The unknown ‘network of smiles’ among black women – 01/26/2023 – Equilíbrio

If you’ve ever seen two black women pass each other on the street and smile at each other, most of the time it’s not because they know each other or have seen each other somewhere.

Sociologist Vilma Reis, a sociologist from Bahia specialized in Ethnic and African Studies, this is a practice that dates back centuries: “We learned when it was impossible to say absolutely nothing – in the brutality of the transatlantic traffic, many times it was only with a look that the people built revolutions”.

The same goes for black men, who in this case refer to this exchange in English as a “nod”, a nod or what might be called on the fringes a ‘salve’.

Vilma has a more Brazilianized way of referring to the issue and uses a term by which enslaved people who had come on the same boat treated each other:

“I use the word malungo to talk about our agreement without being able to speak, it’s a malungo agreement. Probably “The Nod” is our Malungo Way of resolving the issue”, he says. “It’s the way we look at each other, we all carry codes that make us translate.”

But why does this happen?

This exchange of smiles can be complicity, admiration or an identification with common symbols, such as the recent growth in the use of natural hair.

On the streets of London, I approached black women who smiled at me on a cold December afternoon to find out why they thought this was so.

“I think first we recognize ours. We have all these issues in common so we tend to shake hands,” said 37-year-old Cara Lloid.

“There is this immediate identification, we look and see each other”, adds Vilma.

Environments where you are a minority

Despite happening anywhere, there are certain spaces where this complicity intensifies.

“If it’s a mostly black space, it’s more difficult (to happen) because you won’t be waving to all the other women, but a space that has a black presence in a minority way is when they visualize each other and make that wave” , says anthropologist Elisa Hipólito.

Cara Lloid agrees and says she experiences this firsthand: “I used to work in a mostly white area, and when we found one of our own – and when I say one of our own, I mean someone I can relate to – we we were friendlier with each other,” he says.

This greater facility for this nod to occur in places with a white majority makes many Brazilian women experience this complicity for the first time when they leave the country.

According to Vilma Reis, this already happened when she was a student in Vienna, Austria, in 1993, but it also happens to this day in more elitist spaces in São Paulo.

“In Vienna, the Nigerian women who live there looked at me and we identified with each other. But I also feel this energy in São Paulo, which is a city of Congolese, Angolan, Mozambican women. In these spaces where we are not the majority, they look at me with great complicity. Because the body speaks, the body is text”, she says.

aesthetic admiration

Another reason often cited on the streets to motivate the exchange of smiles is aesthetic admiration – which Patrícia Louisor says was about time to happen:

“I think it’s great because, for years, if not centuries, we used to fight to be admired by white people. And now it’s a time when black people recognize black people, I think it’s very powerful,” she says.

Anthropologist Elisa Hipólito agrees and says that it is common for a black woman to smile when she sees another wearing her hair in its natural texture or even braided.

“It goes back to belonging, to a certain resistance. Especially if you want to wear your hair in its natural texture and you see a woman with curly hair; you feel an empowerment, a support to do this with yourself”, she explains.

Complicity in the look

However, the shared experience that generates this exchange of glances and smiles on the streets is not always positive. A black woman knows what the other goes through. They receive the lowest wages, are the ones who suffer the most domestic violence and are the ones who find it most difficult to do well in the job market.

In Brazil, for example, there are less than 1% of company CEOs and in the United Kingdom the number is even smaller.

For Elisa Hipólito, this sharing through pain is equally potent:

“Vilma Piedade, a Brazilian intellectual, talks about the concept of pain, which overlaps this idea of ​​sisterhood that we hear so much. It is a term to think about this pain shared among black women, this pain marked by the patriarchal system, but also by racism “, he explains.

I wake up without words

For Vilma Reis, this exchange of glances, smiles or a salute has to do with the attempt to rescue a union purposely broken centuries ago.

“They separated our people as we descended into the diaspora. They separated who was Fulani, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. But our people came together. In the face of all the impossibilities, we built a language in the look and the possibility of empathy and welcome in the look “, it says.

The sociologist claims that something as simple as an exchange of smiles on the streets points to a movement to rescue the self-esteem and power of the black population.

“It’s us knowing that we are on the margins, but that the margins can come together to create a new centrality.”