S3, E8 The Crown Chronicles

Zora's Daughters

We're doing this 'fro the culture! In our last episode of the semester Brendane and Alyssa talk featurism, texturism, the politics of Black hair, and are joined by biological anthropologist Tina Lasisi.

We'll be back in 2023 with new episodes. In the meantime, don't forget to submit your listener letters and voice notes to [e-mail] and we might read or play it and respond in our next episode. Happy Holidays!

What's the Word? Featurism and Texturism. These are colorism's insidious cousins: prejudicial or preferential treatment based on the proximity of their features and hair texture to Eurocentric standards of beauty.

What We're Reading. ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’: Problematizing Representations of Black Women in Canada by Shaunasea Brown. We share our hair journeys, chat about using the term dreadlocks vs locs, examine Canadian contributions to the Natural Hair Movement and infamous cases of workplace hair discrimination in Canada, and demonstrate that we use our hair—or lack thereof—to claim space and exercise our right to be.

What In The World?! We chat with Dr. Tina Lasisi, a biological anthropologist who specializes in the science of hair, skin, and human biological variation. We answer your burning scalp questions in a rapid fire, discuss scientific racism, the dangers of DNA phenotyping pseudoscience, and whether we really need to buy "Black" hair products.

Follow Dr. Lasisi on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and check out her PBS series Why Am I Like this?

Discussed In This Episode

‘Don’t Touch My Hair’: Problematizing Representations of Black Women in Canada (Shaunasea Brown, 2018)
The constraints of racialization: How classification and valuation hinder scientific research on human variation (Tina Lasisi, 2021)
Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia (Angela Davis, 1994)
Sister Scientist

Other Episodes

S1, E9: Color Struck!

Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!

Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!

Transcript will be available on our website here.