Crooked Beauty: Analyzing the Parameters of Black Beauty at a Predominately White Institution of Higher Education

• In Event: 41.054 - Critical Examinations of Race, Class, and Gender in Higher Education

Abstract

Despite recent celebrations of diverse beauty in America, whiteness has maintained its foundation as the standard. Historic and contemporary parameters of beauty continue to play a role in not only American society in general, but in higher education. This paper examines the circumstances surrounding the crowning of two Black women as beauty queens at the same predominately white institution (PWI) in 1959 and 2016. Despite an almost 60-year gap between the two women’s crowning, findings indicate that whiteness and the residual effects of slavery shape the societal norms of beauty. This discourse analysis of media documents supports the argument that university pageantry reinforces white standards of beauty in higher education.

Authors

• Angel Cassandra Nathan, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Gloria Howell, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Francesca Arielle White, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Alandra Harris-Hasan, Indiana University - Bloomington