This panel gathers papers that contribute to an interrogation of this fact: For four hundred years, Black women’s natural hair has been the target of erasure efforts, demarginalizing us as African Americans, Afro Latinas, and as women. The various institutional modalities of policing Black women’s hair is a form of racist politics. This panel situates the fact that, despite structural denials to the contrary, our natural hair remains a heretical war zone. Policing of both Black bodies and our natural hair is a form of structural oppression. In her essay “Is Your Hair Still Political?” Audre Lorde explains how an immigration officer’s objections to her dreadlocks nearly cost her a vacation in the British Virgin Islands. Natural hair, whether in the form of braids, afros, dreadlocks, or other natural styles, has always been political. Why is this still the case? Why have we not moved beyond that perennial racist emblem? And why are women so disproportionately affected? Why does our hair become most palatable when it capitulates—and has been subjugated— to resemble Caucasian features as closely as possible? Who in our society gets to author the prevailing constitution of professional appearance? How do we, as Black women (and Black men as well) encourage course correction and alter the prism through which our hair is interrogated?

This work grows out of the organizer's work in her book TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press November 2022). The book, which also contains a Study Guide and Resource Guide, has already garnered course adoptions at SUNY Albany and San Jose State University. The book was a 2023 Black History Month selection of the Black Women’s Studies Association, a Library Journal Top 10 Best Social Sciences Book of 2022, and named an Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Top-Shelf Title. Lyzette is currently on book tour.

Our audience consists of university and high school educators who teach in a Literature, Ethnic Studies, Social Sciences, or arts department; people interested in race relations and civil rights; cultural community centers; and our allies.

Though other books have addressed this topic, including the groundbreaking Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America¹, Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness², The Politics of Black Women’s Hair³ , and Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture⁴ this book is the first collection that includes both African American and Afro Latina women.

We realize that White American society hasn’t had to live as racialized beings— making it difficult for that sector to acknowledge race as an inherent part of systems. And this is precisely the type of lens which problematizes our natural hair. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson says in Slavery and Social Death:

Hair type rapidly became the real symbolic badge of

slavery, although like many powerful symbols, it was

disguised, in this case by the linguistic device of using

the term 'black,' which nominally threw the emphasis to

color. No one who has grown up in a multiracial society,

however, is unaware of the fact that hair difference is

what carries the real symbolic potency.⁵

After a brief introduction by the organizer, each presenter will read from their papers for 15 minutes, followed by Q & A with the audience.

In “Toward Decolonizing Our Roots,” Lyzette Wanzer, MFA interrogates the manners in which natural-hair discrimination disproportionately affects, targets, and seeks to corral Black women in nearly every environment imaginable, including the armed forces.

Dr. Chacón’s paper examines how, from antebellum laws to Mary Sibande’s provocative art installment “Sophia Velucia in Conversation with Madame CJ Walker,” Black hair has long been a symbol of self-expression on one hand and a site of attempted white control on the other. She examines related historical and cultural manifestations, connecting them to contemporary debates about hair salon deregulation.

Dr. Thomas’ paper examines the figuration of hair in Toni Morrison’s novels. Morrison uses hair to explore the impact of ethnographic race construction as well as the traumatic effects of race categorization and medicalized discourses.

Works Cited

1. Byrd, Ayana, and Lori Tharps. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. Macmillan, 2014.
2. Banks, Ingrid. Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness. NYU Press, 2000.
3. Prince, Althea. The Politics of Black Women’s Hair. 2009.
4. Dabiri, Emma. Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture. Harper Perennial, 2020.
5. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, With a New Preface. Harvard UP, 2018.