Jasmine Nichole Cobb | Tactility and the Texture of Racial Capitalism

'Coming out of the Civil Rights Movement and political struggles of the middle-twentieth century, the Afro has endured as an icon of Black liberation aesthetics. Through a mixed-media archive of photojournalism and print advertisements, this particular Black hairstyle has often been associated with the term "freedom" without sufficient exploration of hair's suppression in public culture and visual representation. Professor Jasmine Cobb explores the historical and cultural contexts informing repression where Black hair is a stand in for Black aesthetics. She argues that the shifting significations associated with "natural hair"--the concept and characteristics of black hair textures in the absence of chemical and mechanical straighteners--begins with slavery, but endures through racial capitalism.' -- Duke Franklin Humanities Institute