(due Saturday by noon)
Imagine bell hooks joins the Combahee River Collective and in a consciousness-raising group reads her article “Straightening Our Hair”, and shows the film clip “A Girl Like Me”. Based upon your readings for this week, discuss a black feminist perspective to this topic. How would the Collective approach the issue, especially with regard to privilege, interlocking oppressions, “the personal is political”, and a critique of the limitations of dominant feminist and anti-racist approaches to hierarchies of inequality. What new perspectives might they offer? Be creative…imagine you are sitting at the table with them!
http://www.understandingrace.org/lived/video/index.html
The article “Straightening our Hair” really gave me an insight on what African Americans go through to become our standard of beauty. I was not aware of what all goes into to making their hair straight. Although White girls straighten, perm, dye, cut and get high lights everyday to keep up with one another. I never realized how Blacks would want to do the same. It is obvious our high maintance selves have a huge effect on girls of other races. If the idea of straightening Black peoples hair to keep up with Whites’ standard of beauty got brought up in the Combahee River Collective they would beyond ashamed. They would not want African Americans to conform to today’s society’s idea of beauty.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the video “A Girl Like Me” I was shocked by how many black girls chose the white doll. I figured that black parents gave their children black baby dolls to play with, not because they aren’t allowed to play with white dolls but they would want to play with someone they looked more like. By them choosing the black baby doll as the bad doll, it shows the things they pick up on at school or in the community. Starting at a young age they are already being oppressed and not even realizing it.
I think that the video "A Girl Like Me" and the article "Straightening Our Hair" are the exact types of things that the Combahee River Collective were fighting against. Majority of African Americans have naturally kinky hair and majority of Whites have naturally soft and flowy hair. It is obvious that the reason African-Americans go through so much to get their hair straight is to keeo up with what most people consider "white" beauty. The Collective would address the reasons of why blacks feel the need to straighten their hair, and why these reasons are devaluing to them. Soft, straight hair is basically a white privilege but it doesn't have to be it. Having kinky hair could be a black privilege just as easily but it is all based upon what people consider to be "beautiful". I think the Collective would also feel the need to educate young black children on their heritage. The one young girl in the video identified the black doll as bad and as the same as her. This shows that the girl is aware of what color she is and also that she feels that she is a bad person because of it. I think this is a great example of how young it starts with black people to feel like they are somehow less than whites.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I noticed in the picture of the black barbie dolls that all of their hair looks straight like white people's hair or like a lot of product has been used on it.They all have pretty light skin as well. Having black dolls is great but all they are doing is reinforcing the idea that blacks need to look more like white people to be beautiful.
ReplyDeleteBased on the readings and video, the Combahee River Collective disagrees with everything. Even looking at the picture posted of the three Barbies, it looks like the black one's hair is trying to be straight and smooth like a white girl's hair. In the article, Straightening our Hair, it tells us that straightening hair for black women is a sign of womanhood. It has nothing to do with trying to make their hair look like white girls hair but to mature and show everyone that she is a woman. In the article, Dyes and Dolls, we quickly learn that black dolls were only recently invented. The author, Ann DuCille, states how she cut the hair, and clothed her white dolls differently in order to make them look black.
ReplyDeleteWatching the video made me very sad. I didn't realize that the tone of someone's color mattered. That "lighter is more beautiful" and black's have to deal with this. Even the black kids were picking the white dolls to be nicer and the black ones to be meaner. Companies should start creating more black dolls for more exposure to children. Children get the idea that white women are more beautiful and princesses based on the dolls they play with. They need to familiarize the kids that black dolls are nice and black women are beautiful and smart.
@HannahK I didn't even notice in the picture about the hair of the black doll. That is such a good point! However, I do agree it is a sign of womanhood like the article said, but I also believe black people straighten their hair to make it look more pretty, just like we straighten our hair to make it more pretty.
ReplyDelete@brittniestubblefield
ReplyDeleteI agree that companies are making black dolls look like white dolls but there is a way to fix this. They need to keep creating black dolls but make them with hair styles that black people have. Creating them with all different skin tones and hair styles, making children believe that black women are actually beautiful and nice.
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ReplyDeleteThe article "Straightening Our Hair" is somewhat of a sad story. Learning that many black women go though such a task to do something to their body to fit in is not right. If they do it for themselves, that is one thing but if they are going through this to conform to society it is wrong. I think the Combahee River Collection has the exact opposite ideas. They would want the black women to embrace their culture and do things for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe video showed a very shocking and interesting clip. When the children were asked which doll to pick for nicest, fattest, etc. the children almost always picked the white doll. 15 out of 21 times is not something that was a random coincidence. Hearing that children are being taught to think higher of whites than themselves is undermining these children. It would help a child's self esteem and total self being if they were taught that blacks are pretty and successful. These connotations towards races are just one more block society needs to get over.
In the readings and video, the Combahee River Collection was against the other readings. When i was small I did not play with dolls as much, but when I did they were black. My mom doesn’t buy dolls or action figures white; therefore, I always played with black dolls. When black girls straighten their hair it does show a meaning of women hood. Now or days we do not straighten our hair to look like white people’s hair. We straighten our hair because it is easier to manage that way. If our hair is easier to manage, that is beautiful to us. I love color, straight hair, kinky hair, curly hair, perm, I love everything that you can do to hair, but I do not do those things to my hair because I want my hair to be like white people hair. Blacks basically do it to enhance their beauty and if your hair is messed up, usually that would decrease their self-esteem. Also companies just started creating black Barbie dolls. That have a huge effect on the children too. Kids are just now seeing black Barbie dolls and majority of the day cares only have white dolls so that is all the children see. Yes it would make more since if they make the black Barbie dolls hair kinky because that is how African American’s hair is. I would really recommend that people would teach the younger kids all the different heritage so they can understand everybody’s culture not just their own.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the article "Straightening out Hair" I realized that African American girls go through a lot to try to be acceptable. The idea of beauty in today's society doesn't factor the different types of races and their hair. The natural hair of a black woman is different in it's own way. Hearing from the young women was shocking to see how young they realized their hair was not same as people's in magazines and television. The majority of African Americans have naturally wavy and curly hair. The definition of beauty should be different for each type of races hair. The idea of conforming to white privileges would very much upset Combahee River Collective.
ReplyDeleteWhen watching "A Girl like Me" I didn't understand how many young children were effected by white and black. The majority of black children chose to play with the white baby dolls and though they were the "nice" one. This video just goes to show me how young children are being affected by the outside world and what others think. Young children should not have to worry about these issues and shouldn't be taught color, but soul.
After reading “Straightening Our Hair” by Bell Hooks and watching “A Girl Like Me” I realized what African American women go through to compete with our societies standard of beauty. Being a guy I don’t really know all that much what goes in to making your hair look good; but from a guy I don’t really agree with Bell Hooks that black women straighten their hair to look more like white women. I think all women try their best to look beautiful for themselves, not to look like someone their not. I think that if this article was brought up to the Combahee River Collective group they would not agree at all. They want black women to be proud of who they are and where they come from. They don’t want black women to try to be someone or something they aren’t. The “A Girl Like Me” video was very shocking and sad to see these kids picking what doll they would rather play with. The one girl that indentified the black doll as bad and compared it to her was pretty sad. She already had in mind that people of her color were bad and that white people were good. I think the Combahee River Collective group would have taken this more seriously. This is an issue that needs to be fixed; if black people see themselves as bad when they are children they will probably grow up to be bad. I think that is what’s wrong with our society, the way we view people of different races. If the children didn’t see all the negative stereotypes our society has they would probably grow up without noticing how different people were other than their skin color.
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ReplyDeleteThe article “Straightening our Hair” has made me look at straight hair in a new way. Black people go to many extremes to meet that typical beauty image. The process of straightening black hair is not an easy on. Bell Hook makes it known that ones you straighten black hair it’s a process that must be done over and over again to maintain. It’s all to fit into what society see as beauty. Combahee River Collective stands for black women loving themselves for what they naturally appear to be. They would want black women to honor the skin, hair and culture that make being black beauty. From the video “A Girl Like Me” shows young black children, one little girl black describes a black doll to be bad, later in the video she identify herself to look just like that doll making her associate with being bad. I feel the Collectives need to reach out to the black youth and let them know that being black is something to be proud of not something bad. They need to make it known that being a women of color with kinky hair is just as beautiful as a women with straight hair.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though this weeks module is a very eye opening one because it explains so much about black people and their hair. In "Straightening Our Hair," it clarifies that black girls do not alter their appearance with the mind set to look "white" and to live out standards of beauty set by white supremacy; it is related to the rites of initiation into womanhood. I can relate to bell hooks when she states "I had been told all my life that I was one of the "lucky ones" because I have been born with "good hair."" Many black girls look at my hair and tell me that I have good hair; however, I have had a white girl come to me and say the same thing. Then she asked the question, "Why don't you have nappy hair?" I didn't know how to answer that because we (black women) know the difference between "nappy edges", kinky hair etc. but she was very confused. This article explains a lot about the history/cultural views of black woman's hair and why we do the things we do. The video "A Girl Like Me" explains a lot about the stereotype of black versus white. Whether it be describing one as good or bad, even the youth of today are being exposed to these stereotypes at a very young age. From my personal experiences, my mother never bought me a white doll because [I assume] she did not want me to grow up thinking about these stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Straightening Our Hair" and watching the video "A Girl Like Me", I have come to realize that the stereotypes and standards of beauty are the exact things that the Combahee River Collective were fighting against and trying to change. It is definitely eye-opening to read and hear about something you know exists but have never really learned about. I believe that the Collective would want to use these two resources as examples of how black women should be proud of who they are and where they come from. It is unfortunate how much the beauty standards from the past still have such a huge effect on how women view themselves today. One of the little girls in the video, when asked to show the doll she liked best, picked up the white doll. When asked to show which one was bad, she showed the black doll, and then when she was asked to show which one she looked like, she said the black doll. There is something seriously wrong with this, if society is telling black children that the dolls that look like them are not okay to play with. The Collective would see this as an issue that severely influences the mindset of black women as they grow and mature and would want to change that. While the article and video most definitely explain and clarify the history and reasons behind why black women do the things they do to their hair, I still want women of all backgrounds to make their own beauty standards and not try to fit in with stereotypes that were set so many years ago.
ReplyDelete@Hannah K I agree 100% with you when you said that they need to familiarize the kids that black dolls are nice and black women are beautiful and smart. The dolls and toys that children play with strongly impact their way of thinking.
ReplyDelete@ajkey I can relate to you because my mom never bought me a white doll; neither did any of my aunts an cousins.
I think that the Combahee River Collective would take issue with the perspectives of beauty that were illuminated in both the article, "Straightening Our Hair," and the video, "A Girl Like Me". The article presents beauty rituals (such as hair treatments) as rites of passage into womanhood, but the video presented the opinion that black women straighten their hair because natural hair is undesirable. One girl's mother rejected her natural hair because it made her look "African," which is a prime example of the "personal is political"; only by realizing struggles like hers can we challenge larger systems of oppression. The idea that "light is beautiful" was prominent throughout the video clip, but it also showed that light-skinned girls are harmed by a different set of stereotypes. It seems that black women are challenged at every turn, whether they choose to retain their natural appearance, or if they choose to change their looks to match a more widely-accepted beauty ideal. What I learned from the video and the article is that black women are plagued by their own beauty myths and ideals, and that these ideals are extremely damaging. They even influence young children, as was evidenced by the re-creation of the doll test.
ReplyDelete@Hannah K i agree with what you said about the video and how they need to make more black dolls to familiarize children with blacks being good people because that can impact a childs future.
ReplyDelete@Anne Cole Walker is agree that the Combahee River Collective were fighting for black women so they could be proud of who they are and where they come from.
@matt cape
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that black women don't necessarily straighten their hair to look more like white women. White women with curly hair straighten it to match the beauty myth that straight hair is part of the perfect image. But at the same time, black women are self-conscious of their hair texture and skin color that some go to those extents to fit in more with the white society. I also agree how the "Girl Like Me" film is really sad how it shows how young black GIRLS start to worry about their appearance and how they don't meet the beauty myth. 15/20 children choose the white doll. The fact that black women bleach their skin and put themselves at risk just to lighten their skin is so upsetting.
@brittniestubblefield
ReplyDeleteI actually noticed that also when I saw the picture of the black dolls in our learning module! They portray even black dolls to be lighter skin with straight black hair—that’s a big influence on children and where they get the idea of how they are suppose to look. They don’t know better and it unconsciously goes in their mind as a child.
@ajkey - I think that the reasons why black girls straighten their hair today has evolved and changed through the years. When I see a black girl with straight hair I don't think, "She has white girl hair" or "She is trying to be like a white girl". This may have been the case years ago but I agree the reasons have definitely changed.
ReplyDelete@HannahK - agree, more companies need to produce more black dolls so people have more to choose from. Also, so black children don't see mostly white dolls on the shelves at stores which is ultimately what is causing some of these issues we've been discussing in class.
@brittniestubblefield
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brittnie that the problem of color starts young. I also thought hard about the black girl saying the black doll was the bad one and she was like her. The surrounding environment of that young girl's life shows many people's opinions bestowed on her. The idea that black curly hair could be the most beautiful is a matter of one's personal opinion and could be changed.
@ Hannah K
ReplyDeleteI like how Hannah took a different approach on why black women feel the need to straighten their hair. With evidence and facts Hannah showed me that many black women do it because it's a sign of women hood and maturity. There needs to also be more races on the shelf to choose from. If there is more to choose from then there won't be a wrong and a right skin baby doll.
The article "Straightening Our Hair" and the video "A Girl Like Me" point out the personal issues that black women have with their appearances and the way in which these appearances face them with oppression. "Straightening Our Hair" brings out the issue that black women, and girls, face with the way their hair is naturally, and how it is seen as not being beautiful. In the article, it is pointed out that for job interviews, black women will almost always prefer to have their hair straightened instead of in its natural form. They are searching for a way to conform to the typical white woman look. I personally had no idea that black women felt this strongly about the way that their natural hair looked. I never really saw the issue of hair being a problem.
ReplyDeleteThe video also discussed black women's feelings towards their hair, but it also shared a lot about the issue of being "light skinned" or "dark skinned". All of these black women who were interviewed in the video see it to be more beautiful to be light skinned than to be darker skinned. And then the children who chose the white doll over the black doll, proved that even these people of the black race see themselves to be less appealing. The experiment with the dolls was absolutely shocking to me. I would have never thought that even children would see light skin to be more beautiful. It honestly came off to me as being very messed up. I do not understand why things continue to be like this.
The article “Straightening Our Hair” made me think from an African American point of view. Although I know many white women who work hard to look a certain way, black women are just the same. Girls with curly hair want straight hair and girls with straight hair want curly hair. The interlocking oppressions of being Black and a female may seem like the world is against them, but they also must see how far they have come over the years. Personal opinion can affect more than intended and result in negative results. Female dominance may not be the reality but in my opinion is becoming more and more believable. Anti-racist movements have been making positive movements as well through the years with the help of strong, brave role models. New perspectives offer hope for anyone who feels like they are being oppressed. It opens the door for people to feel like nothing can stop them and that everyone is equal.
ReplyDelete