By In the United States, Black communities have not always been granted the right to honor or memorialize their dead. In Clint Smith’s account of visiting plantations and other landmarks related to slavery, How the Word is Passed, he outlines how Black people during slavery weren’t allowed marked graves, weren’t allowed to have funerals at night–even though that was sacred in most African religious traditions–, and that the majority of American tax dollars went towards Confederate memorials over Black memorials from post-emancipation to the present day.
The Importance of Black Feminine Beautification Rituals for Funerals in American Religion
In Caitlin Doughty’s memoir Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory, she notes that early funeral professionals sold the notion of a “refined death” to the white upper classes who could afford it through the preparation of the dead. However, this also meant excluding Black people and other people of the global majority from cemeteries, as their bodies didn’t fit the definition of “refined”.
A highly notable example is Academy Award winning actress Hattie McDaniel being denied entry for burial in the Hollywood Cemetery in 1952, only to be allowed entry in 1999 decades later after her death. Her family declined so her body wouldn’t be disturbed, and Hollywood Cemetery placed a cenotaph in her name instead.
Black women’s bodies have been poked, prodded, used for non-consensual scientific research, used for non-consensual sexual activities, and have experienced higher rates of infant mortality. It would also be ridiculous to say nothing of the other forms of intersectional discrimination faced by Black trans women along with Black cis women. In religious communities, there is still a debate over whether or not Black women should be religious leaders– a conversation that has been prevalent since the beginning of the abolition movement. So for Black women to develop beautification rituals and traditions in their funeral services is a long awaited reclamation of what Caitlin Doughty refers to as “the good death.” It is a long awaited reclamation within the conversation and display of American religion as well.
Breeshia Wade, former Buddhist end-of-life chaplain and author of Grieving While Black: an Antiracist Take on Oppression and Sorrow discusses how often Black women and Black people of other marginalized genders are expected to “set [their] own humanity aside for the comfort of others…no one expects to be denied access to us.” They are often asked to exhibit “passive patience” for their oppressive conditions to be addressed. Until our American society stops attempting to absolve itself of its ongoing crimes and erasure of humanity towards Black women, fems, and more that contributes to their unrighteous deaths, they ought to have the right to all the beautification rituals they please. Even when our society does stop, they are more than deserving of these beautification rituals.
When I refer to beautification rituals in death, I am referencing rituals for both the dead and the living. If a Black woman has died, it makes sense to make sure her makeup is done like how her makeup is done while she was alive. Her nails are painted. She is dressed in a gown or pantsuit in her favorite color. Her hair is done by someone who knows how to do a Black woman’s hair. Her family is not going to allow her to be buried as a hot mess; if they did allow it, it was completely unintentional and the funeral home is likely to blame for lack of access to her body.
For the living, Black people are asked to wear the deceased’s favorite color, which allows for a range of outfits, fascinators, church hats, brooches, jewelry, and–potentially– high heel shoes to honor and celebrate the life of the deceased.
In the August 20th, 2024 episode of the Poetry Foundation’s VS Podcast, co-hosted by Black queer Christian poets Ajanae Dawkins and Brittany Rogers, Brittany mentions that while conducting research for her debut poetry collection, Good Dress, she became aware of audacity in Black beautification through rap artists and the culture of Detroit, Michigan, while also experiencing beautification first-hand while preparing for her grandmother’s funeral.
Brittany’s experience makes me reflect on the recent death of my Granny and the rituals present in my majority Baptist Christian and Nondenominational Christian family.
Clothing has been a complicated topic of conversation with my sisters, my mom, and her side of the family because I tried so hard to make the expression of girlhood work for me growing up. As a nonbinary trans person raised by a single Black biracial mother and was surrounded by mostly Black women, the expression either felt like a fun form of drag for a brief moment or it felt uncomfortably forced. During Granny’s funeral, I had the opportunity to wear green high feels–the first time in two years–which were more comfortable than I was expecting.
It felt good to dress up for Granny, and to see us all in different styles of green, and all of the femmes in the family wearing fascinators. My sisters had their nails done in an acrylic style, my cousin had her nails done with Granny’s initials on each of her ring fingers, and my mom and my aunt painted their nails red like their mother always had. They all put on makeup too, and stylized their hair.
I didn’t paint my nails or do my makeup; I wore my hair like I usually did: natural. That way, I still felt like myself. I didn’t have to perform womanhood. I could just celebrate it. I could especially celebrate Granny’s womanhood. Twice (In my grief, I often humorously brag to people that my Granny was so popular she needed two funerals for her homegoing).
In times of grief, regardless of religious or nonreligious worldview, these rituals anchor me.
Joél Simone Maldonado, affectionately known as “The Grave Woman,” while stressing cultural inclusive aspects of death care, she goes as far to include art installations, live performances, and offering top tier cosmetics for the Black deceased. When it comes to event planning, why not celebrate the impressions of design in a person’s death, not just a person’s life, Joél counters in an article in Good Housekeeping. In an article in Refinery29, she remarks that “the ancestors spoke to me” to do this work. She also emphasizes how stylistic beautification rituals makes traditional funerary processes a lot more unique! She is currently–or at least, as of July 2024–collaborating with Anita Grant on the COVID-19 American History Project for the Library of Congress in order to reflect on mental health and death during the earliest parts of the pandemic in the United States.
In Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, she mentions how important it is not to denigrate others’ religious practices because “religion is the source of many death rituals.” It is the epitome of making the death positive movement an intersectional feminist movement. Trying to look and feel good as a way to feel better during moments of sadness has always resonated in our American society.
As Black women continue to die, whether due to natural causes or because of systemic oppression in our society, I find comfort in religiously influenced funeral traditions and beautification rituals. In times of grief, regardless of religious or nonreligious worldview, these rituals anchor me.
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