We all know there is a politics of skin color, but is there a politics of hair? In this book, Noliwe Rooks explores the history and politics of hair and beauty culture in African American communities from the nineteenth century to the 1990s. She discusses the ways in which African American women have located themselves in their own families, communities, and national culture through beauty advertisements, treatments, and styles. Bringing the story into today's beauty shop, listening to other women talk about braids, Afros, straighteners, and what they mean today to grandmothers, mothers, sisters, friends, and boyfriends, she also talks about her own family and has fun along the way. Hair Raising is that rare sort of book that manages both to entertain and to illuminate its subject.
- ISBN10 0813523117
- ISBN13 9780813523118
- Publish Date 1 July 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 June 2013
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Rutgers University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 210
- Language English