Hidden Camera: Public Reactions to Afro Hair | Natural Hair Documentary - Nappy Roots

afro hair it's the most misunderstood fragile and defiant hair texture but there's something beautiful about its intaminable kinks and curls it's the only hair texture that can defy gravity growing up instead of down it can be soft and fluffy to the touch and is naturally voluminous [Music] my name's kerry i'm a television specialist and broadcast journalist at bcu and like many other black women including myself owning your kinks and curls and afro hair almost becomes a journey of self-love and self-discovery and here's why afro-hair has systematically been associated with negative stereotypes that undermine blackness such as nappy unprofessional and unkept what's happened that's so terrible a catastrophe look what happened to my hair normally it's straight i was just walking down the hallway my whole head of hair puffed up just like that that's a nappy headed house there i'm gonna take that now oh man yeah nice and move i think this she's such a such a tiny frame that this hair to me overwhelms her like i feel like she she smells like patchouli oil i was at an event and talking to several white men and i had my hair in twists and the guy said oh your hair kind of looks like medusa and in my mind i'm like i do remember being at work and i was about in my middle twenties i think and it was a black woman who said oh you know sue you're a really attractive woman you know and i think that if you didn't have this dreadlocks you'd look even better so you know if you cut it and permit yeah you know i would present well that was shocking the origin of these stereotypes are better understood through black history and it goes without saying that the colonization of africa from the 17th century onwards to this day has drastically affected ideals of blackness in the united states african slaves were stripped of their rich heritage and elaborate native hairstyles and over generations of brainwashing and enslavement traditional hair information and routines were destroyed previous to slavery we had hairstyles and and designs and colors and all sorts of things in africa black people who covered or wore their hair and relaxed hairstyles were considered to be more civilized in western societies to the extent that in 1786 black women were required by law to cover their hair in the state of louisiana there was a period where you know the women of the time the would think that the way black people did that black women did their hair was attracting their men and decided that we should cover our hair and made it a shameful thing and i think that's just come up through the ages and made us ashamed of our hair in 1905 madam cj walker revolutionized afro hair care with her range of homemade hair treatments and ointments that promised to beautify kinky curls she was the first black female of the time to become a self-made millionaire and her hair products led the way to re-establishing traditional hair information that generations of slavery had destroyed still western standards of beauty remain prominent in defining blackness and in 1948 britain hot combs and chemical perms are popularly used by black people to alleviate themselves of their kinky curls their clans are all africans they are born with a permanent way but do they like it they're women out there most um stylists when they are learning their trait they do not learn about how to about black hair unless it is to tame it through relaxers or straightening it right so there's a lot of non-education out there about black hair which leads to ignorance but then there's also a kind of anti-blackness that is rooted in colonialism you know and slavery is obviously a part of colonialism that sees black people as less than or dirty but only because it's in comparison to european ideals then along came the black power movement in the 60s which was all about reestablishing black pride and one way this was done was by rocking the natural state of kinky curly hair the afro when i think about the afro i think about beautiful cool people who have the audacity to take up space because that's what an afro does right black people in america in particular began to redefine the idea of them being less than and they began to change that narrative of what beauty actually meant this brother here myself all of us were born with our hair like this and we just wear it like this because it's natural because the reason for it you might say is like a new awareness among black people hair so soft silky and free perms chemical and heat straightening products are used for relaxing and straightening kinky curly hair making western ideals of beauty more attainable for people with this hair texture but not without its consequences contains no sodium hydroxide for much less chance of burn and irritation than leaving lye based relaxers i use chemicals once when i cut my hair and it was called um jerry curls but there was a lot of um it was just messy it was just like you know that mess just flying around the place and i did that and i was just like this no this is not for me to attain that straight look my first experience was to um iron my hair on an iron board with a steam iron a towel and foil and that made absolutely beautiful results but obviously long term that's not really very good for your hair um and then we got jd um straighteners let's start using that um so that's what i did to attain that look at the time if we have mothers or grandmothers who also understood or knew how to take care of their natural hair then they impart that knowledge to us but if we have mothers who didn't receive that education or they were taught that relaxing is the best way then they pass that down to their daughters i didn't learn that from my mother she relaxed my hair at seven because she thought that's what she needed to do to like tame my curls i had hair she didn't understand but she didn't understand her hair either i feel good about using pcg it's mild enough for my daughter's hair and for my color treated hair today black people rock their hair in a number of creative and natural hairstyles however western standards of beauty still remain idealistic and generally exclude naturally kinky curly hair in normative standards of beauty if there's an online petition demanding that beyonce and jay-z do something about their daughter blue ivy's hair wait a minute wait wait wait wait they're claiming that it's a mess of meta dreads lynn falls one commentator said quote no child whose mom spends thousands on her hair monthly should live life looking like a sheep the alma twins come from a mixed race family in the uk maria has taken after her half jamaican mum with dark skin and brown eyes and curly dark hair but lucy got her dad's fair skin good on her along with straight red hair and blue eyes you've seen it on the news and everything where black people have literally been discriminated against because of their hair um actually funny enough now that you say this i remember going to hair with my so going to work with my big kind of afro and my manager saying to me oh your hair's a bit wild today and he was like what happened to your other hair and i was like would you need my other hair and he just said yeah like your hair that's kind of like long and straight and he did make me feel some kind of way about my hair the negative stereotypes towards black hair is kind of coming from the fact that it is so unique and so hard for kind of other cultures to understand it like it is something that black people hold so tightly because it's the only thing that all of us experience uniquely so how do these social issues relate to perceptions of kinky curly hair today i'm heading to london the uk's biggest tourist destination and melting pot for social diversity where i'll be finding out the british public opinion on afro-hair in 2019. this is oxford circus change here for bakerloo and central lines as well as finding out the british public opinion on afro-hair i'll be doing a hidden social experiment to see if my hair attracts more or less public attention subjected to taming my curls to fit western beauty standards versus styling my hair in its natural afro so i'm kind of excited to see if i get any different results from wearing my hair like this to this as you can see my hair looks completely different now and i'm wearing it in a big fluffy throw this is all my natural hair and i'm really excited to see if i get any difference in public opinion whilst wearing my hair like this i've strapped a hidden camera onto my assistant dp and he's going to follow behind me to capture any differences in public reactions so let's begin so i kind of feel like i've really blended in as you guys saw nobody really gave me looks or stared at me and definitely not because of my hair what do you think about my hair first thing that comes to mind um it's not really noticeable from the front it's very smooth and shiny and i haven't seen what it's like at the back um it's neat it seems like you've spent a lot of time just looking after her which is quite um in my opinion it's like waste of time but don't take it in a bad way you know um i definitely felt a lot more looks whilst wearing my hair in an afro versus wearing it high back and flat and it kind of is a reflection that people are still learning about africa including myself what do you think about afro hair i love it i love afro chicks i can understand why people want to like straighten it or like put it in braids like it's lots of hard work but it's amazing like i love you all so yeah let me know when you're ready all right all right come forward all right it's so beautiful like i have curly hair but every time i see like a girl like your hair i'm just like wow that's amazing i know it's probably a ton of upkeep and stuff but it looks so good yeah what do you think about afro hair i think your hair is sexy and gorgeous yeah you're beautiful it's clear to see that natural afro hair still grabs tons of attention in 2019 whether good or bad and with that being said how do people with this hair texture look after such an elaborate statement grabbing hairstyle i'm heading to the bruce grove cosmetics centre in london to find out how people style and look after their kings and curls [Music] i absolutely love coming to the natural hair store because there's so many products to choose from when it comes to styling kinky curly and afro hair you literally can't find half these products on the local high street which is why these shops are so important for the natural hair community this brings me into the natural hair movement which is all about redefining standards of blackness by embracing the natural defiant day of kinky curly hair cantu product is more for good for your natural hair to make your hair grow and look after your hair make your hair soft that's the most black people is at the moment is buying this product i would summarize the hair movement in that it's a growing movement all over the world started i would say in the in the 60s but interrupted by all the relaxers and chemicals and curly berms and all of that but we are now back on that journey because of the damage that a lot of women have um seen for themselves so now the 40 pluses are experiencing the damage so that the balding and all of that that's taken place as a result of relaxing and the damage so the natural hair movement i first saw in america i first saw it through youtube a lot of youtubers around 2011 at the time were doing the big chop that was the thing and that's what actually inspired me to do my big chop and i was like i've always been told i had fine hair because i didn't know what type of texture hair i had because i'd been relaxed for so long so i was always worried about the you know quote-unquote nappy hair or whatever i did i didn't know what hair i had and then through that um i yeah i went natural a lot of my friends did and then all of a sudden i just like seen a lot of uk women following the natural hair movement and i love it green beauty is a natural hair guru and since 2012 she's been creating educational kinky curly hair content on her youtube platform gaining the following of over 200 000 subscribers she uses factual research and scientific data to support her content and has significantly helped the natural hair movement grow in an online digital space i started my youtube channel back when i was in graduate school i wanted to create a place where people can go where we can go for objective research content on natural hair i find my information from medical articles from dissertation sometimes books i like to you know gather information from researched content so i don't really look at you know blogs or other people's opinions i try to keep it really really formal and well researched so i'll read a whole book just to make a video sometimes a lot of people enter the natural hair world with a lot of anxiety a lot of negativity has been put on our head throughout the centuries that we can't grow hair and you know all these things to put us down so that we don't see who we are because it's threatening you know the best advice i can give someone that starts out their natural hair journey is just keep going you know keep going because you will see something about yourself you will learn things about yourself that you never knew and that you possibly would have never known if you didn't go through this journey of growth it's about the next generation it's about normalizing natural hair as an advocate of natural hair i've discovered so much about public and personal perceptions regarding this matter and the subjects they affect if i've learned anything about kinky curly hair it's that society has come such a long way about how it's perceived and interpreted and it's beautiful to see that people with this hair texture are beginning to feel comfortable embracing their kinks and curls i think kinky curly hair is a part of you especially if you start you start to understand your hair more rather than trying to see it difficult or just embrace it and think of your hair positively it's like yeah it's you embrace who you are fully from head to toe this is you this is how you were made um and the world looks at us and they also want it you know we're trying to get away from it when they're trying to get it so we need to reconnect with who we are love it we all have different textures don't wish for someone else's texture you see a lot of that online as well and why is my hair not like this and just fight because there's someone out there with your hair texture so find what works for other people implement it on yourself try new things and just love the hair that you're in

Channel: Gold Flo

Views: 3,745,041

Rating: 4.9214897 out of 5

Keywords: nappy hair, social experiment, kinky curly hair, 4c hair, public reactions, hairstylist reacts, how to style an afro, natural hair, good hair documentary, black women react, black history, hidden camera, racism tv, racist news, black stereotypes, afro hair, short documentary, black women, Hidden Camera Social Experiment Public Reacts to Afro Hair NAPPY ROOTS DOCUMENTARY, interview black women, western beauty standards, natural hair documentary, blm, afro vlog, natural fro

Id: tzw96xzUVRk

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019