For African-American women, the black beauty salon, like the black barbershop, is a place where women can safely let loose on any and all hot topics, but Crunk Feminist Collective writer Robin Boylorn recently had a different experience. Chatting away in the salon one day, another woman took offense at Boylorn's conversation and vowed payback.
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So imagine my surprise when I realized, after a recent visit to the hair salon, that upon my exit I was verbally assaulted by another black woman. A black woman who I did not know and who did not know me, and whose shared presence in the room may have lasted all of five minutes. If I noticed her I would have smiled, because that is what I do to every black woman I see in the salon, but I didn’t notice her, but evidently she noticed me. In the brief time period that we shared space she walked in on an ongoing conversation I was having with another black woman in the salon. Granted, I do not remember what we were talking about, but I routinely initiate and/or participate in provocative hot topic discussions in the salon. The stylists and I, along with various other patrons ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-seventies, have shared laughs and wisdom about topics ranging from politics and sex to interracial relationships and popular culture. While I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation I know two things for sure about any and everything that I ever say publicly: 1) it was truthful (at least my truth); and 2) it was not (intentionally) offensive (I am very intentional with my words, and mindful of correcting myself, immediately, if I feel I have spoken out of turn, or inappropriately). I am also a communication professor who has had years of training in public and professional speaking so I imagine that despite codeswitching and my country drawl (which comes out when I am especially comfortable) I am easily outted as an academician.
I was warned, when I returned to the salon a few weeks ago, that this unnamed black woman (who I had never seen before) had announced her intention to “get me in trouble” on my job for the things I said in the salon. Her assertion was, in addition to being ludicrous, absolutely inaccurate. What, I wonder, could I have said in the hair salon that would warrant some kind of reprimand at work (especially when I work at a public institution where I study, research and teach on taboo topics, and as an auto/ethnographer, part of my job is to write about and critique social encounters)?
Read Robin Boylorn's entire op-ed at the Crunk Feminist Collective.
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