“Should I Straighten My Hair?”: Narratives of Black College Women with Natural Hair

Melanin messages: Black college women’s experiences and reflections on navigating colorism.

“…This further came up as the sistas acknowledged how many “positive” Black television programs played on this concept of good and bad hair noting when Black women have “the beady beads” but it’s usually a diss the darker she is even if the darker woman’s hair is soft. This suggests there is an urgent need for real exploration on how messages around hair impact Black college women, such as the emerging work(s) by Williams et al (under review). Given these points with Addie’s comments about who within-group experiences representation, we were left with a question: Is representation for the sake of representation acceptable or should Black people be more explicit in their demands for media portrayal?…”

For all my sisters: The impact of cisheteronormativity on scholarship about the gendered and sexualized experiences of Black college women

“…The complex intersections associated with Black womanhood remains a critical area of study for higher education and student affairs scholar-practitioners. Contemporary scholarship on Black women collegians calls us to consider the nuanced ways they make meaning of their social identities and experiences within higher education settings (Brown et al, 2021;Porter, 2017;Williams et al, 2022Williams et al, , 2020. Some attempts have been made to fill this gap by examining Black women's college experiences at the intersection of social class (e.g., Johnson, 2017) or first-generation college student identity (e.g., Williams et al, 2020).…”