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An intimate exploration of the barbershop as a space where Black identity is defined and debated.
Throughout history, the barbershop has been more than just a place to get a haircut. In Headmasters of Brooklyn, Shatima Jenique Jones takes readers inside a Black barbershop in Crown Heights, where everyday banter reveals deeper debates about race, relationships, and gentrification. Based on years of ethnographic research, Jones shows how the barbershop serves as a vital social space where Black men across generations mentor, debate, and shape one another’s ideas about Black people’s values.
Filled with memorable characters and rich storytelling, this accessible book explores how ordinary conversations become powerful sites of cultural meaning-making. As barbers and their customers negotiate questions of masculinity, class, and race, they also create competing visions of respectable Black male identity and the future of their community. Headmasters of Brooklyn offers a fresh and nuanced portrait of urban Black life that moves beyond stereotypes to illuminate how racial identities are forged in the spaces where people gather every day.
Shatima Jenique Jones is a sociologist of race and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.
Contents
Introduction: Finding Black Communities at Headmasters
1. Black Spaces: A History of Crown Heights and the Black Barbershop
2. Acting Black: Performing Authenticity on the Racial Frontstage
3. Values in Black and White: Enacting the Black Gaze in the Racial Backstage
4. Grooming Black Masculinities and Brotherhood: Caring Relationships
5. Women: Sacralizing Black Masculinity, Devaluing Black Femininity
6. A Place for the Black Urban Working Class: Valuing Street Wisdom and Belonging
7. At Risk for Displacement: Constructing Villains and Victims of Gentrification
Conclusion: Legacies of Headmasters
Acknowledgments
Methods Appendix: On Being a Black Woman Researcher
Notes
References
List of Illustrations
Index