Detangling racism: White women’s fixation with black women’s hair

Salon

Pictures from a new exhibit by photographer Endia Beal called “Can I Touch It?” showcase several white women, all corporate execs, who agreed to get a “black hairstyle” and then have their portrait taken.

Apparently, this very quotidian fixation with black women’s bodies and black women’s hair is now the stuff of art exhibits.

This project started when Beal began permitting many of her white corporate colleagues to touch her big red ‘fro, to pull it even, while she photographed them doing it.

Over the summer, a friend and I happened upon the “You Can Touch My Hair” exhibit that occurred in Union Square.

Incensed at such protests and convinced that the black woman who facilitated such a moment had no understanding of history or the ways that white folks fetishize black women’s bodies, I was incredibly happy to see the counter protests that emerged as well.

How dare the exhibit organizer put black women on display and then grant permission for touch? Yes, there is something to be said for making it clear that permission is required, but what are we permitting?

This desire to intimately touch and engage with the body of the “other” is one mark of what Sharon Patricia Holland might call “The Erotic Life of Racism.” There is certainly something undeniably erotic about inviting white men to pull a black woman’s hair at work. I don’t use erotic in the positive sense here, mind you. But the touching of bodies is an intimate practice, touch being tethered to the erotic, like a teabag being steeped in steaming hot water. Racism happens here, too.