Black Girls "Talking Back": YouTube Vlogging in Response to Symbolic Violence

• In Event: 49.024 - Overpoliced and Underserved: Voices of Girls of Color and LGBTQ Youth on Discipline and Punishment

Abstract

Objectives: Hair politics for Black girls lie at the intersection of gender, race, and violence in today’s society. When Black hair is against the rules (Byrd & Tharps, 2014) and viewed as unacceptable in the workplace (Caldwell, 1991), the military (Butler & Henderson, 2014), and even within schools (WKMG, 2013), conversations in the Black community have emerged across numerous media outlets. One such outlet exists in the form of YouTube, a modern, interactive, and popular medium many have access to and seek out for entertainment, education, opinions, and advice on a variety of topics and issues. Vlogging is a creative practice that offers women an opportunity to engage in the proverbial “talking back” (hooks, 1989) narratives and rhetoric that respond to the serious subject of Black hair and the discriminatory practices that reflect the “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, 1997) and racism against Black bodies. The objectives are to frame natural hair YouTube vlogging as a site for intersectionality discourse and present a critical content analysis of selected texts in the form of YouTube videos and school policy documents that illuminate the violence against women and girls within the system of education and the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (hooks, 1994, p. 71).

Framework: Intersectionality emerged from Crenshaw’s (1991) work dedicated to the sexual violence against Black women and the multiple forms of oppression experience as a result of their identity politics. Intersectionality theory offers a perspective for which to understand how the female body and Black identity play a role in the reactions to discriminatory policies and racist practices that cause malaise for women and girls in school.

Methods: This study uses ethnographic content analysis (ECA), or the reflexive analysis of documents, as the method (Altheide, 1987). Content analysis is helpful when scholars want to focus on language as communication and describe a phenomenon to derive findings directly from the data (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005).

Data: Systematic collection of YouTube videos using the site’s filtering feature helped to locate and sample a group of videos from popular YouTube vloggers. Sampled videos for our research were chosen because of their direct and indirect commentaries on Black hair. School policies restricting or banning (to some extent) Black hair were collected to understand how educational institutions communicate discriminatory practices.

Results: Data analysis focused on a constant comparison of collected texts and data and researcher triangulation to support the reliability and validity of the findings. Researchers transcribed content from collected videos, axially code video transcripts and policy documents, compare each coded case, reduce codes, and perform intercoder comparison to develop themes. The creative practice, community of practice, and intersectionality theoretical perspectives guided discussion of the results.

Scholarly Significance: Education scholars have not critically inquired the complex meaning of natural hair--and Black hair, in general—signifying the injustice that is typical and reified in educational institutions. The current condition--if left unquestioned and unexplored---represents what could mean a much larger problem and issue in the future.

Authors

• Crystal T. Laura, Chicago State University

• Robin Phelps-Ward, Clemson University