Is Black Beauty Culture More Than Consumerism?
From Grounded · 44:36
Show by Iman AbdoulKarim
Is Black beauty culture just about what we buy? Or is there something much deeper happening when Black women get dressed, do their makeup, lay their edges, and show up in the world? Inspired (more triggered because it PMO) by a viral conversation between Nara Smith and Emma Grede about why they wouldn't spend their money on a Birkin bag, I'm asking what we miss when we reduce Black women's relationships to beauty and fashion to consumption, wealth, and materialism. From Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham's work on respectability politics in the Black Baptist Church to Kayla Renée Wheeler's scholarship on the Nation of Islam's beauty politics, we're exploring how Black women have historically used beauty and fashion to negotiate political power, challenge white beauty standards, and articulate their own visions of Black womanhood. Then, we're bringing the conversation into the present with two thinkers I LOVE: Dr. Kiy and the Zorine Truly (aka the Hoochie Historian). Through Black feminine cultural mysticism and hoochie history, they help us think about Black beauty culture as a kind of secret language between Black women and femmes. If you know, you know! Chapters 00:00 Teaser 00:36 Welcome & Where I'm Finding Grounding 3:37 Is Beauty Culture More Than What We Buy? 12:16 Not Buying a Birkin is Not Relatable... 19:18 Respectability Politics & Political Access in the Church 23:05 The Nation of Islam & "Black Is Beautiful"29:20 The Secret Language Between Black Femmes: Black Feminine Cultural Mysticism and Hoochie History REFERENCES Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Wheeler, Kayla Renée. “Becoming the ‘Mothers of Civilization’: Constructing Black Beauty and Sartorial Modesty in the Nation of Islam.” Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty 16, no. 1 (2025): 59–76. Griffin, Farah Jasmine. “Ironies of a Saint.”Dr. Kiy (@pinkiysensei) — Black feminine cultural mysticism (thefemininecitation.com) and the intellectual significance of Black women's beauty and aesthetic practices. Zorine Truly (@thee_hoochie_historian) — The Hoochie Historian; Black feminine aesthetics, hoochie culture, and Black women's cultural expression.
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