The woman who began her career as a fashion model for Ebony and Jet magazines, who married (and divorced) jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, and whose love of Black people, especially Black women, made her into an activist for most of her long, long life developed her craft so exactingly that she reigns as one of the greatest artists America has ever produced (or ever will produce).
Readers snapped up John Lutz’s police procedurals because they could tell he knew the details of police work. As a switchboard operator for St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, he had listened to beat cops phoning in from call boxes. “That gave me insight into how they think,” he told me. “Police think they are aware of a depth of the dark side of human nature that other people can’t begin to imagine.”
Entanglement, an anthropological and journalistic account of the business, art, and meaning of hair across the globe, among other things, tells two contrasting stories.
Sisters Linnet Early Husi and Rosalind Early on natural hair in childhood, relaxers in adolescence, and growing up and into hairstyles that speak to who they are as Black women.
My baldness is not meant to signify anything, but it does not mean nothing, even to me.
Four portraits of modern tresses, and one toupee.
I have a print of Paul Goodnight’s “Links and Lineages” that depicts three generations braiding each other hair in a colorful tapestry of Black female intimacy and beauty. Such pleasures exist in many families. Mine—not so much.
Before COVID-19 hit, men’s grooming was slated to become a $26 billion industry in 2020. TrendHunter characterizes the market as a mix of blunt, macho aesthetics and luxurious, indulgent experience. In other words, masculinity remains a paradox.
When I look in the mirror, these days, I see all of my hair and I adore it. It needs a trim, sure, but it is my crowning comfort. I see myself and I feel thankful for what I have, and I think of those who are struggling both alike and differently to find themselves.
Hair dharma in Hinduism is context dependent. While there are hairstyles that are permissible, some even prescribed or required, they must be manifested at the appropriate time and space, and even stage of life, and in accordance with gender.
