ABSTRACT
This chapter sees Black beauty shame as performative and it is this which leads to its transformative potentiality. It aims to show the general pattern in the data of (com)plaint-recognition, disidentification, and critical agency-transformation that related to shame and performativity. The chapter looks at the recognition of Black beauty exclusions as shaming events before focusing on how it is that shame leads to disidentification and critical agency which allows new beauty recognitions and political positionings to emerge. It is clear that Black beauty shame relates to two master signifiers: white iconic beauty and Black beauty norms which are located in Black Atlantic diasporic anti-racist aesthetics. The communal and individual shame is the result of the racialized relationality that is a part of the lives of school kids who live in a society structured by racial dominance. Shame is not paralyzing or debilitating but is part of a resource for Black beauty transformation both in terms of discourses and stylization practices.
