Black Women’s Hair Consciousness and the Politics of Being

• Authors: Sarah Setlaelo

Abstracts

EN

Black women do not want to become white women because they know that this is impossible. Yet, some black women straighten and curl their naturally kinky hair, or wear hair extensions, weaves and wigs that resemble Caucasian hair. Still, they recognize that hair is only one attribute of their Being and that even if they choose to wear non-African hairstyles, they can concurrently embrace other aspects of their black identity. So, is this a matter of cultural assimilation or integration, or is there a deeper ontological problematic underlying these cross-racial hair styling choices? I interrogate three arguments that black women usually advance for their hairstyling choices – the survival strategy argument, the protective styling argument, and the options-choice argument. I use Mabogo Percy More’s interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s concepts of “the Look,” “facticity,” and “bad faith” to analyze Black women’s hair consciousness through the lens of his “Politics of Being” concept.

Keywords

EN

black women’s hair; politics of black hair; hairism; Mabogo Percy More; Jean-Paul Sartre; the look; facticity; bad faith

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 24-43

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Sarah Setlaelo

• Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg

• https://orcid.org/0000000212758711

References

• Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi. “Beyond Determinism: A Phenomenology of African Female Difference.” Feminist Africa, no. 2 (2003): 8-24.
• Davis-Sivasothy, Audrey. The Science of Black Hair: A Comprehensive Guide to Textured Hair Care. Stafford, TX: Saja Publising Company, 2011.
• Gordon, Lewis R. Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8408-1_8.
• Gqola, Pumla Dineo. Female Fear Factory: Gender and Patriarchy under Racial Capitalism. La Verge, South Africa: Melinda Ferguson Books, 2021.
• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford, London: Basil Blackwell, 1962.
• Manganyi, Noel Chabani. Looking Through the Keyhole. Johannesburg, South Africa: Ravan Press, 1981.
• More, Mabogo Percy. “Biko: Africana Existentialist Philosopher.” Alternation 11, no. 1 (2004): 79–108.
• More, Mabogo Percy. Biko: Philosophy, Identity and Liberation. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2017.
• More, Mabogo Percy. “The Politics of Race and Black Hairdo.” Unpublished manuscript, 2008. Scanned hardcopy typescript.
• More, Mabogo Percy. Sartre on Contingency: Antiblack Racism and Embodiment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.
• Omotoso, Sharon Adetutu. “Gender and Hair Politics: An African Philosophical Analysis.” Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 12, no. 8 (December 2018): 5-19.
• Politicsweb. “Clicks/TRESemme: The Equality Court judgement.” Accessed July 31, 2022. https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/clickstresemme-the-equality-court-judgement.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. New York, NY: Philosophical Library, 1956.

Identifiers

DOI

10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0023

Biblioteka Nauki

2161822