Slay

Hair serves as a motif for the theme of empowerment and pride in Black culture and heritage. In her real life, Kiera goes on what she describes as “the Black girl hair journey” (4). She is keenly aware that Black hair and Black hairstyles are frequently debated and misunderstood. Kiera mentions her white classmates “asking to touch [her] twist-out” (14), and Harper wants her to sum up a decades-long debate over locs. Within the virtual world of SLAY, Kiera and her fellow Black gamers don’t have to worry about their hairstyles being appropriated or subject to microaggressions. Instead, they can show their creativity and celebrate their heritage through the hairstyles they design for their characters. For example, Maurice Belrose gives Spade “a fro-hawk as far off his head as he is tall” (163). Steph’s character, the exuberant Hyacinth, wears her “long thick hair tied up into a huge braid interwoven with flowers” (207). Claire adds another layer of nuance to the motif by making her character, Cicada, bald like herself. She shaves her head in solidarity with her white mother, who experiences hair loss due to her cancer treatments. Cicada’s baldness is an expression of Claire’s unique identity and experiences, and the novel validates this self-expression and the elaborate hairstyles imagined by other players in the game equally. Morris also weaves the motif of hair into the theme of pride in Black culture and heritage through the cards Kiera creates. For example, the Twist-Out card gives players “two monstrous ropes [of hair] as thick in diameter as Thanksgiving dinner plates, ropes that deal no damage but can render the opponent immobile if they catch them” (36). Through cards like these, Black hairstyles literally empower the players in their duels. The novel’s characters express themselves and celebrate their Black heritage through the motif of hair.