Queenie

The book’s cover bears the image of Queenie’s hair, giving it an inherent level of significance. Throughout the text, hair symbolizes both disrespect and fetishism/racism, as well as friendship and caring. The white men that Queenie interacts and/or sleeps with often immediately comment on her hair, fetishizing her and making racist comments. For example, the first time that Tom meets Queenie, he compliments her hair. In Chapter 6, when Queenie meets Guy for the first time, he comments on her hair: “‘I like your, uh, hair. All this,’ he said, awkwardly patting the bun on my head […] ‘Sorry, you aren’t meant to touch a black girl’s hair, are you?’” (99). Later, he demands that she take her hair down while forcing her to endure painful sex; clearly, her hair is a sexualized, or fetishized, feature to him. In Chapter 8, a random white girl grabs Queenie’s hair and compliments it. This act is incredibly dehumanizing as Kyazike describes it to the bouncer: “‘[Y]our clientele [are] reaching out to touch black people like we’re animals in a petting zoo’” (123). At the public pool, a white child pulls at Queenie’s hair, calling her a sea monster, and the child’s mother refuses to apologize.