Black fashion, hairstyle, and naming practices descend from enslaved people’s self-expression under bondage

Evidence

Enslaved people would wear a hat in a jaunty manner or knot a head scarf intricately. Today’s avant-garde nature of Black hairstyles and fashion displays a vibrant reflection of enslaved people’s determination to feel fully human through self-expression. The improvisational quality of Black art and music comes from a culture that rejected convention in order to cope with constant disruption. Black naming practices, so often impugned by mainstream society, are themselves an act of resistance. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 170

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ADDENDUM piece on ‘Grafting & Growth’ in the sense of culture arising from disruption — and to the general theme of creative resistance from constraint. — connects to: Slave resistance centered on claiming the power to name oneself — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 902