Tenderheaded
Description
What could get a hardworking employee fired from her job?
What could get a black woman in hot water with her white boyfriend?
In a word...
HAIR.
When does a few ounces feel like a few tons? When a doctor advises a black woman to start an exercise program and she wonders how she can do it without breaking a sweat. When an employer fires her for wearing a cultural hairstyle that's "unprofessional," and she has to go to court to plead for her job. When she's with her man, and the moment she's supposed to let loose, she stops to secure her head scarf so he doesn't disturb the 'do.
TENDERHEADED?
Yes, definitely. All black women are, in one way or another.
The issue is not only about looking good, but about feeling adequate in a society where the beauty standards are unobtainable for most women. Tenderheaded boldly throws open the closet where black women's skeletons have been threatening to burst down the door. In poems, essays, cartoons, photos, and excerpts from novels and plays, women and men speak to the meaning hair has for them, and for society. In an intimate letter, A'Leila Perry Bundles pays tribute to her great-grandmother, hair-care pioneer Madam C.J. Walker, who launched a generation of African-American businesswomen. Corporate consultant Cherilyn "Liv" Wright interviews men and women on the hilarious ways they handle "the hair issue" between the sheets. Art historian Henry John Drewal explores how hairstyles, in Yoruba culture, indicate spiritual destiny, and activist Angela Davis questions how her message of revolution got reduced to a hairstyle.
Tenderheaded is as rich and diverse as the children of the African diaspora. With works by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and other writers of passion, persuasion, and humor -- this is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
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Content
Ms. Strand Calls a Press Conference
Peace Be Still
NTOZAKE SHANGE
Heads of Steam
Madam C. J. Walker: "Let Me Correct the Erroneous Impression That I Claim to Straighten Hair"
A'LELIA BUNDLES
The Hairdresser and the Scholar
MARK HIGBEE
Severed
ANNABELLE BAKER
It All Comes Down to the Kitchen
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.
The Kink That Winked
CYNTHIA COLBERT
Tenderheaded, or Rejecting the Legacy of Being Able to Take It
MEG HENSON SCALES
Baby Hair
Baby Hair
CONSTANCE NICHOLS
A Day at the Beach
KAY BROWN
Learning the Language of My Daughter's Hair
PETER HARRIS
Hair (R)evolution
CYNTHIA COLBERT
Things My Mother Never Taught Me
JACQUELYN LONG
Tenderheaded
NIKKY FINNEY
Cornrow Calculations (or Math Is Beauty)
TONI WYNN
Store-Bought Hair
Fake
GERRIE SUMMERS
Planet Hair
LISA JONES
Hair Braiding, Miss?
TAIIA SMART
Madam Speaks
MARK RICHARD MOSS
Straight Talk
Relax Your Mind!
JENYNE M. RAINES
When Black Hair Tangles with White Power
MARIAME KABA
Hot Comb
NATASHA TRETHEWEY
Straightening Our Hair
BELL HOOKS
A Rio Crime
LAURA SULLIVAN
A Short History of Early Hair Straightening
WILLIE MORROW
All-Time Top Hair Divas
JENYNE RAINES
Wrappers' Delight
Under Cover
HALIMA TAHA
Grandma Blows Her Top
GLORIA WADE GAYLES
Uplift
LIDDY JONES
Bandanna
MICHAEL D. HARRIS
The Culture of Hair Sculpture
JULIETTE HARRIS
Pillow Talk
If You Let Me Make Love to You, Then Why Can't I Touch Your Hair?
CHERILYN "LIV" WRIGHT
Battle of the Wigs
GEORGE C. WOLFE
White Boyfriend
EVANGELINE WHEELER
Hagar's Blues
TONI MORRISON
Dekar's Touch
PAMELA JOHNSON
When Worlds Collide
The Curse (and Redemption) of Short Hair
THOMAS "TAIWO" DUVALL
Hair Hysteria
S. PEARL SHARP
Afro Images: Politics, Fashion and Nostalgia
ANGELA Y. DAVIS
Daughters of Africa
EVANGELINE WHEELER
On Short Nappy Hair and the Business of Blackness: From Ohio to South Africa
PAITRA D. RUSSELL
Smooth Heated Stones and Sunlight Soap
ROSALIE KIAH
Crowning Glories: Hair, Head, Style, and Substance in Yoruba Culture
PHOTOS AND TEXT BY HENRY JOHN DREWAL
No Longer Stranded
IDARA E. BASSEY
Silver Foxes
My Smart Gray Streak
YVONNE DURANT
Attitude at Seventy-Five
NAOMI LONG MADGETT
In Her Hair
S. PEARL SHARP
Homage to My Hair
LUCILLE CLIFTON
Something's Lost in Living Every Day
LEATHA SIMMONS MITCHELL
She Who Mirrors Me
RUBY DEE
Gray Strands
NAOMI LONG MADGETT
Locks and Keys
Don't Even Pretend (The Saturn Poem)
PETER HARRIS
In the Kitchen
JEWELLE GOMEZ
The Call
TAMARA JEFFRIES
Clean Break
JILL NELSON
My Bold Black Statement
SUSAN L. TAYLOR
Post-Traumatic Tress Syndrome
DENISE L. DAVIS, M.D.
In Sickness and in Health
FRANKIE ALEXANDER
Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain
ALICE WALKER
A Happy Nappy Hair-Care Affair
LINDA JONES
Ms. Strand Adjourns
About the Contributors
