A Careful Balance: Portraying A Black Character's Relationship With Their Hair

A Careful Balance: Portraying a Black Character's Relationship with their Hair

@writingraccoon said:

My character is black in a dungeons and dragons-like fantasy world. His name is Kazuki Haile (pronounced hay-lee), and his mother is this world's equivalent of Japanese, which is where his first name is from, while his father is this world's equivalent of Ethiopian, which is where his last name is from. He looks much more like his father, and has hair type 4a. I plan to make his character very finnicky about his hair, both enjoying styling it, but also often being unsure how to style it (not in that he doesn't know how to, but has so many options for how to style it, he has trouble choosing). However, I know that there are some very harmful ways to write black hair, especially in regards to how the black character themselves feels about it. Kazuki does not hate his hair, in fact he takes joy in it, and I'm researching black hair and hair styles to be as accurate as possible. But I'm unsure if portraying a black character as occasionally overwhelmed by or vain about his hair is negative. How would you suggest either changing this or making it work? Does it need to be changed in the first place?

Black Character Overwhelmed by Curly Afro Hair

Your Black character wanting his hair to look its best and at times feeling overwhelmed seems reasonable and natural to me. It appears their challenge comes with how to style it. Not so much with struggling how it looks or how hard it is to manage. That is good, as this further helps avoid placing a strong negative focus on Black hair. 

Him caring a lot about how it is style should not be deemed vain or frivolous, either. In any case, hair care is self care. There’s nothing wrong with having pride with your hair, especially hair that mainstream society, historically and present, might say is not beautiful. This still matters, even in a fantasy world, since your readers still exist in this reality. It’s empowering and a welcome change to see someone who loves their afro hair, actually.

There are unique factors someone with coily afro hair would experience vs. straight, wavy, or looser curls, but people struggling with their hair (too frizzy, too flat, too limp, too thin, too thick!) is universal. 

There is a delicate balance to achieve.

Avoid Writing a Black Hair Journey Experience 

An overall negative Afro hair journey might be the reality for many, especially when society deems Afro hair as unacceptable and slaps so many uninvited opinions, laws and policies over its existence and on certain styles (again, historically and very much at present), but that’s the kind of story that is best handled by someone with the background. Someone willing to commit to the research might also be able to pull it off, although it’s truly not the kind of thing an escapism novel needs in my opinion. If the story is not meant to delve into “A Black /Black Hair Experience” then I'd avoid going that route. That is moving a bit towards a struggle narrative, depending on how much it defines your character’s story.

Add positive and neutral hair language and interactions

For your writing, I’d avoid using unchallenged negative language about his hair. Being overwhelmed at times and frustrated is one thing and expected. If his hair is constantly brought up, and is associated with uncontrollable, ugly, or too [insert struggle here], then rethink the direction you’re going. 

Add some positive or neutral terms, reactions, and interactions in the narrative towards afro hair, such as describing color and texture.

“His fine coils bounced in the wind.” 

“Hair black and shiny” 

“She wore her hair in two large, fluffy buns.”

“He admired his fresh, neat braids in the mirror, smiling at his reflection, before turning to leave.”

Another tip: It may have been for research purposes, but leave out any hair number categorizing in the story and rely on description. I’d say this goes for any story, as reading the number would feel off. 

“He had coily 4a hair.” Nahh! :P 

Also, I would suggest sending all passages that focus on his hair to a Black sensitivity reader for review.

More reading:

writingwithcolor.tumblr.com

Describing Black Hair in Fantasy (Locs, Braided Styles, etc)

Image: Describing Black Hair in Fantasy, Braided Styles How do you describe afro hairstyles in a world where the words don’t exist?  My advi

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Words to Describe Hair

Image: Words to Describe Hair: Afro | Curly | Straight | Look | Texture | Style | Color  Photo credits: Alex Nemo Hanse This began as a guid

~Mod Colette

Genderfluid culture is hating presenting as your AGAB at first because you were forced to most of the time, only to realize later after coming out/explaining genderfludity to others that "damn, presenting my gender that way actually rocks when people see my genders (or lack of them) the way I do."

THIS

I just got aroace rickrolled

hey as a local aroace, i want to specify something.

were no strangers to love. you know the rules and so do i (do i). a full commitments what im thinking of. you wouldnt get this from any other guy. i just wanna tell you how im feeling. gotta make you understand. never gonna give you up. never gonna let you down. never gonna run around and desert you. never gonna make you cry. never gonna say goodbye. never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

.i love my hair

I love my hair.

I love it's tight curvature and format.

I love the volume it has.

I love how he looks when it's without definition.

And I sure do love my frizz. It's natural, God knows my work on keeping it hydrated.

And I don't need your opinion on what my hair should look like (I know your only advice is to clog my head with cream until it looks 10% like straight hair; I'm tuned 'bout your tricks)

Fuck, I love my hair.

And no white supremacy can change that.

Fire on racists. <3

i get that micheal jackson did a lot of good in the world but he was also a pedophile? 😭 i’m no taylor fan but you can’t say that these other people aren’t “problematic” (too shallow a word i’d say)

any mj anon wants to clarify this? because i had no idea...