‘If Your Hair Is Relaxed, White People Are Relaxed. If Your Hair Is Nappy, They’re Not Happy’: Black Hair as a Site of ‘Post-Racial’ Social Control in English Schools

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Laura Jane Connelly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A growing body of literature examines how social control is embedded within, and enacted through, key social institutions generally, and how it impacts disproportionately upon racially minoritised people specifically. Despite this, little attention has been given to the minutiae of these forms of social control. Centring Black hair as a site of social control, and using a contemporary case study to illustrate, this article argues that it is through such forms of routine discipline that conditions of white supremacy are maintained and perpetuated. Whilst our entry into a ‘post-racial’ epoch means school policies are generally thought of as race-neutral or ‘colorblind’, we draw attention to how they (re)produce and normalise surface-level manifestations of anti-Blackness. Situating Black hair as a form of ‘racial symbolism’ and showing Black hairstyles to be significant to Black youth, we show that the governance of hair is not neutral but instead, acts as a form of social control that valorises whiteness and pathologises Blackness.
Original languageEnglish
Article number219
Number of pages13
JournalSocial Sciences
Volume7
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2018

Keywords

  • 'post-racial'
  • Black hair
  • Colour-blind racism
  • Education
  • Racial symbolism
  • Social control
  • White supremacy

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