Black Power In Hair | Babybangz | The New Yorker Documentary

Is from i'm anastasia ibelle, i'm from uptown new orleans, 13th boy, baby bangs came about so organic i've, always loved hair. I'Ve always wanted to do hair, and i just i always wanted to be a hairdresser ancient societies. The hair stylist was also the midwife was also the healer was also the medicine man. That'S an honor to be trusted to do that, and i do believe that there's chosen ones in the community that are able to do that and they need a place to be trained. I got to beauty school, there was no such thing as natural hair. They didn't talk about it, it was avoided. They didn't even encourage black people to come to the hair school. Something in me just rebelled every rule they had that i could break. I figured out how to break it. I'M refusing to do relaxers on relaxer day. I'M just gon na cause an issue because you need to feel this so before the pushback. It was never a thing, but once i felt the pushback it became everything man. I could just tell you horror stories of what it was like to do: natural hair and white salons that were, like quote, unquote, curls positive anything black. I had to whisper and you have to have black ass conversations in order for somebody to trust you in their hair. I never had an issue filling my chair. It'S like as soon as the work got out that someone could even detangle natural hair. It was like wildfire. I'Ve never had an empty box. My daughter is the one that freed me to wear natural hair. I was one of those mothers. I'Ve been relaxing my baby hair relaxed my hair. She was like mama, please don't put a relax in your hand. I was like, oh god, don't ask. She said no you're going to love it. She says i'm going to help you, so she is the reason i come to anderson. She says out because she knows and anastasia's no i'm a religious patron. I'M coming. I every time. Every two weeks i would come every week except and say you don't need to cover this. I don't need to see you that i don't want to see you that often something else. You know what i'm saying. So she helped me find and say she says: i'm gon na find somebody, because my hairstylist is like my therapist consistently. Yes by choice, she acts because she big chop so at the time me and her own step, mom both had big chop and um. I wasn't pushing it like whatever i'm kind of like a hippie pair, like whatever you feel girl and so uh one day her stepmom called it was a summer and she said ayanna wants me to cut her hair. What do you think i'm like if you want to cut it? If she wants it to be cut, just let her know it's gon na be really really sharp. I'Ve probably done thousands of big chops. Let me tell you how the 12 year olds don't be tripping them 12 is like you know, i give everybody the same ring around everybody thinks they have. Everybody has a genuine experience, but there's levels of psychology i have to hit yeah when i'm doing a big job. There'S the same questions. I read their energy, their response, their body language and on the website. It says come emotionally and spiritually prepared for this, because i ain't got time to do the switches those 12 year olds. That consultation is one minute they're like i want to do this. They don't have none of that they don't they really don't have that it's just like. What do you mean like being a mother made everything so real? My son is a lot of pressure to like respect our heritage, respect our lineage honor, our lineage, because my father's from here and his father from here and his father's from here. It'S just important to me that, even if he doesn't know the exact story that he has a chance to live it out, where he's from i lack foundation, we don't have foundation. We built this country and we work so hard, but we all start from zero. That'S what it feels like what space do you feel safe right now, there's a benz like? Is it safe, like safety for my life safety, to be myself like there's so many different? That'S why i'm surprised you said job because yeah, i don't think i've ever felt safe to be myself at work like as a black woman. You have to tone down who you are as a person to be taken seriously, because we already have this idea in the media of what we should be doing and saying, and looking like just a certain type of black woman, whether that's the angry black woman. Like you have to play a character yeah, so it depends on like what part of safety, because that's a very, very broad question. I have created a safe space, but i'm only safe when i'm inside these walls. Once i walk outside i'm no longer safe, we've lost a sense of community. Gentrification is definitely contributing to that. I'M from the real new orleans, i'm from pre-katrina new orleans and if i go into the 13th ward and i go on the block that i am from. I don't want to use words like anxiety. It'S like rage. News is my inheritance, so i am not leaving. I love the heat. I love the humidity. I love the colors. I love the people, the new orleans people real new orleans people. I love that feeling when, like every woman is very hot and they all care about your safety, i can't lose that when i think about like post katrina and the gentrification of our city and our neighborhoods, some people that are external to this, don't fully embrace who We are are, and you know they want - they want to be able to experience a second line, but they don't know a second line from two things. They want you to get a permit. They know they want like this. They want to live in treme, but they don't really want to live in tremaine, because you know they want noise ordinance and they don't want certain boards. I know that, like the most black people that i ever saw out and about in new orleans enjoying themselves was during essence, fest, and it wasn't. The people from here yeah like to know that we were all working like they were shutting down. Restaurants and different establishments because we were about to be outside, but it wasn't even the people that were from here the people who are here can't enjoy what the city is producing and what the city is giving everybody else. Then, what's the point? Yes exactly, but i personally am heading into like the education aspect of it. I do a really intense training phase and before you can work for me, there is a reading list and the reading list is not necessarily about how to do a roller set. The reading list is african history, african american history. Basically it's like a deep programming like situation. I'M doing it's a lot of psychology, because our job is a lot more mental than it is physical right now you have to have a strategy for how you're going to handle certain conversations, i'm great at doing hair. Everybody wants me to do their hair, but i'm going to expire eventually, and it's just so much more important to me that this is a thing that's available to people. I feel in a miracle. I cried about the name, baby banks. I was like you, i'm good at that, so get them and my ex-husband was like you are. What do you mean? That'S perfect, that's exactly what you are and that's exactly whose hair you're doing your client is keisha from up the block. She just happens to be a judge. Now she had babies, she's had baby bangs for the last 40 years. They were just seen as inappropriate, but it's not, and it's literally what they tell her not to be and that's what she is who could live through a pandemic economic crisis, and you know inequity and justice like this is the lowest low that we could go. I feel in america and so, like michelle obama said when they go low. What'S gon na happen, we bout to go so hot. I'M