Religions of Harlem

Level’s Barbershop, located on 125th St. between Amsterdam and Morningside Aves, was my initial introduction to Harlem when I first arrived here at Columbia, so in light of our course subject, this post has a bit more of a personal motivation. As I was getting my haircut today, I chatted up my barber about his experience in working at Level’s. As common knowledge (or stereotype, if you want to call it that) affirms, Level’s, being a barbershop with a predominately black clientele, is more than simply a place for people to get their hair cut. At any given hour, but especially Thursday-Saturday, the shop’s busy days, both customers and friends of the barbers come in and out, and the place is vibrant with talk and exchange. Generally this revolves around sports, music, and daily life. Yet from what I’ve seen and heard, religion, at least institutionally, is generally not a hot topic for discussion at Level’s. However, I must qualify this statement by also saying that I have yet to actually speak directly with more Level’s customers about the role that religion plays in their individual lives. Given the wide range of people who come through the shop, I would find it shocking for there not to be anyone in the clientele for whom religion plays at least a somewhat significant role in their life. The reason I find best explains this generally secular talk inside Level’s is its ease. It’s much easier to collectively gripe about the impossibility of getting Knicks tickets now that Carmelo is playing at the Garden than to engage in deeply spiritual or cross-religious discussions. Like any personal interaction, most people don’t wear their religious beliefs on their sleeve, but that does not mean it isn’t there to be found. Also, given that a barbershop is a space where many come together over regular intervals of time, thus establishing a level of trust as they become more embedded in this community, it would not surprise me for religion to be a topic of conversation from time to time. However, I must note, I would find this to be slightly out of the ordinary as opposed to conversation centering around the topics previously mentioned: sports, music, daily life.

On a side note relating to my conversation with my barber today, I asked about the composition of the clientele, being located in Harlem. While the majority are indeed black, with a healthy dose of Latinos, there are in fact a good number of whites who get their haircut at Level’s. When I asked my barber about how they get received, he cooly told me, “Just like everyone else. It’s not weird at all. I’m not as good with cutting long straight hair as I am with doing a fade, but that’s about it.” He went on, “Sometimes they look nervous, especially the first time they come through, but some of them are really open. They’re just looking for a good haircut. And you know, if they keep coming back, it’s really not a problem.”

This left me reflecting on the “community” aspect of the barbershop by which it is characterized, much like the black church. Given the shop’s openness to all customers, it seems to me as if this pillar of racial identification is not limited by race. I simply raise this as an interesting point of contrast with the black church, which we’ve even seen in other posts on this blog, still singles out those that “don’t belong” to the community based mainly on outward appearance. It makes me wonder for future posts and discussions, does the presence of religion in a racially characterized community tend to make it more exclusionary than a secular racial community?

Tags: barbershop, Black, Community, secular