You Can Keep Your Instagram Baddies. I Prefer Real Hood Girls.
What gets lost when hood style is co-opted for Instagram likes
Walking into a beauty supply store in the hood is like walking into a parallel universe. Cheap, bright lipsticks grab your eye immediately. Hair hangs from the ceiling. There is an abundance of dyes, cheap gold jewelry, and every hair accessory known to man. It is a familiar home to Black and Brown women struggling to make themselves beautiful in a world that pays them no mind. If you look past the owners — who are often not of the community and who follow patrons around as if they are going to steal something — and past the lasting effects of colonization, buried in the ingredients of the skin lightening creams on the third shelf of the skin care aisle, it is almost perfect. Almost.
But while it may not be perfect, it is home.
It has the kind of magic that is a byproduct of most hood creations. You tried to destroy us, but [bitch] we’re here. Mining the grime at the bottom of the barrel and turning it into gold.
It is in our strut.
It is in our fashions.
And our fashions, specifically femme fashions, have existed as a subversion of the politics of poverty that says poor people can’t have nice things. Our…
