ABSTRACT
Anna Everett contextualizes black women’s online natural hair autobiographies in terms of slave narratives. Whereas the motive force for antebellum slave autobiographies was, to paraphrase John Brown Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish, to plead African Americans’ own cause to advance the abolitionist movement, Everett finds a related imperative driving black women’s online narratives of self-articulation and embrasure of the beauty of their natural hair. And, make no mistake about it, black women’s hair has been highly politicized, policed, and poo-pooed. From the racism contained in the Sony Studios hacked emails, to #BlackLivesMatter, to #OscarSoWhiteAgain, the struggle to humanize and thereby recognize black people outside of persistent damaging stereotypes in mainstream media industries continues. Everett intervenes in these practices and contributes to feminist media, beauty, and black studies by considering how black women YouTubers critically consider the ways natural hair, and by extension true black identities, is represented. These YouTubers support the related girlfriend cultures where such dialogues happen. Everett asserts that slave narratives represent the autobiographical muscle-memory being flexed in the contemporary proliferation of black women’s self-authenticating YouTube narratives, including natural hair autobiographies.
