#AllHairMatters or Nah?

When Sundial, the company behind Shea Moisture brand, released the latest in its #EverybodyGetsLove campaign, the black-owned beauty company made it clear that their new target audience is white.

There was one token black girl – a mixed woman – with long, curly hair. Her and two white women talked about “hair hate.”

How can a black beauty line tangle through the issues of hair hate without talking to black women about the impact European beauty standards have had on them? Black hair has long been treated by societal bias at large as unkempt, dirty and undesirable. Ciara and Alicia Keys wear braids and it’s called urban. Kylie and Kendall do it and it’s claimed the new, chic trend. I think it’s what drives the psychic impulse that has black women spending 80% more on beauty products than other women. Despite that buying power, beauty aisles have very limited haircare selections for black hair.

White women have options on options. So its surprising Sundial felt the need to expand their line. They didn’t put nearly this much effort into launching their Madam C.J. Walker collection last year. Then again, capitalism is capitalism and businesses are meant to grow. But if you built your brand on the scalps of black women, you don’t have to erase them to include white women. You don’t have to find the fairest, most racially ambiguous black girl to tokenize alongside them. Cater to us all, rather than participate in the long practice of erasing black women.

Not different from the Pepsi debacle, a hashtag protest led to immediate shutdown of the ad and a quick apology.

Wow, okay – so guys, listen, we really f-ed this one up. Please know that our intention was not – and would never be –…

SheaMoisture 发布于 2017年4月24日

But if we have the power to shut down ads, shouldn’t we ask for more? It’s not enough to withdraw your money from one capitalist venture and switch to another or quiet down once the ad comes down.

Are we happy to support a black-owned company whose idea of inclusivity isn’t to do the smart thing and simply include white women, but instead it does the American thing and shoves black women aside? When black-owned companies make millions thanks to the support of black buyers, should we not expect them to buy black as well? Had Sundial used a black ad agency, this would have never happened.

And like I said, capitalists are going to be capitalists. But if you have the power to pull ads, why not demand community support. Sundial could be donating money or product to black shelters much like Pepsi should have donated money to #BlackLivesMatter instead of apologizing to Kendall Jenner for paying her a million to insult a civil rights movement. We can’t just smooth this over with a few tweets. We have to comb through the issues.

Get Out: The Beast Racism Built

If James Baldwin’s words in “I Am Not Your Negro” set the cinematic world on fire with it’s striking relevance to today’s Divided States of America, Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” is a horror film rooted in what racism feels like.

It didn’t scare me because it was a scary movie. It was terrifying because it revealed the tragedy of what it is like for black people to live with what W.E.B Du Bois called the veil and a double-consciousness:

“…the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil and gifted with second sight in this American world, –– a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Du Bois penned that over 100 years ago. But today, even black pre-schoolers recognize their otherness. They are suspended at a rate nearly four times higher than their white counterparts. A jury watched the life choked out of Eric Garner as he gasped “I can’t breathe” and still found no probable cause to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo. Very few people accept The Washington Post’s findings that unarmed black Americans are five times as likely as unarmed white Americans to be shot and killed by a police officer. Instead they deflect with comments about about black on black crime without acknowledging that white on white crime is about the same or the systemic injustices that nurture the state of the black communities Trump is threatening to fix via militarization.

And when you grow up constantly facing the fact that your very humanity is scrutinized and people see your existence as a threat, you live with a certain fear.

“Get Out” is a brilliant exaggeration of what that looks like as it follows Chris, a young, gifted and black photographer, on a weekend trip to meet his white girlfriend Rose’s rich family. She hasn’t told her family he’s black. She assures him they are liberal and couldn’t possibly be racist because, you know, her daddy voted for Obama. But as soon as they start their journey to her neighborhood they run into an overzealous cop, meet her family’s black servants and by the time they sit down for dinner, microaggressions (“with your build and genetic make-up”) begin to feed the beast that is racism and tries to eat the flesh of young Chris the way it dines on the soul of black folk.

I’ve heard people say they won’t see “Get Out” because they are too scared. Well being black in America is scary. And it doesn’t come with the added perks of being fiction. See the movie. Take comfort in it’s make-believe and be motivated to check the very real biases and systemic oppression that inspired the tragedy of the double-consciousness on and off screen.

 

Jeneé: Media Diary

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Tools: Twitter is an oldie but it still jams

I already know. Twitter is not the newness. But that’s why I’m taking this class – to discover new tools and think differently. In the meantime, when I’m on deadline writing three columns a week, sometimes I feel like this:

But Twitter’s  Advanced Search often comes through in a pinch. When there’s a breaking news story in the #blacklivesmatter movement or something trending in underserved communities, Twitter often has the news first and Advanced Search allows you to zone in on specific dates, people and even geographic location. You can search by specific tweeters, hashtags or general phrases making it easier to source, fact check and connect. That makes me as happy as Solange when you don’t touch her hair. Don’t touch mine either.

Mic Check: Jeneé O.

Peace! I’m a Nieman Fellow (Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard). I’m also a lifestyle columnist and culture critic at The Kansas City Star where I write about race, gender and civil rights issues through the lens of pop culture.

Journalism is rapidly changing and we can’t just change with it, we have to innovate, too. And it’s important to me that we think about how to do that inclusively.  Diversity and accessibility in digital storytelling is a must.

When I’m not learning as much as possible and representing for my Hogwarts family, I’m walking my two boxers or listening to trap music and doing yoga. You can find me on Twitter @jeneeinkc.

 

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