I’m Tired of Black Characters with White Hair
Sorry, Storm…
I’ve said this before, but I read a lot of Afrofantasy.
The first time I came across a character described as having dark skin and bright white hair, I thought it was a cool and unique design. Aesthetically, I love some high contrast imagery, and I’ve been known to rock some silver braids myself every once in a while. For some reason, I was captivated by this depiction of an African girl with a face framed by snowy curls.
The second time I encountered this character design, once again in an Afrofantasy novel, I still thought it was interesting. Pretty.
I began to see a pattern.
The third time…I paused. Why do I keep seeing this? It wasn’t until I read a post (that has since been lost) about the prevalence of Eurocentric features on Black and brown characters that I began to think about this phenomenon more critically. I began to take notice of it in other forms of media as well. I began to see a pattern.
The use of light hair and eye colors on non-white (and especially female) characters often functions as a narrative tool meant to denote them as being special — attractive, royal, magical, a Chosen One, etc. In most cases, when a character is introduced with white hair they are either the only…
