The Barbershop Community: Keeping Black Men Healthy

Joseph Ravenell’s (2016) TED talk on “How Barbershops Can Keep Men Healthy” explains the sense of community that barbershops offer to Black men through “friendship, solidarity, and solace” and addresses how this community pillar can be utilized to benefit patrons’ health. Within the average barbershop, clients and barbers engage in varying conversations about politics, world news, and relationships, as well as open discussions on health: healthy dieting, strategies for reducing stress, ways to treat high blood pressure, etc.

The barbershop in itself is a community of culture and identity, which can be defined as a community organized around race, heritage and cultural identity, and a community brought together by a shared identity (Staller and Mafile’0, 2009). Barber shops are places where African American / Black men can come together and are, in the words of Ravenell (2016), “a safe haven for Black men.”

The barbershop community fulfills six of the seven community functions discussed by Netting and co-authors (2017), which are (1) production, distribution, and consumption, (2) socialization, (3) social control, (4) social participation, (5) mutual support, (6) defense, and (7) communication. Firstly, the barber shop is a place where goods are exchanged, such that money is exchanged for haircuts and beard trims, which is essentially a form of production and consumption. Secondly, the barbershop offers an atmosphere where Black men can talk with each other freely about their daily lives, hence it fulfills the function of socialization. Communication is also fulfilled through socialization, as patrons and barbers likely speak the same language and understand the significance that particular symbols represent in the Black community.

Regarding social control, the barbershop does not appear to enforce any sort of social norm requirements on patrons. It is a ‘come as you are’ community. The barbershop does, however, allow for social participation. Each man in the barbershop has his own set of experiences and expertise that can be shared to benefit other members of the community. Each person can freely discuss their opinions and ideas.

Lastly, the barbershop offers its community members mutual support and defense. Each community member can help and support one another through their conversations and shared knowledge. Not to mention, barbershops are often treated and seen as safe havens for patrons (Ravenell, 2016).

Ravenell (2016) was able to utilize the barbershop community for health interventions on behalf of Black men. The barbershop is a safe space where Black men (the target population) regularly come together to not only get haircuts and beard trims, but also to discuss important life topics such as health. The space-people-interaction dynamic of the barbershop made it possible for an effective health intervention to be placed in barbershops to monitor Black men’s cardiovascular health, who otherwise only get health check-ups when their health is seriously threatened.

Both the patrons and barbers have a shared identity as Black men in America, and as such share similar traumas, worries, and anxieties that they can openly talk about with each other in a safe, understanding space. Not to mention, the trust among people with a shared identity (being a Black man in America) allows for the intervention to be more effective than, say, an intervention attempted by white doctors — a group who, according Ravenell (2016), many Black men have little trust of.

On the other hand, barbers act as confidante, community leader, and often advocates who patrons trust far more than any doctor (Ravenell, 2016). Understanding the unequal distribution of power that Black men face in America involves the realization that Black men may often feel powerless in everyday life, like in hospitals and doctor’s offices. This means that Black men will shy away from regular health check-ups and thus have higher risk for otherwise preventable illnesses.

However, the barbershop community functions as a place where all the patrons are on equal footing and the barbers, who appear to hold the most power, are trusted leaders and confidantes. Ravenell (2016) saw this unique health problem for Black men and the unique opportunity (and social system) that the barbershop community offered and used this knowledge to implement the intervention of health checkups in barbershops.

References

Netting, F. E., Kettner, P. M., McMurtry, S. L., & Thomas, M. L. (2017). Social work macro practice (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson

Ravenell, J. (2016). How barbershops can keep men healthy [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_ravenell_how_barbershops_can_keep_men_healthy

Staller, K., & Mafile’o, T. (2009). Community. In I. Shaw (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of social work research (pp. 365–377). London: Sage Publications.