Complications of Luxurious Beauty

Most of the readings engendered critical thought and reflection in me so I had a hard time deciding which ones to post about. One that made me think of my everyday life and experiences from where I come from was bell hooks’ “Beauty Laid Bare: Aesthetics in the Ordinary.” I thought the dichotomy she presented about where different generations in black communities locate “the beautiful” in the form of “nice things.”

I thought of this mostly in my relationship to my hometown New Orleans. New Orleans is still a very segregated community; there is white New Orleans and black New Orleans. Having grown up white in New Orleans, I wasn’t aware of much of the politics surrounding race and economic status until I was older and had returned to live in the city after college. I began working in adult literacy (40 percent of the city post-Katrina operated at level 1 literacy: can’t fill out a job application or identify streets on a map), then as a reporter, and finally as a resource center manager for a community center in a low-income, predominantly African-American community.

Hooks’ work struck me though in respect to work I have done in New Orleans and conversations I have had, especially following Hurricane Katrina. Post Katrina, I had many conversations with “righteous” people who were angered by looting that took place after the storm. “Why do ‘they’ have to go and make things worse?” “What are they going to do with those things anyway? A TV isn’t going to withstand being pulled through water?” “They are giving all poor/black/etc. people a bad name.”

My response, having worked in low-income communities in New Orleans, was that when you have been put down for so long, when the disparity of wealth along racial lines is so obvious and visible in your day to day lives, when you don’t have the money to have “nice things” like these, you are going to take this opportunity to equalize the divide in your own individual life. While this doesn’t justify stealing, but it does make it easier to understand and empathize. The storm revealed the two New Orleans’ raw and exposed.

There was also, of course, the exposed racism of the media revealed when a photo of African-American people walking through neck-deep water with food were captioned as “looters” while an almost identical picture of Caucasian people were identified as “New Orleanians finding food.”

Hooks says “…among the traditional Southern black folks I grew up around there was a shared belief in the idea that beautiful things, objects that could be considered luxurious, that were expensive and difficult to own, were necessary for the spirit. The more downtrodden and unfortunate the circumstance, the more “beauty” was needed to uplift, to offer a vision of hope, to transform.” In the community where I worked in New Orleans, there wasn’t a lot of upward mobility, and there were few role models for children of adults who had “made it” and were successful career people. A way then to signal importance or “success” was in having the newest, trendiest clothes, in looking nice.

I think about how in the housing projects in New Orleans, there are few trees, no gardens. These items are seen as “luxuries” instead of the necessary beauty I think they are. In 2000, the St. Thomas Housing Development was torn down in the Lower Garden District community. The promise was that the community would be renewed by “mixed income” housing. There were 4,000 public housing units originally. The mixed income development reduced that number to 900. Furthermore, public housing residents who wanted to return, years after the demolition, had to sign a contract. Among the stipulations was to avoid congregating on porches. While the project had its share of problems, including being riddled with violence and drugs, there was also a palpable sense of community. People would help each other out, people knew each other and would look out for each other. Hooks says that “no matter how poor the surroundings, individuals create beautiful objects.” Project residents did this. Art projects, decorations outside houses, sharing food and resources with each other. The community dissipated with the demolition and when some of the community members returned, they were not to be permitted to be outside? To enjoy the beauty of their neighborhood and neighbors? To make beauty out of poor surroundings?

I think it is very easy for people in positions of privilege—skin privilege, economic privilege, educational privilege—to condemn low-income people for the ways in which they choose to access beauty. “They should live within their means.” “They should buy cheaper televisions and shop at thrift stores.” It is easy to say such things when one’s own café latte isn’t at stake or when one’s trip to Hawaii is booked. The systems of poverty are so deeply rooted that we do not all start out on an equal footing. Given this fact, who are we to judge those who attempt to make their lives more beautiful, in whatever way they do it? Some people take refuge in the gardens they grow or the quilts they make with their own hands. Others crave luxury, because they why are they any less deserving of that kind of beauty?
--Lisa