Melanated Millennials and the Politics of Black Hair

Byron D'Andra Orey and Yu Zhang

Social Science Quarterly, 2019, vol. 100, issue 6, 2458-2476

Abstract: Objective This research employs the phenotypic prototypicality framework to makes a connection between African‐American voters' perceptions of African‐American women candidates' appearances and candidate evaluations in contests with limited information. The primary focus is on the candidates' skin tone and hair texture. Methods The data consist of a convenience sample of 672 African‐American students from a Historically Black University in the Deep South. An experimental research design was employed to test whether African‐American candidates who possessed phenotypes that mirrored the prototypical African American were perceived differently when compared to those with more Eurocentric features. Each subject was randomly exposed to a stimulus that consisted of a brief campaign platform and an image of a light or dark woman donning either straight hair, twist outs or dreadlocks. Those subjects in the control group were exposed to an image of a dark male with short hair. Results African‐American students found the dark candidates to be more attractive when compared to their lighter counterparts, regardless of hairstyles. Candidates who possessed the prototypical Afrocentric appearance (i.e., dark skin and/or textured hair) were found to be more supportive of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, progressive policies and were perceived to be more hardworking, when compared to their lighter counterparts. Light‐skinned women, regardless of hairstyles, were perceived to be less supportive of Black Nationalist views. Conclusion The findings here run counter to the conventional wisdom associated with colorism, whereby African Americans have been deemed to possess self‐hatred by possessing a more positive bias toward women with a lighter hue and straight hair. In recent years, due to such events as police shootings of unarmed African‐Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement, Black Millennials have become more aware of the oppression and discrimination faced by many African Americans. This heightened level of consciousness, in tandem with the fact that they were born during an era when natural hairstyles were being popularized, has led them to embrace the aesthetic revolution that includes appreciating their melanated skin and kinky hair.

Date: 2019
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