Black Men Can’t Even Go to The Barbershop in Peace Now

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I came across an article titled “The Black barbershop is both toxic and intimate for cishet Black men” written by a guy named Da’Shaun Harrison who just happens to self-describe himself as the following…

There’s nothing wrong with self-described “faggots” having an opinion.  We all have opinions at the end of the day regardless of how valid or full of bullshit they may be.  But his opinion of the black barbershop is horrible.

To sum up his article Da’Shaun Harrison makes the argument that the black barbershop is essentially nothing but a place that promotes toxic black masculinity.  The black barbershop teaches boys & men to dislike gays & every other letter in the LGBT alphabet.  The black barbershop teaches boys & men how to be disrespectful to black women in addition to allegedly causing black women to fear for their safety at black barbershops.  But in addition to all of that, Da’Shaun Harrison also makes it a point to describe the relationship between a barber and his client as some type of homoerotic relationship which, according to him, is instrumental in the demonization of the queer black man.

Though many cishet Black men would not use these words to describe their experience, I argue that the relationship between Black men and their barbers is a homoerotic one. Furthermore, their refusal to acknowledge it as intimate not only reinforces hegemonic masculinity, but it also aids in the demonization of queer Black men.

So in one breath the self-described “faggot with an opinion” chooses to interpret a barber/client relationship as some sort of homosexual relationship and then in the next breath he states this “homoerotic” relationship demonizes queer black men.  For those of you confused on the what the word queer actually means, don’t feel alone, I was confused to.  Because apparently the word “queer” can have many different meanings these days.  I’m just going to assume for the sake of argument that the word “queer” as it relates to Da’Shaun Harrison means gay considering he describes himself as a “faggot with an opinion”.  And I know some of you are reading this wondering why I keep typing that phrase “faggot with an opinion” over and over.  Well, it’s because I believe this self-description he choose to impose on himself is rather telling about how he chooses to view the world, especially the black barbershop.  I believe that somewhere in his youth he was probably picked on and labeled a “faggot” more than likely by some black kids, he probably attended a black barbershop where he heard a few barbers making jokes about gay people which then lead to him writing this long overdue article to essentially let his feels flow about how he didn’t like being treated as a young person from probably a few black people around his way.  So now, he wants every other black person out there to believe that the black barbershop is essentially the anti-gay misogynistic training grounds for black boys & men so they can go out and further demonize all the Da’Shaun Harrisons of the world so they too can eventually put in their Twitter bios that they are “a faggot with an opinion”.

I can’t with these people anymore…I really can’t.

I’ve been attending black barbershops since forever now and 99.99% of the conversations that take place in these shops pertain to sports & politics.  That’s it.  Rarely are black barbers in there talking about gay people.  You know why?  It’s because there’s a good chance that a black barber has a gay client because after all, gay people need haircuts too.  Do you know how many butch lesbians attend black barbershops these days?  At the one I presently go to, I know for a fact that there are at least 4 lesbians who regularly attend this shop to get a cut and NOBODY gives a damn about their sexuality.  Hell, one of the barbers is a damn lesbian for crying outloud who can actually cut pretty damn good.  I’m going to assume that there’s probably some gay black men who attend this shop as well, but since NOBODY in the shop is trying to pin the tail on the gay black dude, nobody gives a damn.

To address the point of Da’Shaun Harrison describing a barber/client relationships as “homoerotic”, the ONLY person who could honestly come up with that assessment would have to be a suspect gay dude who self-describes himself as “a faggot with an opinion”.  Who honestly goes into a barbershop and sees “homoerotic” tendencies taking place between a barber & his client?  Who really does that?  Who honestly sees a dude sitting in his barber’s chair getting a haircut and chitchatting and just automatically presumes a homoerotic relationships is taking place?  Is it safe for me to assume that homoerotic relationships are taking place in beauty salons amongst black women as well?  I mean, depending upon what a black woman is requesting to be done to her hair, her stylist can get more “intimate” with her client than most barbers do onto theirs.

Matter of fact, since black barbershops are such downright evil breeding grounds promoting misogyny and anti-gay rhetoric in addition to secretly promoting homosexual barber/client relationships, I look forward to Da’Shaun Harrison’s next article discussing these same talking points from the black beauty salon standpoint.  I mean, I would imagine it’s plenty of “niggas ain’t shit” commentary taking place up in there in addition to some anti-gay rhetoric or am I to believe that black beauty salons are the complete opposite that are just pristine places that women and gay people can feel 100% safe & secure away from the big bad scary black dudes who faithfully attend black barbershops who are really there looking to enter into a homoerotic relationships with their barber (according to Da’Shaun Harrison)?  Or can I safely assume that I will never see that article written by Da’Shaun Harrison, the self-described “faggot with an opinion”?

These millennial niggas got issues.