How Black Hair Defines Identity

Black hair is this conversation that we're having all the time, and it might seem strange to people like why it's hair. Why are we just talking about hair, but it's not just hair black women in the United States we spend nine times more on our hair than any other group. Here'S how you express yourself there is how you can talk to someone without, even speaking to them. I'M the owner of camp Isis and Salam. I am a hair artist from Brooklyn New York air. Really it really opened my heart and opened my eyes. You know to really see that not everyone is different. You know I really learn from hearing ones experiences. It'S very important: your hair is one of the first things that people see here the same now. Your here is 95 percent of your self, so I think your hairstyle is an amazing representation of who you are. It'S has such deep political meaning in this country. It was the way that black people were. We were initially told in America that, because of our hair, we were not good enough for white women. I think it's more of it. It'S more of an aesthetic thing. I need to this idea. I should look my best at work and my best means straight hair for black women. It'S am I going to get this job. If my hair doesn't look, a certain way are, am I going to get the promotion? Am I going to be taken seriously in this meeting? Are they even going to invite me to the meeting when I was 18? I cut all of my hair off for really practical economic reasons and it changed everything about how I thought about myself didn't feel attractive. I didn't feel as confident my self-esteem dipped. I felt crazy and obsessed - and I thought is it just me or do so many black women have so much of what our identity wrapped up in her hair I started finding out our hair was so important to us whether it was from the messages we received From our families or from pop culture from television - and it wasn't just about beauty, it was really in a lot of ways about just a core part of our identity, and that was fascinating to me. I just think that a lot of us should not lose ourselves when we do come to these workplaces, because this is who we are. You know your hair naturally grows out of your scalp. That'S just naturally harder grows, hair needing to be straight to be considered professional. That idea still exists for black women, but I think it's lessening, I think in the 80s you would not have seen a natural woman with natural hair as a corporate lawyer or even in the 90s, but now they're lawyers who have natural hair. There are people in boardrooms with natural hair, we see doctors who have natural hair. Hollywood is slowly starting to acknowledge what natural hair looks like and although Issa Rae is only one woman, she's, a woman that has a hugely popular show, she shows a range of hair textures on her show. So Molly has her weaves. Since the first season, she's really played with what her hair looks like each episode, this did crazy on stage on the CES video and it's the portals coming through the side. All the way down and those trees are so amazing everywhere, all over the world, people are wearing these styles. It'S amazing that you have the ability to go back and forth. You can wet it and wear it curly and kinky, or you can press it out and wear it flowing black hair should be celebrated for its resistance, we're resistant that we still can see the beauty in it when all of the messages have been telling us something Different, it is very possible, it's urgent. It'S you hairs. You