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. 2022 Nov;59(4):547-549.
doi: 10.1111/cars.12406. Epub 2022 Oct 26.

Beauty

Affiliations

Beauty

Shirley Anne Tate. Can Rev Sociol. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Beauty is not race neutral. It is a racialized category/ perception which emerged through centuries of European colonization, Indigenous genocide, African/Black enslavement and indenture resulting in an aesthetic hierarchy with Blackness at the bottom. The coloniality of aesthetics means that still today hair perceived as Black in texture and styling and darker skin on African descent bodies are the repositories of anti-Blackness. However, Black women, children and men continue to fight back by (re)creating Black antiracist aesthetics focused on valorizing Black skin and hair.

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References

REFERENCES

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    1. Barnes, N. (1997) Face of the nation: race, nationalisms and identities in Jamaican beauty pageants. In: López Springfield, C. (Ed.). Daughters of Caliban: Caribbean women in the twentieth century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 285-306.
    1. Beckles, H. (1999) Centering ‘Woman’: gender discourses in Caribbean slave society. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.
    1. Brown-Glaude, W. (2007) The fact of Blackness? The bleached body in contemporary Jamaica. Small Axe, 11(3), 34-51.
    1. Charles, C.A.D. (2009) Skin bleachers representation of skin colour in Jamaica. Journal of Black Studies, 40(2), 153-170.

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