I need help completing my research project. I have my proposal approved by my professor.
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XXX OOOOO XOX 300- Prof. XOXO OOXXO Project Proposal Overview of Project When thinking about the topics I wanted to pursue for this project, I immediately thought about beauty, specifically the standards of beauty for African-American women. There is a long history of disparities for black women regarding beauty; kinky vs. straight hair, colorism, body shape are a few examples. Black women struggled and persevered to be considered beautiful. It is ironic that now in the 21st century, the cosmetic industry has swelled and is making billions of dollars giving women and men bigger lips and butts, all things that black women were ridiculed about for hundreds of years. This project will examine and respond to three questions surrounding the beauty of African Americans and the effects black on women in today’s society: 1. In communities of color, there has always been a debate regarding kinky and curly hair and one being deemed good hair and the other not. Also whether it was deemed appropriate for black women to wear their hair in ist natural state in corporate America. In this part of the project, I want to research specifically how black women feel about the issue and also to analyze if there is inequality in the hiring practices of corporate America of black women who interview with “natural” hairstyles compared to women who interview with straight hair that is more similar to those of white woman. 0. Additionally, in this day and age, we love to throw around the term “culturally appropriating.” Like I previously mentioned, currently, there are many individuals paying enormous amounts of money for cosmetic procedures to attain the features black women possess and were often ridiculed for having. My question is when did this start? When did the narrative change that suddenly these were features people yearn to have? Was is the Kardashians that made these things cool and society’s eyes to this new standard of beauty? The beauty that was stood before them since the beginning of time, worn by women with a darker complexion. 0. Eventually, I will explore the history of black women in the modeling industry. From my perspective, overall the standard of today’s model is starting to change, however, the traditional runway industry is something that isn’t changing as fast as the rest of the components. For example, the incidents where instead of hiring black models companies used blackface on white models. With that being said, I’m curious to investigate if there is a pattern to the type of black models these companies are hiring. Description of Research Methods The research methods I utilize will differ depending on which question I am answering. 1. Natural Hairstyles vs. Straight Hairdos When researching this question I plan on using a combination of research methods. One method is the Historical or archival research. I think this research method is adequate as the statistics on who was hired/not hired plays a role in the question I’m trying to answer. People may have even made complaints about a specific company or wrote a personal antidote online and research will help me find that information. Following personal antidotes, interviews are another research method I will employ. As a black woman, I am lucky enough to have a circle of black women who all wear their hair differently and some of who have tried to enter or who are in corporate America. Conducting interviews with them to analyze and compare their experiences for similarities and differences regarding how they wore their hair will prove valuable. 0. Change in Standard of Beauty When researching the changes I plan on using a combination of research methods. Again, I plan on using, historical or archival research because I think understanding the timeline of beauty and what it has looked like overtime is important. The other research method I plan on using is autoethnography. I think using an autoethnography would be interesting to use because the question is trying to answer when and why the narrative started to change. I believe my personal autoethnography would add an interesting layer because I would be trying to answer that question with research but also utilizing my personal experiences. 0. Models of Color While analyzing the plight of models of color I plan on utilizing a combination of research methods. I plan on utilizing historical or archival research because I think this will give me the background knowledge I need on their history in this business. In that, I also plan to research previous interviews, reporting, and articles on black models to get insight on their experiences within the runway fashion industry. . Description of the arts-based elements Part of the reason I picked the topic of black beauty is that I thought it’s a perfect topic to incorporate the use of art within the project. The art-based forms I see myself incorporating into this project are digital art, visual art, and film. I believe that these are the perfect art forms to use because I can show the different examples of natural hairstyles, magazine covers to show how the standard of beauty has elevated over time and examples of black models working the runway to see examine similarities and differences between them. Additionally, with consent from the people I interview I will add videos from the interviews, clips of the models walking the runway and I can show the videos of a fashion company purposely and intentionally using blackface on models instead of hiring black models. I plan on combining these art forms plus the writing into a blog similar to a website adding the words, videos, and pictures all next to one another. Tentative Timeline. TBD Bibliography Audre Lorde (1985). “Poetry is Not a Luxury.” https://makinglearning.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/poetry-is-not-a-luxury-audrelorde.pdf Dirshe, Siraad. “Black Women Speak Up About Their Struggles Wearing Natural Hair In the Workplace .” Essence, Essence, 7 Feb. 2018, www.essence.com/hair/black-women-natural-hair-discrimination-workplace/. E. Patrick Johnson (2003). “Strange Fruit: A Performance About Identity Politics.” The Drama Review, Vol. 47, no. 2: http://www.csun.edu/~vcspc00g/301/strangefruit-tdr.pdf Freeman, Hadley. “Why Black Models Are Rarely in Fashion | Hadley Freeman.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Feb. 2014, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/18/black-models-fashion-magazines-cat Walks. Gawronski, Quinn. “Black Instagram Influencers Call out 'Blackfishing' White Women for Racial Appropriation.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 15 Oct. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-instagram-influencers-call-out-blackfishing-white Women-racial-appropriation-n1064856.- J. Orr (2016). “Body Animations (or, Lullaby for Fallujah).” In Casper and Wertheimer, eds., Critical Trauma Studies: Understanding Violence, Conflict and Memory in Everyday Life, NYU Press, pp. 157-174. [BB] Lambert, Bianca. “When Non-Black Minorities Wear Cornrows And Locs, Is It Appropriation?” HuffPost, HuffPost, 14 Feb. 2020, www.huffpost.com/entry/non-black-minorities-appropriation_l_5d974be7e4b0f5bf797372a. McGregor, Jena. “More States Are Trying to Protect Black Employees Who Want to Wear Natural Hairstyles at Work.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 Sept. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/19/more-states-are-trying-protect-black-emp loyees-who-want-wear-natural-hairstyles-work/.