “bad or very bad experience at school with their Afro-textured hair and identity”. One in six adults reported having had a bad or very bad experience. And of these children with bad experiences, 46% faced school policies penalising afro hair.</p>
<h2>Symbolic meaning</h2>
<p>To understand the racial significance of these school uniform policies, it is necessary to recognise the symbolic nature of hair. Hair is not neutral. It is saturated with racial and cultural meaning. Which is to say <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Hair_Matters.html?id=YH0EntlW0RcC&redir_esc=y">hair is both a means through which culture is expressed and understood, and a way in which people are racialised</a>. As the British art historian Kobena Mercer puts it in <a href="http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/newformations/03_33.pdf">Black hair/style politics</a>, hair is “the most visible stigma of blackness, second only to skin”.</p>
<p>In a context where explicit racial discrimination is illegal, as well as a transgression of our so-called post-racial sensibilities, school uniform policies are usually presented as race-neutral. They’re not about race or ethnicity, we’re told, but about appearing “smart”, “professional”, “disciplined” and “presentable”. </p>
<p>British criminologist <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/7/11/219">Laura Connelly and I have argued</a>, however, that, as with beauty standards (as shown by <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Black-Beauty-Aesthetics-Stylization-Politics/Tate/p/book/9781138266193">the work of the sociologist Shirley Anne Tate</a>), these assumptions are underpinned by white supremacist logic that pathologises Black aesthetics. That is, by perceptions that hairstyles typically worn by Black people are not smart but unruly. </p>
<p>Such policies give rise to anti-black forms of social control – through discipline, including isolation and exclusion - that further entrench white supremacy. <a href="https://soc-for-ed-studies.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/GillbornD-et-al_Race-Racism-and-Education.pdf">Black students are already subject</a> to racially disproportionate disciplinary procedures in schools. This is most obvious in the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/school-racism-black-students-exclusions-hair-kiss-teeth-a9280296.html">disparities</a> in school exclusions, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/24/exclusion-rates-black-caribbean-pupils-england">recent evidence</a> finding that Black Caribbean students are excluded from schools at up to six times the rate of their white peers in some local authorities.</p>
<h2>Youth-led resistance</h2>
<p>Buoyed by last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, and having succeeded in forcing their school to amend its uniform policy, the Pimlico student protesters are part of a growing tide of youth-led anti-racist resistance. </p>
<p>In the Chikayzea Flanders case mentioned earlier, legal action initiated by his mother, and backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), eventually led the school to accept that its “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/sep/12/london-school-that-told-boy-to-cut-off-dreadlocks-backs-down">ban on dreadlocks resulted in indirect discrimination</a>”. And although the board did not accept liability, Ruby Williams <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/afro-hair-discrimation-student-legal-action-payout-ruby-williams-urswick-school-a9323466.html">received a settlement</a> after an EHRC-backed race discrimination case was raised by the family. </p>
<p>More widely, Emma Dabiri, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/305/305706/don-t-touch-my-hair/9780141986289.html">Don’t Touch My Hair</a>, <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/head/article/48107/1/emma-dabiri-fighting-afro-hair-protected-by-the-law-equality-act-ruby-williams">has been campaigning</a> for afro hair to be explicitly protected under the Equality Act. <a href="https://halocollective.co.uk/">The Halo Collective</a> meanwhile, founded by young Black organisers, has developed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/55249674">a charter for schools</a> as a tool to end race-based hair discrimination. </p>
<p>The onus for resisting discriminatory school uniform policies has, to date, often been placed on students and their families, often only with localised implications. However, this recent campaigning sets its sights on embedding change across the education system – and beyond. This could and should come from an explicit national policy against hair-based discrimination in schools and workplaces. Instead of that, however, it is coming from students demanding a culture shift and making it untenable for schools to retain discriminatory policies. </p>
<p>The Sewell report may feel like a blow to those of us committed to anti-racism. Young protesters, however, remind us that our hopes lie not in the Conservative government, but in such grassroots organising. </p>
<p>While the Pimlico situation remains unresolved, with protesters summoned to disciplinary meetings and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/apr/16/children-who-organised-pimlico-academy-protest-could-be-expelled">threatened with exclusions</a>, it shows that it is schools, not young people, that must change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Remi Joseph-Salisbury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the absence of explicit national legislation against hair-based discrimination, young people are demanding fairer rules - and a culture shift.Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Presidential Fellow in Ethnicity and Inequalities, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1431462020-09-09T15:51:26Z2020-09-09T15:51:26ZHair and skin are important to a black child’s identity – but many social workers don’t understand this<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357179/original/file-20200909-14-14uqd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girl-wearing-cloth-facemask-outside-wooden-1715038072">5D Media/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Skin and hair can be integral to a young black person’s sense of self. Yet in the UK, black children and young people face discrimination about their bodies. It’s not just schools sending <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/25/black-pupils-excluded-hair-discrimination-equality-act">black children home</a> because their hair is deemed contrary to uniform codes. The importance of hair and skin to black children is also overlooked in social work. </p>
<p>Social workers play an important part in the lives of many children and young people. They need to be able to establish respectful and meaningful relationships with the children and young people they work with, relationships that can help support healthy, safe and fulfilled childhood experiences. This role requires a deep understanding of children’s identity. However, for black children, this is lacking. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.bradford.ac.uk/staff/zthomas">PhD research</a> investigates how significant <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870601143992">skin colour</a> and <a href="http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/newformations/03_33.pdf">hair texture</a> are to young black people, and examines how <a href="https://www.basw.co.uk/system/files/resources/BASW%20England%20-%20Children%20and%20Families%20Practice%20Policy%20and%20Education%20Group%20role%20of%20a%20child%20and%20family%20social%20worker.pdf">social work</a> in the UK understands this. </p>
<p>I spoke to young black people and to social work academics, students and practitioners. The young people raised the significance of hair and skin colour to their life experiences, their relationship with themselves and others and their relationships with society and its institutions. It was clear from the social work academics, students and practitioners I interviewed, however, that these experiences and needs are being ignored. </p>
<h2>Tokenistic approaches</h2>
<p>The social work academics, students and practitioners I spoke to recognised that there are specific things a social worker needs to know about these areas of a black person’s life. However, this is lacking or neglected across social work. The view among all my respondents was that teaching on this topic is tokenistic and dependent upon the ability of individual lecturers to prioritise and provide it. </p>
<p>Engaging with and understanding the importance of skin and hair to black children and young people might mean talking about the relationship between ethnic identity, hair and skin. It might be talking about <a href="https://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/protective-styles/what-are-protective-styles">protective hairstyles</a> for black hair, <a href="https://olareadsbooks.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/whats-my-hair-type.png">hair type</a> and hair hygiene, combs, oils and creams. It will definitely include a meaningful engagement with privilege and marginalisation in relation to the racialised body. </p>
<p>Both practitioners and BA and MA students felt that social work education, policy and practice is not informed about caring for children and young people who are black, and that the “informal, down to earth, day-to-day knowledge” <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/my_hair_is_a_symbol_of_pride">that is required</a> is seriously lacking. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mother combing child's hair with afro comb" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357187/original/file-20200909-18-1fd94ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants in my study felt that a working knowledge of how to care for black children’s skin and hair was lacking in social work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/andover-hampshire-england-uk-april-2019-1381629905">Peter Titmuss/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One social worker talked about how great it would be if a young black person going to a foster placement or children’s residential placement without belongings had a social worker and carer with “working knowledge” of how to care for their <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Children-Care-Health-Hair/dp/0957647107">skin and hair</a>. </p>
<p>Social workers and carers should know what a black child or young person might require: the creams, oils and combs they might need for their first night away from home. It should be embedded within practice rather than a great exception.</p>
<p>Another practitioner told me that for some social workers, entering into any sort of discussion about the skin, hair and ethnic identity of a black child or young person would “blow their minds”, suggesting it would be “too advanced” for some social workers to “take on board”. </p>
<p>This is a reflection on the ability of social work to navigate and prioritise issues directly relating to the basic care of children and young people who are black, as well as the promotion and valuing of their identity as black people.</p>
<h2>Understanding racism and white supremacy</h2>
<p>The impact white fear and discomfort has on <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2020/07/02/stereotyping-social-workers-creates-barriers-disclosing-sexual-abuse-ethnic-minority-groups/">discussions of racism</a> and ethnicity needs to be confronted when addressing these questions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Little girl with braided hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357172/original/file-20200909-24-1ancmrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Discussions about racism are required to lay the groundwork for proper care of black children and young people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-portrait-cute-african-child-braids-415813636">karelnoppe/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The current situation is that racism and issues about ethnicity can be ignored in social work, perhaps in an attempt to protect the fragility of practitioners and trainers or prevent <a href="https://medium.com/the-faculty/white-academia-do-better-fa96cede1fc5">exposing privilege</a>. This prioritises the protection of white feelings over the needs of black children and young people.</p>
<p>“It’s almost like they’re afraid to talk about it, in case they offend,” one social work student said. This fear was echoed by the social work academics I spoke to, who expressed that they “wouldn’t feel comfortable” or they wouldn’t know how far to “venture into this”. </p>
<p>Social work practice, university teaching and pre and <a href="https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk/standards/professional-standards/">post-qualifying training</a> needs to directly engage with these matters. A more nuanced understanding about the lived experiences of young people who are black and how their bodies are treated and cared for is required.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoe Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social work education, policy and practice is lacking when it comes to understanding and caring for black children’s skin and hair.Zoe Thomas, Lecturer in Social Work, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1328482020-03-17T12:10:27Z2020-03-17T12:10:27ZNetflix’s ‘Self-Made’ miniseries about Madam C.J. Walker leaves out the mark she made through generosity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320165/original/file-20200312-111268-xur3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Octavia Spencer, left, stars in this rags-to-riches tale, along with Blair Underwood.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/80202462">Amanda Matlovich/Netflix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Netflix series “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80202462">Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker</a>” brings to life part of a fascinating rags-to-riches tale I’ve been researching for the past 10 years.</p>
<p>Walker, widely documented to have been America’s first self-made female millionaire, made her fortune building an <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/affluence-and-community-at-the-madam-c-j-walker-manufacturing-company/">Indianapolis-based beauty products company</a> that served black women across the U.S. and overseas. Today it offers a product line through <a href="https://www.mcjwbeautyculture.com/">Sephora</a>.</p>
<p>Oscar-winner <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818055/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t8">Octavia Spencer</a> stars in the miniseries about the African American entrepreneur originally named Sarah Breedlove. Born shortly after emancipation in 1867 on a cotton plantation in Louisiana to a formerly enslaved family, she later adapted the initials and last name of her third husband – played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005516/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t9">Blair Underwood</a> in the series. The show imagines Walker’s struggles and successes in a dramatic reinterpretation of the historical record.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying <a href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/m0399">Walker’s archival collections</a>
for my upcoming book “<a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/43qme5pk9780252043451.html">Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy during Jim Crow</a>”
and speaking about her to audiences around the country for years. I screened the series with great anticipation of how her lifelong generosity and activism would be portrayed in this account that “Indianapolis Monthly” described as having “<a href="https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/making-waves-the-madam-c-j-walker-netflix-series">fictional characters, invented moments, and a few surreal sequences</a>.”</p>
<p>Her philanthropic legacy didn’t make the cut – aside from a few visual footnotes just before final credits roll. Those footnotes touch on her charitable giving to black colleges, social services and activism with <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/naacp.html">the NAACP</a>. </p>
<p>While viewers will enjoy the series, I want them to learn that Walker didn’t just live a life of hard-won opulence. She exemplified black women’s generosity. Her <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/walker">philanthropy and activism</a> imbued every aspect of her daily life. “I am not and never have been ‘close-fisted,’ for all who know me will tell you that I am a liberal hearted woman,” Walker told the audience of the 1913 National Negro League Business meeting sponsored by prominent black leader <a href="https://www.tuskegee.edu/discover-tu/tu-presidents/booker-t-washington">Booker T. Washington</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yYDJvnDfB2w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer stars as Madam C.J. Walker in the Netflix miniseries ‘Self Made.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More than money</h2>
<p>Walker distinguished herself on a philanthropic landscape dominated by white people. Men like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-D-Rockefeller">John D. Rockefeller</a> and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carnegie-biography/">Andrew Carnegie</a> turned to large-scale philanthropy after spending their lives accumulating wealth. In contrast, Walker’s giving began in earnest when she was a poor, young, widowed mother struggling in St. Louis. She gave along the way from what she had, rather than waiting.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319832/original/file-20200311-116232-13f8r2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madam C. J. Walker was the nation’s first self-made female millionaire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/madam-c-j-walker-the-first-female-self-made-millionaire-in-news-photo/74286282">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She had much in common with other black churchwomen, club women, educators and activists. Like <a href="https://www.nps.gov/mamc/learn/historyculture/mary-mcleod-bethune.htm">Mary McLeod Bethune</a>, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/nannie-helen-burroughs.htm">Nannie Helen Burroughs</a> and <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">Ida B. Wells-Barnett</a> – and tens of thousands of other working and middle class black women – Walker embodied a versatile generosity that sought to meet communal needs and topple widespread discrimination.</p>
<h2>Treasure</h2>
<p>Walker was a highly prized donor in the black community. Constantly solicited, she gave money to black-serving organizations across the Midwest and the South. </p>
<p>The Netflix miniseries briefly references her gifts to social services. She supported organizations like <a href="https://flannerhouse.org/">Flanner House</a> in Indianapolis, which helped African Americans get jobs, an education and childcare. She made sure that poor families could eat at Christmastime.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=FIkAGs9z2eEC&dat=19150102&printsec=frontpage&hl=en">Indianapolis Freeman</a>,” a black newspaper, reported in 1915 how her company’s office resembled a grocery store due to all the gift baskets that were filled with food. In 1918, she gave US$500 to support the National Association of Colored Women’s campaign to purchase and preserve <a href="https://www.nps.gov/frdo/index.htm">Cedar Hill</a>, home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, which still stands today in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>Walker lacked formal education but she was a lifelong learner who donated thousands of dollars to the <a href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/m0399/id/2151/rec/6">Tuskegee Institute</a> in Alabama and other black schools. </p>
<p>She also patronized the arts, supporting Indianapolis painters such as <a href="http://thejohnsoncollection.org/william-scott/">William Edouard Scott</a> and <a href="https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=INR19141212-01.1.4&srpos=5&e=------191-en-20-INR-1--txt-txIN-Hardrick------">John Wesley Hardrick</a>, whom she wanted to help gain national stature as an artist.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320181/original/file-20200312-111268-sxt84f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walker, second from left, and Booker T. Washington (holding his hat) at the opening of a black YMCA in Indianapolis that she supported with her own money and fundraising efforts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/m0399/id/222/rec/33">Madam C. J. Walker Collection, Indiana Historical Society</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Time and talent</h2>
<p>In addition, Walker belonged to important <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/the-collectivist-roots-of-madam-c-j-walkers-philanthropy/">networks of women</a> that were advancing the cause of freedom from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/lynching-preachers-how-black-pastors-resisted-jim-crow-and-white-pastors-incited-racial-violence-129963">Jim Crow era’s racism</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-story-of-two-african-american-women-looking-out-from-the-pages-of-a-19th-century-book-118243">sexism</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320182/original/file-20200312-111223-1hl959l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The entrepreneur made her fortune by creating hair care products for African American women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/m0399/id/1940/rec/101">Madam C. J. Walker Collection, Indiana Historical Society</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She helped the poor through the Mite Missionary Society of St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis. She supported the <a href="http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/nacw">National Association of Colored Women</a>, which provided educational and social services to black communities around the country, and advocated for changing public policies.</p>
<h2>Testimony</h2>
<p>Walker also expressed her generosity by using her voice to speak out against the injustices of Jim Crow discrimination and oppression. She drew attention to sick and <a href="https://armyhistory.org/fighting-for-respect-african-american-soldiers-in-wwi/">injured black soldiers</a> during World War I by visiting and entertaining them at military camps in the Midwest. To black and white audiences, she spoke out publicly about black soldiers’ patriotic sacrifice overseas for freedoms denied them at home, and her full expectation that such freedoms be granted upon their return.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319834/original/file-20200311-168563-t71iq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The miniseries is based on a book by A'Lelia Bundles, Walker’s great-great-granddaughter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lelia-bundles-of-dc-is-a-descendant-of-madam-c-j-walker-who-news-photo/598200786">Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At her first national convention of her sales agents held in Philadelphia, she and her agents collectively raised their voices through a <a href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/m0399/id/9556/rec/1">telegram against lynching sent to President Woodrow Wilson</a>. She wanted the government to make lynching a federal crime.</p>
<p>Walker also advocated for temperance, women’s suffrage, female empowerment and civil rights. She <a href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/m0399/id/7193/rec/3">secured a pardon</a> for a black man jailed for an alleged murder in Mississippi. And she shared her own encouraging story of success with audiences around the country as an affirmative testimony of the value and dignity of black life amid pervasive hateful and hurtful Jim Crow stereotypes.</p>
<h2>‘Netflix and engage’</h2>
<p>I hope that many viewers who see “Self-made” and feel inspired by Walker’s story consider a new way to binge on TV: “Netflix and Engage.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/On-Her-Own-Ground/ALelia-Bundles/9780743431729">Learn more about Madam Walker’s story</a> by reading the biographical account written by her great-great-granddaughter – the journalist, <a href="https://aleliabundles.com/">A'Lelia Bundles</a> – which inspired the series. Explore other chapters in <a href="https://bwstbooklist.net/">black women’s history</a>. </p>
<p>Surf Madam Walker’s <a href="http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/m0399">electronic archive</a> of 40,000 items at the Indiana Historical Society. Consider her influence on the musical and fashion icon <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/rihanna-30-greatest-moments-birthday.html">Rihanna</a> and <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/look-good-do-good-madam-c-j-walker-and-rihannas-beauty-politics/">today’s beauty culture industry</a>. Visit her company’s former <a href="https://madamwalkerlegacycenter.com/">headquarters</a> in Indianapolis. Admire the architecture of her <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/villa-lewaro-on-madam-c-j-walkers-architecture/">New York mansion</a> where women of color will be <a href="https://www.diversityinc.com/walker-estate-women-of-color/">trained to become entrepreneurs</a>. </p>
<p>Give to charity. March for a cause.</p>
<p>Like Walker, you may make a difference in someone’s life.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A'Lelia Bundles, who authored the book upon which ‘Self-Made’ is based, wrote the foreword to Tyrone Freeman’s book about Madam C. J. Walker. Freeman is also a former member of the Indiana Historical Society's advisory council for the Madam Walker Exhibit.</span></em></p>The founder of a black hair-care empire supported the NAACP and the Tuskegee Institute, helped preserve Frederick Douglass’s home. She also tried to used her prominence to stop lynching.Tyrone McKinley Freeman, Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Director of Undergraduate Programs, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/714432017-02-17T02:01:34Z2017-02-17T02:01:34ZWho counts as black?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157004/original/image-20170215-27391-7xf0mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multicultural-crayons-representing-different-skin-tones-574934023?src=mYYtqxwJlChMIMQrMUSSiw-1-0">'Crayons' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For generations, intimacy between black men and white women was taboo. A mere accusation of impropriety could lead to a lynching, and interracial marriage was illegal in a number of states. </p>
<p>Everything changed with the 1967 Supreme Court decision <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395">Loving v. Virginia</a>, which ruled that blacks and whites have a legal right to intermarry. Spurred by the court’s decision, the number of interracial marriages – and, with it, the population of multiracial people – has exploded. <a href="http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_multi.html">According to the 2000 Census</a>, 6.8 million Americans identified as multiracial. By 2010, that number grew to <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/02/16/57543/in-an-increasingly-multiracial-america-identity-is/">9 million people</a>. And this leaves out all of the people who might be a product of mixed ancestry but chose to still identify as either white or black. </p>
<p>With these demographic changes, traditional notions of black identity – once limited to the confines of dark skin or kinky hair – are no longer so. </p>
<p>Mixed-race African-Americans can have naturally green eyes (like the singer <a href="http://www.arogundade.com/rihannas-tyra-banks-vanessa-williams-eyes.html">Rihanna</a>) or naturally blue eyes (like actor <a href="http://www.wetpaint.com/you-tell-us-what-color-are-jesse-williams-eyes-641896/">Jessie Williams</a>). Their hair can be styled long and wavy (<a href="http://www.essence.com/galleries/hair-evolution-alicia-keys">Alicia Keys</a>) or into a bob-cut (<a href="http://www.etonline.com/news/190948_halle_berry_reveals_new_edgy_shaved_flower_haircut/">Halle Berry</a>). </p>
<p>And unlike in the past – when many mixed-race people <a href="http://racerelations.about.com/od/hollywood/tp/Passing-For-White-In-Hollywood.htm">would try to do what they could to pass as white</a> – many multiracial Americans today unabashedly embrace and celebrate their blackness.</p>
<p>However, these expressions of black pride have been met with grumbles by some in the black community. These mixed-race people, some argue, are not “black enough” – their skin isn’t dark enough, their hair not kinky enough. And thus they do not “count” as black. African-American presidential candidate Ben Carson even <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/ben-carson-obama-was-raised-white-219657">claimed</a> President Obama couldn’t understand “the experience of black Americans” because he was “raised white.”</p>
<p>This debate over “who counts” has created somewhat of an identity crisis in the black community, exposing a divide between those who think being black should be based on physical looks, and those who think being black is more than looks. </p>
<h2>‘Dark Girls’ and ‘Light Girls’</h2>
<p>In 2011 Oprah Winfrey hosted a documentary titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UWwbTglQKg">Dark Girls</a>,” a portrayal of the pain and suffering dark-skinned black women experience. </p>
<p>It’s a story I know only too well. In 1992, I coauthored a book with DePaul psychologist Midge Wilson and business executive Kathy Russell called “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Color_Complex.html?id=3asbkganD14C">The Color Complex</a>,” which looked at the relationship between black identity and skin color in modern America.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DOjgTIN9pTE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Dark Girls.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As someone who has studied the issue of skin color and black identity for over 20 years, I felt uneasy after I finished watching the “Dark Girls” film. No doubt it confirmed the pain that dark-skinned black women feel. But it left something important out, and I wondered if it would lead to misconceptions. </p>
<p>The film seemed to suggest that if you are black, you have dark skin. Your hair is kinky. Green or blue eyes, on the other hand, represent someone who is white.</p>
<p>I was relieved, then, when I was asked to consult on a second documentary, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN_81iytSXU">Light Girls</a>,” in 2015, a film centered on the pain and suffering mixed-race black women endure. The subjects who were interviewed shared their stories. These women considered themselves black but said they always felt out of place, on the outside looking in. Black men often adored them, but this could quickly flip to scorn if their advances were spurned. Meanwhile, friendships with darker-skinned black women could be fraught. Insults such as “light-bright,” “mello-yellow” and “banana girl” were tossed at lighter-skinned black women, objectifying them as anything but black.</p>
<h2>Identity experts weigh in</h2>
<p>Some of the experts on identity take issue with the general assumptions many might have about “who is black,” especially those who think blackness is determined by skin color. </p>
<p>For example, in 1902 sociologist Charles Horton Cooley <a href="http://mills-soc116.wikidot.com/notes:cooley-looking-glass-self">argued</a> that identity is like a “looking glass self.” In other words, we are a reflection of the people around us. Mixed-race, light-skinned, green-eyed African-Americans born and raised in a black environment are no less black than their dark-skinned counterparts. In 1934, cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-sepik.html">said</a> that identity was a product of our social interactions, just like Cooley.</p>
<p>Maybe the most well-known identity theorist is psychologist Erik Erikson. In his most popular book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Identity_Youth_and_Crisis.html?id=v3XWH2PDLewC">Identity: Youth and Crisis</a>,” published in 1968, Erikson also claimed that identity is a product of our environment. But he expanded the theory a bit: It includes not only the people we interact with but also the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the music we listen to. Mixed-race African-Americans – just like dark-skinned African-Americans – would be equally uncomfortable wearing a kimono, drinking sake or listening to ongaku (a type of Japanese music). On the other hand, wearing a dashiki, eating soul food and relaxing to the beats of rap or hip-hop music is something all black people – regardless of skin tone – can identify with. </p>
<p>Our physical features, of course, are a product of our parents. Indeed, in the not-too-distant future, with more and more interracial marriages taking place, we may find black and white hair texture and eye and skin color indistinguishable. It’s worth noting that there’s an element of personal choice involved in racial identity – for example, you can choose how to self-identify on the census. Many multiracial Americans simply identify as “multiracial.” Others, even if they’re a product of mixed ancestry, choose “black.” </p>
<p>Perhaps true blackness, then, dwells not in skin color, eye color or hair texture, but in the love for the spirit and culture of all who came before us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald E. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the number of multiracial Americans growing, there’s a fierce debate in the black community over who’s black – and who isn’t.Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700082016-12-18T16:05:22Z2016-12-18T16:05:22ZGood reads: fighters, feminists and the loss of freedom in Zimbabwe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149842/original/image-20161213-1625-pm101u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwean police beat up a man protesting the reintroduction of local banknotes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Political scientist and published poet Keith Gottschalk shares his recommendations for good reads of the year.</em></p>
<h2>1. Harvest – University of the Western Cape</h2>
<p>This 90 page anthology of the best poems by the best poets in three years of their creative writing class is published by the <a href="https://www.uwc.ac.za/Faculties/ART/English/Pages/default.aspx">English department at the University of the Western Cape</a> and may be ordered from them.</p>
<p>One of my two favourite poems here is Sal Gabier’s satirical “you already know me” about what it feels like to be a Muslim going through any western airport. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hello Mr. CSI.
I hope your gloved hands
are for examining
my bags, and not
my insides…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The other, Zimbabwean Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe’s “Emerging images”, is a haunting reminder of what happens when a liberation movement slides into dictatorship</p>
<blockquote>
<p>imagine … the day of the second freedom</p>
<p>when the chains of the first freedom fall away;</p>
<p>imagine these images of freedom after all.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>2. Umkhonto we Sizwe – Thula Simpson</h2>
<p>Published by Penguin, this 591-page <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/umkhonto-we-sizwe-anc%E2%80%99s-armed-struggle/9781770228412">book</a> is a straight factual narrative of the three decades of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress – the party that governs South Africa. It includes a pre-history of the eight years before the guerrilla army’s founding.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149629/original/image-20161212-31385-ly0rq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is told from the viewpoint of guerrilla fighters, policemen and soldiers on the ground. It has eight pages of black and white photos. The author, a history senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, has done his homework in the archives of South Africa, Bechuanaland Protectorate/Botswana, and the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>Reading it brought back to mind the skewed way South Africans learnt of the armed struggle through the censored and racialist media of those decades. This history makes one painfully aware of the high proportion of fatalities and other casualties which are the inevitable trade-off which guerrilla war makes against the superior technology, budget, and other resources of a state.</p>
<p>This book is an antidote to the current revisionist fad of marginalising the armed struggle as irrelevant or trivial in our history.</p>
<h2>3. Secrets and Lies: Wouter Basson and South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme – Marlene Burger and Chandré Gould</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149417/original/image-20161209-31391-8hjgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If anyone fantasises that corruption only began with South Africa’s current government, this book will educate them about what went on behind the iron curtain of South African Defence Force military censorship in the old:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…Basson might have been describing an exclusive ‘Boys Own Adventure’ club. Their games were rugby, golf and motor racing, their toys private aircraft and Rolex watches, their sandpits the celebrity playgrounds of the world … During 1991, Bosch’s wife accompanied Basson and Annette on a ‘shopping trip to Europe in the Jetstar, free of charge’ (p. 127)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have just started reading this <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Secrets_and_Lies.html?id=ZJ7eAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">book</a>, which also reminds us that the <a href="https://www.warbooks.co.za/products/assignment-selous-scouts-inside-story-of-a-rhodesian-special-branch-officer-jim-parker?variant=1044809471">Rhodesian Special Branch and Selous Scouts</a> were the world’s second biggest perpetrators of bacterial and chemical warfare after the Japanese Empire in occupied China. They killed 809 Zimbabweans through poisoned clothes, food – and even poisoned medicine. This tells us about their attitude to the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva conventions</a>.</p>
<h2>4 Luka Jantjie: resistance hero of the South African frontier – Kevin Shillington</h2>
<p>I have also just started this <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/luka-jantjie/">one</a>, published by Aldridge Press.</p>
<p>His full name was Luka Jantjie Mothibi Molehabangwe. This is a model history book, lavishly illustrated with legible maps, numerous photos, plus an insert of 16 pages of colour photos. We learn of the dispossession of community after community. The colonialists auctioned off 3 600 cattle, 6 000 sheep and goats, 63 wagons and spans of oxen of the conquered <a href="http://www.thuto.org/ubh/afhist/elnegro/eln02.htm">Batlhaping people</a> in 1878. Their former owners, now impoverished, would have to work for others’ profits on the diamond fields or on their former land, now white-owned ranches.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149418/original/image-20161209-31370-1knkckk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Cape Colony conquered the rest of the <a href="http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/the-last-stand-of-a-south-african-hero/">Batlhaping and Batlharo in 1897</a>, shooting Luka in what they called the Langeberg rebellion. Not only were their lands seized, but the entire community was taken off to Cape Town and enserfed to farmers under the criminal law of indenture which, according to the protest of two missionary wives, “differs in no essential point from the enslavement of the people”.</p>
<p>Their confiscated land is at Kathu, site of the Sishen iron ore mine. The mine company faces no land claims – because 1897 is before the 1913 <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/03/03/1913-cut-off-date-for-land-claims-should-be-pushed-back">cut-off point</a>.</p>
<h2>5. Why we are not a nation – Christine Qunta</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149419/original/image-20161209-31375-1a0ofgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This readable book published by <a href="https://seritisasechaba.co.za/">Seriti sa Sechaba</a> is free of any jargon and divided into three extended essays. The first, mostly historic and political, is titled <em>Why we are not a nation</em>. The second essay, sociological and psychological, is called <em>Is hair political?</em>. The third is a 50-page part-autobiography called <em>Law, national duty, and other hazards</em>.</p>
<p>Qunta’s feminist critique says that if the fashion and beauty industries were states, they would undoubtedly be fascist.</p>
<p>Qunta’s memoirs of her struggle to found and establish her own legal practice ought to be compulsory reading for every schoolgirl who wants to become an entrepreneur.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From poetry to factual narratives and personal memoirs, these books are worth reading.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/656922016-10-06T20:14:58Z2016-10-06T20:14:58ZKinky, curly hair: a tool of resistance across the African diaspora<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140202/original/image-20161003-20228-16od3gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For women studying and working in Eurocentric institutions, wearing natural hair can be a symbol of resistance</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the African diaspora, stigmatising kinky and curly hair was a central way that European colonisers and slave-owners <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TVrbAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=kobena+mercer&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">subjugated black people</a>. </p>
<p>In many places, like <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=XnqlDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=hair+texture+brazil+slave+trade&source=bl&ots=wc_Iqg7L7X&sig=RCnubbE_3W5c8LC66wJlb7yHsO8&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hair&f=false">Brazil</a> and the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=iYhEAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=hair+story+tharps&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hair%20story%20tharps&f=false">US</a>, hair texture later became a key marker of racial classification and social status. In apartheid South Africa, the “<a href="http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2010/07/separating-strands-the-apartheid-of-hair-in-south-african-society/">pencil test</a>” was used to determine proximity to whiteness, along with access to political, social and economic privileges. It involved inserting a pencil into the hair and testing whether it would hold or fall out.</p>
<p>Persistent, disdainful ideas about natural, black hair are the legacy of this history. </p>
<p>National independence and civil rights protections have brought citizenship rights to many black people. And yet hair texture continues to determine access to <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/09/21/a_federal_court_ruled_that_employers_can_fire_people_just_for_having_dreadlocks.html">employment</a>, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zAPEBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=black+looks+race+and+representation&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=hair&f=false">romantic relationships</a>, <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/08/29/Pretoria-High-School-for-Girls-faces-fury-after-black-pupils-told-to-%E2%80%98straighten-hair%E2%80%99">educational institutions</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/03/tsa-hair-pat-downs_n_6996790.html">freedom of movement</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last decade, black women around the world have grown a movement centred on validating, celebrating and caring for their hair in its natural kinky-curly state. Natural hair expositions, pageants, salons and bloggers can now be found in cities across the globe – in Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Madrid, Atlanta, Paris, Amsterdam and Havana. There’s even a holiday – <a href="http://nnhmd.com">International Natural Hair Meetup Day</a> – that attempts to coordinate these geographically separated natural hair communities. </p>
<p>Over the last two years I’ve travelled around the US, Spain, the Netherlands, France and South Africa unpacking why the natural hair movement has become a political rallying point across the African diaspora. And establishing who participates in it. </p>
<h2>Awareness, social media and environmentalism</h2>
<p>Natural hair has been transformed from an unpopular and outdated style option to a full blown lifestyle movement. This can be explained by the convergence of three factors: a heightened concern about the ethical implications of hair straightening, the rise of social media and environmentalism.</p>
<p>In 2008, Chris Rock’s documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-4qxz08So">Good Hair</a> revived a global conversation about the politics of black hair. The film explored the physical, emotional and financial toll that straightening hair takes on black women’s lives as they try to fulfil Eurocentric beauty ideals. The documentary harshly criticised wearing weaves and using chemical relaxers. But it left viewers without clear pathways for change. </p>
<p>This gap was filled by the rise of visually rich, interactive social media platforms. YouTube (released 2005), Tumblr (2009) and Instagram (2010) enabled black women to create communities and exchange information about styling natural hair, creating products at home and fostering self-acceptance. Popular music has also played a part in drawing attention to the significance of hair for identity and self-esteem. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YTtrnDbOQAU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In “Don’t Touch My Hair” Solange Knowles sings about hair, identity, freedom and pride.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, <a href="http://raconteur.net/lifestyle/our-growing-taste-for-organic-life">green movement conversations</a> piqued concerns about sustainability and chemical toxicity in food and cosmetics. The word “natural” came to describe the integrity of ingredients in products in addition to texture. Some “naturalpreneurs” have created entire careers importing raw shea butter, virgin coconut oil, and other organic concoctions to sell to health-conscious black women. In the process of marketing their products, they have also been involved in marketing natural hair politics. </p>
<h2>Individual resistance and collective struggle</h2>
<p>In racially diverse places like Brazil, Canada, the US, South Africa and Western Europe, natural hair has inspired responses ranging from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/allure-afro-tutorial-outrage_us_55bf852ae4b06363d5a2b1ae">fetishisation</a> to <a href="https://youtu.be/Jmv6pVgBI9M">confusion and disgust</a>. </p>
<p>These reactions highlight the fallacies of post-racial “colourblind” thinking. This post-racial thinking asserts that race no longer explains social and economic obstacles faced by people of colour. In doing so, it denies the powerful ways that institutionalised racism and cultural racism continue to maintain white privilege. </p>
<p>For example, many older South African women described feeling pressure to straighten their hair in the post-apartheid “rainbow nation”. They did this to assimilate into newly accessible elite institutions. But today’s natural hair trend mirrors a rejection of post-racial thinking. There is a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/inthefield/2016/07/south-africa-students-key-real-change-160729105103865.html">growing demand</a> to combat enduring racial inequality through race-conscious strategies.</p>
<p>In societies that are dealing with the legacies of settler colonialism, slavery and apartheid, black women are usually underrepresented in boardrooms and elite classrooms. In these contexts, wearing natural hair allows upwardly-mobile black women to assert their identity despite white supremacist norms. For these women, natural hair politics often takes the form of individual resistance. Women attend monthly or annual meet-ups, and follow black women’s online media. </p>
<p>But in places with large enough populations of black women in formerly white spaces, natural hair politics can form the basis of a collective anti-racist politics. The <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-29-pretoria-girls-high-school-pupil-i-was-instructed-to-fix-myself-as-if-i-was-broken">protests</a> that broke out in 2016 at South Africa’s Pretoria Girls High are evidence of this. </p>
<h2>The class question</h2>
<p>It is significant to note that working-class and poor women tend to be underrepresented in the natural hair movement. Its green ethos is difficult for poor and working-class women to buy into. Poor black neighbourhoods are less likely to have grocery stores, let alone speciality health food stores that stock organic products. </p>
<p>Women in poverty and women in developing nations are also less likely to enjoy reliable internet access. This limits their ability to interact with the blogs, vlogs, and think-pieces integral to natural hair culture. Likewise, natural hair spaces tend to organise themselves around buying, selling and reviewing natural hair products. Many of these are expensive and inaccessible outside of the US. </p>
<p>In these contexts, the symbolism around natural hair is different. Sporting natural hair is more likely to be interpreted as an inability to afford chemical relaxers rather than as a personal or political choice. </p>
<h2>Black Hair Matters</h2>
<p>The exclusivity of the movement does not diminish the transformative impact that “going natural” has had on the lives of thousands of black women across the African diaspora. It is an issue of aesthetics and representation. But it is also more than that. </p>
<p>I’ve met women around the world who link their breastfeeding advocacy, midwifery, yoga practice, veganism, reiki work and improved fitness habits back to their choice to embrace natural hair. </p>
<p>For some women, natural hair communities simply disseminate more culturally affirming images and pleasurable options for styling black hair. For others, “going natural” is one way to mobilise against the lived experience of white supremacy. For many more, the natural hair movement has provided black women with a set of ideas that allow them to live more fully, freely and joyfully in their own bodies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Natural hair has become a political rallying point for women across the African diaspora. For these women, wearing natural hair is way to resist Eurocentric norms and “post-racial” political thought.Chelsea Johnson, PhD Candidate in Sociology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657382016-09-21T19:00:23Z2016-09-21T19:00:23ZHow violence and racism are related, and why it all matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138585/original/image-20160921-21720-1rvywmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students make their feelings known during a fees protest at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Racism is a form of both visible and invisible violence. Veteran peace researcher Johan Galtung has shown that violence is cultural, structural and <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/typologies-violence-and-peace">direct</a>. This triad was adapted in South Africa as interlinked symbolic, structural, psychological and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/22684176/Basic_guide_to_a_deeper_and_longer_analysis_of_violence">physical</a> violence against “otherness”.</p>
<p>This conceptual framework can be applied to direct and indirect experiences of racism, as well as to other forms of violence. The most recent manifestation of these has been the outcry over <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-08-30-pretoria-girls-high-a-protest-against-sacrificed-cultures-and-identities/#.V9kK01srLIU">black hair</a>. Some referred to it as a <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/08/30/Lesufi-suspends-Pretoria-school%E2%80%99s-hair-policy-%E2%80%93-and-%E2%80%98mini-war-on-campus%E2%80%99">hair war</a>. It revealed a cumulative visceral, tacit and explicit knowledge of racism as violence.</p>
<p>The hatred of the physicality, cultures and identities of “othered” groups is a global phenomenon. America’s “Black lives matter” movement arose out of the deaths of black people because blackness has effectively been <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/">criminalised</a>. The “animalisation” of blackness has its roots in <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-01-14-racism-is-so-much-more-than-words">slavery</a>.</p>
<p>States do not record the structural violence of racism as part of crime statistics. But this invisible violence has driven some people to self-harm. It has masked [forms of suicide](https://books.google.co.za/books?id=Qc-SAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=masked+forms+of+suicide&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWp-3JjpTPAhXGIcAKHSvRAaoQ6AEIQDAF#v=onepage&q=masked%20forms%20of%20suicide&f=false](https://books.google.co.za/books?id=Qc-). It shortens lives and <a href="http://www.dpme.gov.za/publications/Reports%20and%20Other%20Information%20Products/Development%20Indicators%202010.pdf">kills babies</a>. </p>
<p>Internalised white superiority and internalised black inferiority remain resilient in South Africa. This is despite resistance to racism over centuries. It begs the question: after 22 years of democracy, what have most of colonialism and apartheid’s beneficiaries done to understand these evils? What have they done to delink from them, and to dismantle racism?</p>
<h2>A “post-conflict” society?</h2>
<p>The end of apartheid in <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/unit.php?id=65-24E-6">1994</a> only interrupted racism at a political level. It did not automatically turn South Africa into the <a href="https://soc.kuleuven.be/crpd/files/working-papers/wp01.pdf">“post-conflict society”</a> many claim it is.</p>
<p>In this sense, feminist writers <a href="http://www.jacana.co.za/book-categories/current-affairs-a-history/rape-a-south-african-nightmare-detail">Pumla Gqola</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=qWvbjFU0H1kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=racism,+violence,+pumla+ngola&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidx7ehwI_PAhWJL8AKHUEFCMoQuwUITjAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false">Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela</a> help us to think differently about violence.</p>
<p>They look beyond visible manifestations of violence in their analyses of physical violence (rape, bodily harm and murder). They show violence also to be symbolic (othering), structural (patriarchy, economic inequality) and psychological (intimate partner abuse and trauma).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138475/original/image-20160920-11120-38kych.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pupils protest against racism at Collegiate Girls High School in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Coetzee/The Herald</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is easy to suggest that black people are in charge of South Africa and must <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2015/09/achille-mbembe-on-the-state-of-south-african-politics/">“stop acting like victims”</a>. But this only shows a tragic disregard for the intersection of visible and invisible ways in which racism continues to afflict people. These experiences are routinely written off as <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-04-20-uct-students-get-stuck-into-race-debate/#.V9kjz1srLIU%5D">anecdotes</a>.</p>
<p>Jamaican psychiatrist Frederick Hickling <a href="http://www.mghglobalpsychiatry.org/downloads/AfricanDiasporaProceeding.pdf">argues</a> that even in countries</p>
<blockquote>
<p>where blacks are in the majority and are in political control of the society, the tangible elements of the racist delusional system still control the reality for black people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These elements link individual perpetrators and victims to a visible and invisible violent structure in four important ways.</p>
<h2>Racism as symbolic violence</h2>
<p>Symbolic violence is a form of “othering”, defined as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the process of perceiving or portraying someone or something as fundamentally different or alien.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sociologist <a href="http://cges.umn.edu/docs/Bourdieu_and_Wacquant.Symbolic_Violence.pdf">Pierre Bourdieu</a> explains how this ascribes inferiority and superiority. The case of school <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-slavery-to-colonialism-and-school-rules-a-history-of-myths-about-black-hair-64676">rules about hair</a> is an example. Galtung argues that symbolic violence justifies and legitimises structural, psychological and physical violence.</p>
<p>Racism; the preference for Eurocentric knowledge and <a href="https://aboutabicycle.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/linda-tuhiwai-smith-decolonizing-methodologies-research-and-indigenous-peoples.pdf">methods of producing it</a> are key examples of symbolic violence. The second and third examples marginalise and silence indigenous voices. They lead to assimilation and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=Aq5PJWaSTzUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=I+write+what+I+like&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyguPSjZTPAhWLI8AKHanzBUEQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=I%20write%20what%20I%20like&f=false">self-hatred</a>. Oppressed people internalise everything about the oppressor as superior.</p>
<h2>Racism as structural, psychological and physical violence</h2>
<p>Vusi Gumede seems to <a href="http://www.vusigumede.com/pages/acpapers_log/9.html">suggest</a> that structural violence is economically driven. “Othered” people around the world continue to be over-represented in society’s stigmatised institutions. This is especially true in its prisons.</p>
<p>This is a result of inequality, unemployment, poverty and exclusion. It is driven by criminalisation and constant surveillance. It could also be because of engagement in counter-violence defined as crime. Hickling points out that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>without control of the commanding heights of the economy, black people are destined to eke out an existence […] in a social reality that relegates them to an economic second class.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Racism produces inter-generationally transmitted trauma. This can persist for decades and even centuries after the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10538183">original trauma</a>. It takes far more than talk therapy and the processing of emotions to address the internalised superiority and inferiority induced by racism.</p>
<p>No one is held criminally liable for the uninterrupted invisible violence of racism. Unless, of course, it manifests in some forms of psychological and interpersonal physical violence.</p>
<p>But black people are held legally accountable for visible counter-violence against racism.</p>
<p>The understanding of violence as both invisible and visible provides a framework within which “othered” people can understand that experiences of racism are socially patterned. And that it requires a holistic solution.</p>
<p>This might include our knowledge of dehumanisation, humiliation, silencing, alienation, exclusion, economic dispossession, shame, grief, trauma and other masked experiences. All represent multiple and simultaneous effects of racism.</p>
<p>It can also counter the pervasive denial about the ways in which racism is kept in place culturally, socially, economically, psychologically and physically.</p>
<p>This framework can contribute to dislodging not only racism’s manifestations, but also its structure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Sarah Henkeman is affiliated with the Social Law Project, UWC. Centre of Criminology, UCT and Zakheni Arts Therapy Foundation.</span></em></p>States do not record the structural violence of racism as part of crime statistics. But this invisible violence has driven some people to self-harm. It has also masked forms of suicide.Sarah Malotane Henkeman, Currently Senior Staff Associate in the Faculty of Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647862016-09-05T11:39:33Z2016-09-05T11:39:33ZThe heritage of hair: stories of resilience and creativity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136443/original/image-20160902-20247-1k8qsmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hair speaks of the past, and of cultural heritage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Evans/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.jacarandafm.com/news-sport/opinion/its-not-just-about-hair/">Untangling</a> the <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-slavery-to-colonialism-and-school-rules-a-history-of-myths-about-black-hair-64676">racial politics</a> of hair has preoccupied casual observers and social analysts for centuries. </p>
<p>Cutting edge anthropological analyses suggest that contemporary hair styling is about “<a href="http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ai/article/view/110054">fashioning futures</a>”, since African identities are “works in progress that refuse to be <a href="http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ai/article/view/110054">impoverished by dichotomies</a>”.</p>
<p>However hair is also about the past and, specifically, cultural heritage. It is both tangible and intangible, a palpable thing that has long term symbolic value. As a changeable part of the human body, hair has long been modified for aesthetic and other ends. But skewed power structures entrenched by racism and sexism have meant that women, and particularly women of colour, have borne the brunt of stereotyping and prejudice. Even so, hair reveals the diversity of human history and cultural creativity.</p>
<h2>Profoundly political</h2>
<p>The politics of hair has deep roots. Ritually cleansing themselves, ancient <a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/06/07/shaving-rituals/">Egyptian priests</a> would shave their bodies and pluck their eyebrows every other day. In ancient Ghana, historical hair grooming involving hair combs and pins revealed <a href="http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/exhibitions/fowler-focus-art-hair-africa/">leadership and status</a>, while in nineteenth century Madagascar the Tsimihety did not cut their hair, presenting their tresses as a sign of their <a href="http://www.madagascar-vision.com/ethnie-tsimihety-madagascar/">independence</a>. American slave traders, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hair-Story-Untangling-Roots-America/dp/0312283229">shaved their captives’ heads</a> supposedly to cleanse them. For many Africans, that act further stripped them of their dignity and symbolised cultural death. </p>
<p>In Europe and around the same time that the slave trade “boomed”, elaborate hairstyles flourished. This led to changes in European hair heritages. Increasing numbers of European men and women wore wigs and heavy makeup to signal their newfound <a href="http://thehistoryofthehairsworld.com/hair_18th_century.html">wealth and status</a>. Powdered and carefully coiffed, the wigs concealed undesirable odours and emerging ailments. Entire retinues of people were required to design, maintain and style the wigs. </p>
<p>Europeans promoted and entrenched racist discourses in slave and colonial society. In Zanzibar and Mauritius the short hair of African descendants was derisively described as pepper corns or sugar, major crops of the slave colonies. In South Africa, racist references to <em>kort kop</em> (short head) links short hair with inferior intelligence. The association of short hair with deficiency even makes it into song “<em>jou hare kan nie pom-pom nie</em>” (your hair cannot be tied in a bun).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5iL8TNl8mtg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Singer Emo Adams with his song ‘Jou hare kan nie pom-pom nie’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hair acquires new meaning</h2>
<p>But hairstyles are acquiring new meaning. In Madagascar women wear “braids of love” to signal (from afar) a woman’s sole interest in marriage. At marriage, a woman will ask her sister-in-law to braid her hair to symbolise the strengthening of the marital bond between the families. Many Africans living in America today (and many African South Africans) wear their hair in dreadlocks to publicly validate the natural texture of their hair and symbolise a return to roots. Women everywhere are relinquishing “white crack” - chemical relaxers.</p>
<p>Increasingly, people are deliberately setting out to show that they don’t aspire to “western” ideas of beauty. The Himba people in Namibia braid and colour their hair and body with butter, fat and ochre. The mixture beautifies and protects their skin from the sun. <a href="http://acacia-africa.com/blog/2014/11/18/the-himba-tribe-some-interesting-facts/">Himba women</a> may take up to 12 hours to do their hair. </p>
<p>Innumerable variations of cornrows and dreadlocks in South Africa, Malawi, Lesotho and Botswana also showcase the diversity of hair heritage in southern Africa. </p>
<p>As a black woman who has done some interesting things to her own hair, I would say that hair heritage is profoundly gendered. It reflects not only racism but the impact of patriarchy in society. Many rituals of womanly beauty, including hair styling, involve making a woman look younger. Fulfilling a patriarchal desire for youthfulness, women have endured the challenge of acquiring longer hair. Anyone who has had their hair braided in singles or cornrows knows about waiting for the “tightness” to subside and the fact that the pain might drive you to find a toothpick to loosen those unhappy baby hairs. </p>
<p>Clearly then, there is more to hair politics than hair straightening. What about the association of hairlessness with femininity in the “<a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/news/a40350/everything-you-need-to-know-before-getting-a-brazilian-wax/">Brazilian</a>”? Women of all colours routinely request a “Brazilian” or a “Hollywood”, rituals of intimate depilation and purification. Contemporary women regardless of colour are modifying the hair they inherited. Billions subject themselves to plucking, waxing, tinting, electrolysis, crimping and perming.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the rise of manscaping suggests that women are not alone in this hair styling frenzy. Long held masculine hair heritages and hairy reassertions of manhood seem to emerge in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5883155/_The_Beard_Goes_to_War_Men_s_Grooming_and_the_American_Civil_War_">times of crisis</a>. </p>
<h2>The role of globalisation</h2>
<p>Predictably, immigration and globalisation are diversifying hair heritages. Moroccan barbers have imported male nose and ear waxing to South Africa. The increasingly popular mixed martial arts trend, meanwhile, is encouraging an astonishing number of beard growers.</p>
<p>Given the rapid pace and intensity of globalisation, global trends may overcome local prejudices. The rise of <a href="http://www.askmen.com/daily/austin_100/102_fashion_style.html">metrosexual masculinity</a> might well encourage more ritualistic waxing of backs, cracks and sacks. Until then, things remain unequal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosabelle Boswell receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. She currently holds a Competitive Rated Researchers' Grant (CPRR) to investigate silences and success in the management of African heritage.</span></em></p>Hair has long been modified for aesthetic and other ends. But skewed power structures have meant that women, particularly women of colour, have borne the brunt of stereotyping and prejudice.Rosabelle Boswell, Professor of Anthropology and Executive Dean of Arts, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646152016-09-01T17:09:12Z2016-09-01T17:09:12ZPupils deserve applause for demanding a just school system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135921/original/image-20160830-26282-y5465z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"Black hair" has sparked a new racism row at a top South African school.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yves Herman/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>One of South Africa’s top public schools, <a href="http://www.phsg.org.za/">Pretoria Girls High</a> is making headlines after it <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-29-pretoria-girls-high-school-pupil-i-was-instructed-to-fix-myself-as-if-i-was-broken">emerged</a> that black pupils were being ordered to chemically straighten their hair. They also allege that they’re accused of <a href="http://citizen.co.za/1267564/uproar-as-pretoria-girls-black-pupils-in-untidy-hair-protest/">“conspiring”</a> when they gather in groups. Professor Yusuf Sayed unpacks the issue of discrimination at schools and how social cohesion can be improved in these spaces.</em></p>
<p><strong>Some people have responded to this controversy by suggesting that pupils must abide by the school rules which call for neatly kept hair. Do they have a point?</strong></p>
<p>It’s obvious and understandable that when rules and codes of conduct are consensually developed, democratically agreed and just, they should be upheld. In this instance, however, a middle-class normativity has in effect – and perhaps by intent – sought to exclude and marginalise the “other”. </p>
<p>Justifiable difference must be supported and encouraged – not delegitimated as occurred in this instance. Difference that is substantive, continually subjected to engagement and reflection, and that is contextually located and applied is the foundation of durable and just inclusion.</p>
<p>So it’s perfectly understandable that students have asserted their voices to be heard and challenged a “rule” that effectively de-legitimates their being. They should be applauded. The kind of critical thinking displayed by these young persons is what should be cherished and nurtured in education. Schools, like all spheres, must be democratic and inclusive in both intent and practice. </p>
<p>Education needs to adapt and evolve in changing circumstances and conditions as their students’ demographic composition shifts. Invoking tradition is puerile (indeed anti-educational) when tradition causes pain and hurt rather than understanding, tolerance and acceptance. If schools are to foster the democratic ethos post-apartheid South Africa hopes to nurture, they must be places where rules are subject to question and changed as may be required. </p>
<p><strong>How much of a problem would you say racism and other forms of discrimination are at South Africa’s schools today?</strong></p>
<p>Forms of discrimination in education aren’t new. They reflect the unfortunate continuation of a legacy of racial and social exclusion rooted in the apartheid era. </p>
<p>But attention hasn’t been paid to it partly because racism and discrimination is not just overt but also covert. Covert discrimination is particularly insidious and inscribed in schools’ everyday practices. These then become normalised. </p>
<p>This doesn’t mean discrimination is not endemic, structural and inscribed in institutional cultures and practices. For example, the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-02-17-homosexuality-in-south-african-schools-still-largely-a-silent-taboo/">bullying and discrimination</a> that LGBTIQ learners experience is often not recognised or spoken about. The alienation from teaching and learning of children from poor backgrounds in wealthy schools and in schools generally is no less a problem. </p>
<p>Forms of discrimination in schools also cut across rich and poor quintile schools, fee and non-fee paying schools, and rural and urban located schools. Most of South Africa’s learners are in racially homogenous, poorly resourced and under performing schools. This is a problem of structural forms of inequity and discrimination. </p>
<p>In this, school governing bodies should be key spaces for democratic participation. But the danger in South Africa is that some of these bodies are often captured to serve wealthy, narrow, self-interested groups of parents. Their frame of reference is exclusive rather than inclusive and they often act with impunity. Inequality of class is a problem as much as overt forms of racism.</p>
<p>Given that the problem doesn’t only affect one segment of schooling in South Africa, any responses should be systemic – not just episodic. It will take more than formal policies and pieces of legislation, though these are important. There also needs to be an <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-have-a-crucial-role-to-play-in-building-social-cohesion-60823">ongoing process of support</a> and education for school leaders, teachers and learners.</p>
<p><strong>Whose responsibility is it to make schools more welcoming and genuinely diverse?</strong></p>
<p>Creating social cohesion is everyone’s responsibility. It requires political will, a shared consensus and participation in processes that may be distinctly uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Political will is demonstrated through leadership that prioritises achieving social cohesion which changes unequal, system wide relationships of power and is focused on improving education quality. Such leadership also needs to work across government and in provincial and national education departments. This will allow for the development of proactive educational strategies that favour the marginalised.</p>
<p>But none of this will work without a shared consensus and participation. Every stakeholder across the education system and beyond must be committed to social cohesion. Forums for dialogue and consultative round tables are vital to create a robust policy framework that includes a detailed, adequately funded implementation plan. </p>
<p>Mutual trust underpins this whole process. Without it, no policies or action plans will matter. Individuals and groups need to trust each other and hold each other to account for agreed actions. This is a pre-condition for realising a transformative social justice agenda. </p>
<p><strong>What does a genuinely socially cohesive school environment look like?</strong></p>
<p>It’s one in which social cohesion is evidenced in the curriculum, the classroom and in governance structures.</p>
<p>When it comes to teaching and learning, a socially cohesive approach will recognise difference but not to the extent that such difference itself becomes a source of division and differentiation between social groups. It will also encompass teaching approaches that enable students to confront their histories, backgrounds and pasts. It should simultaneously give them hope for the future.</p>
<p>In socially cohesive schools, teachers listen to learners and place them at the centre. They seek consciously to support all learners irrespective of their social backgrounds.</p>
<p>On the governance side, a socially cohesive school will promote democratic participation and engagement across the board. This involves the members of the school, other schools and the local community.</p>
<p>Such schools develop active strategies to provide contact as starting points for breaking down racial and other barriers. </p>
<p>These schools actively affirm and enact rights, including those enshrined in <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">the country’s constitution</a>. More fundamentally, it’s about realising rights through daily practices and the ways that teachers behave and teach. Learners are given the space to relate to each other. Schools must affirm the rights of refugees and migrants who are often silent, and silenced, in discourses about social cohesion.</p>
<p>All of this work must be founded on the guiding principles of a social justice agenda. This seeks to actively redress an unequal past whilst laying the markers for a future which is equitable, tolerant and mindful of difference.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"770238922207195140"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"770163926663368704"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"769977867857952769"}"></div></p>
<p><strong>Your <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-have-a-crucial-role-to-play-in-building-social-cohesion-60823">research</a> suggests that teachers can be real change-makers. What can individual teachers do if school rules don’t shift?</strong></p>
<p>Teachers work and teach within institutions and structures which can both <a href="http://learningforpeace.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/South-Africa-Country-Report-Summary-Apr16.pdf">enable and hinder</a> their ability to act in realising a progressive agenda of social change. </p>
<p>But teachers do have agency. They are neither victims nor perpetrators. They are not simply the solution or only the problem. So they have a responsibility as professionals to ensure that they challenge and don’t comply with rules which humiliate and demean learners, and which impact adversely on learning. </p>
<p>Individual teachers can do a great deal. They can challenge these rules through school governing bodies which include teacher representatives or through their representative associations and organisations like unions. To do all of this, as we’ve argued, they need policy direction, support and training. </p>
<p>It will take a far more radical conception of social cohesion to help a country like South Africa realise social justice. </p>
<p>Such an approach should recognise how violence and conflict is mediated through widely different contexts, which themselves reflect broader societal norms and values, and complex histories of violence within which teachers are located. It’s crucial to animate and invigorate a social justice, social cohesion transformation agenda for education.</p>
<p><em>Author’s note: I am grateful to my colleagues Azeem Badroodien, Yunus Omar and Zahraa McDonald for their contribution to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The ‘Engaging teachers in peacebuilding in postconflict contexts: evaluating education interventions in Rwanda and South Africa’ research project is led by Professor Yusuf Sayed and funded through ESRC-DFID Pathway to Poverty Alleviation Programme. This research investigates the role of teachers in peacebuilding in the post-conflict contexts of Rwanda and South Africa. I gratefully acknowledge the support of our funder, research partners and our institutions. The views expressed in this article are the author's, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of funders or their partners.</span></em></p>Schools need to adapt and evolve in changing circumstances and conditions as their students’ demographic composition shifts.Yusuf Sayed, South African Research Chair in Teacher Education; Director of Centre for International Teacher Education (CITE) & Professor of International Education and Development Policy (University of Sussex, UK), Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646762016-08-31T14:55:02Z2016-08-31T14:55:02ZFrom slavery to colonialism and school rules: a history of myths about black hair<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136125/original/image-20160831-30801-5on66k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the first dilemmas that black people face is whether to let strangers touch their hair -- and under what circumstances.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Mukoya/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Your hair feels like pubic hair.” That was one of the first insults that someone hurled at my hair. She was a junior at my school. She would touch my hair and repeat this sentence to all present. I had to threaten her with violence to get her to stop touching my hair and comparing it to her pubes.</p>
<p>This is one of the first dilemmas that black people face: do I let people touch my hair and under what circumstances? The question, “can I touch it?” becomes one of the most awkward social moments and can break relationships before they even start. </p>
<p>This fascination with the texture of black hair (please don’t call it “ethnic”), is not new. In slave societies, white women would often <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=Q-DsCwAAQBAJ&pg=PP39&lpg=PP39&dq=white+women+cut+off+black+slave+women%27s+hair&source=bl&ots=FB_O8BE7Nv&sig=fERX3HeZuyZXIKGvvaKc5pP0yaw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwvfuRievOAhVJGsAKHaWWB0wQ6AEIMDAE#v=onepage&q=white%20women%20cut%20off%20black%20slave%20women's%20hair&f=false">hack off</a> the hair of their enslaved female servants because it supposedly <a href="http://blackgirllonghair.com/2014/07/shocking-history-why-women-of-color-in-the-1800s-were-banned-from-wearing-their-hair-in-public/">“confused white men”</a> .</p>
<p>Today, black women with nappy hair – that is, natural and chemical-free – are desirable despite the popular discourse to the contrary. Think for example of how <a href="http://www.vogue.com/13336021/lupita-nyongo-october-2015-cover/">Lupita Nyong’o</a> has become a household name even though she is nappy and has dark skin. </p>
<p>It’s not just fashion or trends: throughout history, black women’s hair has fascinated artists and photographers and has been closely linked to radical political movements such as the <a href="http://allblackmedia.com/what-happened-to-the-natural-hair-movement-of-the-60s-and-70s/">Black Panthers</a> and South Africa’s own <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/defining-black-consciousness">Black Consciousness Movement</a>. It then seems like a paradox for the young women at South Africa’s Pretoria Girls High School to be told that they should “discipline” their hair by <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/08/29/Pretoria-High-School-for-Girls-faces-fury-after-black-pupils-told-to-%E2%80%98straighten-hair%E2%80%99">relaxing it</a>. </p>
<h2>Desire and fear</h2>
<p>But it’s actually not a contradiction, since desire and fear often feed on each other. In the <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/1623473/chris-rocks-daughter-inspired-new-documentary-good-hair/">documentary</a> produced and narrated by Chris Rock called “Good Hair”, the comedian Paul Mooney states it plainly: “If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they are not happy.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1m-4qxz08So?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A trailer for comedian Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair”</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is not just clever rhyming. Mooney is pointing to the fact that nappy hair is inevitably associated with something that is out of reach for “white people” – happiness. When you sport your natural hair, you are free; your hair is wild; you have a new “hairstyle” everyday; you are radiant; you are regal. These are out of reach for most people and it makes them unhappy. </p>
<p>It is also about conformity. By choosing not to tease and tame your hair, you are also choosing to let your hair express its personality rather than look like everyone else’s hair. That’s why it makes people unhappy. </p>
<p>Notice that I have generalised the issue to people in general rather than writing about white people, because misconceptions about what black hair is are also propagated by black people. In fact, I would argue that most white people don’t know anything about black hair, and get most of their misconceptions about what it is from black people. </p>
<h2>A history of black hair myths</h2>
<p>There are two main misconceptions that are urgent for understanding what the governing body and headmistress of Pretoria Girls High may have been thinking – or not thinking.</p>
<p>The first misconception is that natural hair is “dirty”. The second is that natural hair does/doesn’t grow (hence the obsession with hair length, hair extensions and dreadlocks).</p>
<p>Many black women and men who wear weaves and relax their hair will explain their choice by either saying that their natural hair is “unmanageable” or that natural hair is “dirty”. This is one of the most enduring stereotypes about black hair. People will even cite the “anecdotal” evidence that Bob Marley’s dreads had 47 different types of lice when he died. These are urban legends of the worst kind because they perpetuate the stereotype that only black hair attracts lice, and other vermin, which is simply <a href="https://youtu.be/dN5DXQMxWCY">scientifically untrue</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136051/original/image-20160831-29099-76sed3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1048&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bob Marley’s hair was the subject of several myths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historically, the myth comes from images of the pejoratively named “fuzzy-wuzzy” that British soldiers who were fighting Sudanese insurgents in the <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/gah/mahdist-revolution-1881-1898">Mahdist War</a> sent home. This war, from 1881-1899, popularised the image of the wild Afros that people now imagine when they think of black hair. </p>
<p>These images are misleading for the simple reason that they suggest these Sudanese soldiers did not “dress” their hair or wash it, since in the images it often looks unkempt. Nothing could be further from the truth. Across the African continent, techniques for dressing hair were as varied as the hairstyles that they produced. </p>
<p>The “Afro” therefore is not some kind of standard African hairstyle. It is just one of several hundred ways of growing and maintaining curly hair. So, when a black person decides to “dread” or lock their hair, they neither need nor keep “dirt” in it to make it lock. Our hair (as does all hair) locks naturally when it is left uncombed or unbrushed.</p>
<p>The association of locks with dirt partly comes from the Caribbean where <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/rastafari/">Rastafarianism</a> emerged as a subculture. However, even in this instance, the misconception is that dreadlocks equal Rastafarianism. The Rastas got their locks from Africa. To be exact, matted African hair was transported to the Caribbean by images of Ethiopian soldiers who were fighting the <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/Italo-Ethiopian-War-1935-1936">Italian invasion</a> which began in 1935. They vowed – using the example of Samson in the bible – that they would not cut their hair until their country and emperor Ras Tafari Makonnnen (also called Haile Selassie) were liberated and the emperor returned from exile. </p>
<p>Before the war the Ethiopian elite sported very neat Afros. The only conclusion we can reach is that it is only under conditions of war and colonialism that black people present their hair as “unkept”. When at peace, the hairdressers and barbers did their jobs and kept black hair looking fabulous.</p>
<h2>Policing black hair</h2>
<p>The myths about how long black hair can or should be are as legion as the myths that natural hair is “dirty”. The misconception partly comes out of the concept of measurement. Natural African hair is curly and so to measure it, one would have to stretch out the coils. This is why limiting the growth of the hair by the width of cornrows or length of strands doesn’t make sense at all. </p>
<p>How would you know – without uncoiling it – how long a black person’s hair is? One black person’s coiffure will look very short because of “shrinkage” and another black person’s locks will look very long because of a loose coil. </p>
<p>The notion that long black hair is or should be cut or trimmed to an “acceptable” length is just ignorance masquerading as “neatness”. No two black people’s hair “grows out” the same. </p>
<p>Pretoria Girls High is not the first institution to try and police black people’s hair. In an article titled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/opinion/when-black-hair-is-against-the-rules.html?_r=0">“When Black Hair Is Against the Rules”</a>, the New York Times responded to hair regulations that had been published by the US Army on March 31 2014. These prohibited twists, “matted” hair and multiple braids – all of which were read as references to natural African hair and hairstyles. </p>
<h2>Whose “common sense”?</h2>
<p>Conservative institutions – schools, militaries, corporations and so on – have the right to prescribe a dress code. However, these should not be based on partial knowledge where these institutions simply don’t do any research into what some of their prohibitions actually mean and instead rely on “common sense”. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, when it comes to black hair, “common sense” is the least reliable tool for decision-making, since even black people are constantly changing their minds about what they want to do with their hair. As an expression of our culture, black hair is as malleable and plastic as our ideas about it. </p>
<p>To attempt to fix such expressions in rules and regulations is to deny black people what the Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop <a href="http://www.centerformaat.com/files/African_Origin_of_Civilization_Complete.pdf">called</a> our “Promethean consciousness”. As black people, our hair is an expression of the infinite possibilities that emanate from this creative and daring consciousness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hlonipha Mokoena does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to black hair, “common sense” is the least reliable tool for decision making since even black people are constantly changing their minds about what they want to do with their hair.Hlonipha Mokoena, Associate Professor at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/635282016-08-09T07:13:57Z2016-08-09T07:13:57ZOf political hair, Jewish noses and South Africa’s failure to become a nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133343/original/image-20160808-18043-u9lw9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Author Christine Qunta says forgiveness trumps justice in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elelwani Netshifhire</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Book Review: <a href="https://seritisasechaba.co.za/">Why we are not a nation</a>, by Christine Qunta.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>This readable book by Christine Qunta, free of any jargon, divides into three extended essays. The first, mostly historic and political, is titled Why we are not a nation? The second essay, sociological and psychological, is called Is hair political? – and should be a hot sell among African-Americans. The third is a 50-page part-autobiography called Law, national duty, and other hazards.</p>
<p>It is sad that half a century after <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Basil-Davidson/e/B001IXMLRI">Basil Davidson</a> and <a href="https://www.google.co.za/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Joseph+Needham%E2%80%99s+books">Joseph Needham’s</a> books popularised respectively African history and Chinese mechanical inventions, Qunta still finds it necessary to devote pages to an Afrocentric summary of history.</p>
<p>It is sad that half a century after the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422977?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Oxford History of South Africa</a> and a steady stream of archaeological publications, Qunta still finds it necessary to debunk the colonial and apartheid the-whites-settled-in-empty-land dogma.</p>
<p>But just read the letters to the editors, and the websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter of 2016, where the <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/its-just-the-facts-penny-sparrow-breaks-her-silence-20160104">racist memes of apartheid</a> persist and reproduce themselves, and we immediately understand why. Qunta writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>White supremacy constituted part of the ideological arsenal developed and deployed by colonialism and imperialism, developing an autonomous existence that has survived long after its economic rationale ceased to exist.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The core argument of the book is that South Africa has:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…. a type of post-traumatic stress disorder of a nation, one that cannot be treated because it has not yet been diagnosed. (We are a country) where forgiveness is overrated and justice is underrated.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133111/original/image-20160804-466-1y5wurx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Qunta advocates a reparations fund; to accelerate corrective policies; that white businesses should learn to think strategically; that schools should be freed from colonial indoctrination; and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.</p>
<p>The author’s heroes include <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/marcus-garvey">Marcus Garvey</a>, <a href="http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/Philosophy/Social%20%20political%20philosophy/Frantz%20Fanon%20The%20Militant%20Philosopher%20of%20Third%20World%20Liberation.aspx?menuitem=%7B65A3FB7C-5D2E-4158-BBA9-D7824186AD5B%7D">Franz Fanon</a>, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/malcolm-x">Malcolm X</a> and <a href="http://azapo.org.za/azapohistory/bantu-stephen-biko/">Steve Biko</a>. She advocates that colonial symbols, including statues, should be removed from public places and sent to museums; the same with colonial names.</p>
<h2>Of black hair and Jewish noses</h2>
<p>The essay Is Hair political? starts by quoting <a href="http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/bio/bio-home.htm">Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o</a> that a:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… multibillion industry in the world is built around the erasure of blackness – and its biggest clients are the affluent black middle classes in Africa and the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Qunta recalls her screaming in pain as a child when her granny tried to comb her hair straight and her mother burnt it straight, leaving her with marks on her forehead. She then summarises the fashion and beauty industries’ war against African hair. In a profoundly feminist statement, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the fashion and beauty industries were states, they would undoubtedly be fascist.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The phenomenal proportion of black women still using hair-straightening and skin-lightening products decades after white racist laws have been revoked can be explained by a sociological comparison.</p>
<p>From at least the 1930s until the 1960s, many wealthy Jewish women went for “nose jobs” – for plastic surgeons to make their noses look “less Jewish” and more Aryan. During the 1950s and 1960s many Japanese women had surgeons reshape their eyes from almond to round. Even today, many Brazilian and Egyptian women feel pressured to get a gynaecologist to reconstruct their hymens before marriage.</p>
<p>Not those women, but respectively anti-Jewish racism, US hegemony and military occupation of Japan, and contemporary misogyny and double standards, should be blamed for pressuring persons until they felt the need for self-mutilation.</p>
<p>The third essay, Law, national duty, and other hazards, needs to be compulsory reading for all black women to motivate them to succeed in business. Her pages on the South African <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>, after the end of apartheid, vividly remind us of the routine torture, perversion of justice, and perjuring of affidavits under the apartheid machine. She sketches how the apartheid security apparatus tried to turn <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/political-activist-and-advocate-dumisa-ntsebeza-born">Advocate Dumisa Ntsebenza</a>, one of the commissioners, into a second <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/Dreyfus-affair">Dreyfus affair</a>.</p>
<h2>Egyptian civilisation</h2>
<p>This reviewer has quibbles with one or two claims in the text, but none of these affect the main points which the author makes. </p>
<p>Ancient Egyptian civilisation is probably best dated (page 3) as emerging not in 4000BC, but between 3400 and 3100 BC.</p>
<p>The claims about Dogon knowledge of astronomy lack independent substantiation. But this does not affect African contributions to historic astronomy, from the calendar to what is possibly the world’s oldest Stonehenge at <a href="http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/egyptnabta.htm">Nabta Playa</a>, dating before 4000 BC.</p>
<p>Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Diagne’s magisterial <a href="http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2216">The Meanings of Timbuktu</a> points out that there was no institute such as a University of Sankoré. This was a metaphor that African authors used to interpret for western readers that Timbuktu was a centre of higher education, where students studied under individual leading scholars.</p>
<p>In the Cape, slaves were not randomly given the names of months (page 67); they were named after the month in which the slaver ship unloaded them in Cape Town.</p>
<p>Everyone should buy this book – it can be read over a weekend.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://wits.worldcat.org/title/why-we-are-not-a-nation/oclc/951524791">Why we are not a nation</a> is published by <a href="https://seritisasechaba.co.za/">Seriti sa Sechaba</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is affiliated with the ANC. He writes this review in his individual capacity.</span></em></p>Qunta advocates a reparations fund to accelerate corrective policies, that schools be freed from colonial indoctrination and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.