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pinteressay · 6 years

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#DTMH: Exploring the Discourse of Black Hair by Kyrah Warren

“If a woman has long hair, it is a glory for her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.”

-1 Corinthians 11:15

Some of my earliest memories are those of me sitting between my mother’s legs as she worked furiously to tame the wild curls atop my head. I’d hear her hum and huff under her breath, brow knit tight in concentration as she carefully brushed the hair into a neat ponytail, or rather, several neat ponytails. I remember the all-too-familiar smell of the detangler and hair cream that came from my box of bob-a-lops and beads and colored hair ties which my mother faithfully tied into my hair every day. I remember watching her work and then attempting to recreate her inventions on my own in my too-tall mirror. I remember an instance where I wanted to get my hair relaxed because I was tired of my curls; I wanted it to be straight all the time like the other girls from school. “No,” I was told, “The chemicals will ruin your curls. You’ll regret it when you’re older.”

For most Black women, they are told, even as young girls, that their hair isn’t “good hair.” It’s too unruly, too short, too stiff, too “unprofessional,” too not-white. It took up space and made people uncomfortable. Over centuries, we have learned to tame our hair-- to keep our roots hidden in unfamiliar territory. As a young girl, I often found myself embarrassed of my natural hair. I would beg my mother to straighten it for me, because I was convinced my straight hair made me prettier. Today, I find myself struggling to redefine my own standards of beauty and fully embrace my genesis.

“Hair. It may seem like a mundane subject, but it

has profound implications for how African

American women experience the world.”

-L. Jacobs Huey

In an article titled “Everyday Hair Discourses for Black African Women” Zukiswa Majali, Jan K. Coetzee, and Asta Rau write,

“Hair is such an important part of our identity. We spend an inordinate amount of time and money on it. And it is not just about looking good. It says something about us. Whether we colour it or straighten it, or make it curly. It is intimately connected to our self-image. For Black women, it is an even more complex issue.”

Even today, after learning so much about the effect of the media pushing eurocentric beauty standards and how it harms young girls, especially those of color, I struggle with the idea of habitually keeping my hair natural. I sometimes convince myself it is just too much of a hassle to take care of when it’s curly, and that’s why I prefer it straight, but is this really the case? My hair plays a vital part in the way I feel about myself, and the way I perceive others feel about me. Keeping my hair straight allows me to blend in with my white friends who all have “good hair.” It paints the picture that we have the same roots, that we are similar, that I am not the sore thumb. I’ve been told my whole life that I have “good hair for a Black girl,” and people expect me to take it as a compliment, even if this “compliment” has a negative affect on my development in learning to love myself without being compared to those around me. For example, even here at Emerson, I feel like I fit in with my friends better when my hair is straightened. In a way, I am dependant on my hair looking like my white friend’s hair so much so that my identity is rooted in that. I cannot look pretty without my hair looking like white hair. My curly hair is wild and unruly and take up space; it draws attention where I feel as though attention is not needed, it does not let me live comfortably in being small.

“So why’d I torture you for years, so long, inflicting chemicals on scalp and skin, pulling hunks of you through fiery combs so you’d lie straight and stiff? I only thinned your numbers out, made sure you couldn’t grow strong by shocking you with lye, a dryer’s din and heat to fry my follicles, then hair spray or foam— thick mousse to make my hair obey, make it akin to cotton candy. Now, I let you roam wherever you want. Couldn’t leave you be before, but now I’m awed by all I find in you: a stray feather, leaf shed from a tree, a strand of my husband’s hair, a texture we don’t share. Somehow, we still end up entwined.” -Allison Joseph

Any time I would wear my hair curly, I would douse it with hair sprays and creams and mousses, so that when it dried, it was so stiff and didn’t move at all. If my hair was going to be curly, it had to be perfectly curly, as close as curly could get to being straight. Now, whenever my hair is curly, it’s usually sitting atop my head in almost any and all directions it pleases. I don’t spend immense amounts of time forcing it to lie down perfectly, I am able, to a certain extent, to just let it be. I mentioned earlier learning and unlearning, and I want to expand a bit on this. For years, my identity was rooted in my appearance, specifically my hair. I felt better about myself when it was straight. I still find this to be the case sometimes. In order to move past this and embrace my natural hair, I have to unlearn the standards of beauty that have been fed to me for my entire life, and re-learn and create my own definition of what is considered beautiful.

This brings me to my question: what does it mean to have black hair? Not just in a social sense, because we’ve explored that indirectly by mentioning eurocentric beauty standards forced upon women; in a social sense, to have “black” hair is to have unfavorable hair. But culturally, what does it mean to the black woman? According to Cheryl Thompson in “Black Women, Beauty, and Hair as a Matter of Being,” “...once the slave trade began, the African’s connection to their hair was forever altered, and complicated by life in North America. Forced to work in the fields all day, there simply was no time to care much about one’s appearance or one’s hair… Where women, in particular, used to meticulously craft elaborate hairstyles back in Africa, once in the New World (America, the Caribbean, and Canada) they took to wearing head scarves or handkerchiefs atop their heads, partly to shield themselves from the sun, but also to hide their unsightly, unkempt hair” (Thompson 833). Considering this information, historically, black women have been made unable to properly care for their hair due to oppression. Something they had once taken pride in, they could no longer take pride in and were forced to hide it under scarves and headwraps. Similarly, there have been multiple cases where women in the workplace and even young girls in schools are told that they cannot wear their hair a certain way, such as in braids, for example, in the case of Rogers v. American Airlines. Rogers was a Black woman who worked for American Airlines as an airport-operations assistant. According to Quimbee.com, “American had a policy prohibiting employees in Rogers’s position from wearing an all-braided hairstyle. Rogers, who wore an all-braided hairstyle, was required to wear a headpiece over her braids while at work. Rogers sued American, claiming that American’s policy discriminated against Rogers on the basis of sex and race.”

Good hair means curls and waves Bad hair means you look like a slave.

—India Arie

Good hair is defined differently from culture to culture. To some, good hair might be bone straight, perfectly blonde hair that cascades down the back. To others, good hair might be a naturally curly, kinky effortless afro. From person to person, culture to culture, “good hair” is defined differently. I live in a town that is majority white. To my friends, I have “good hair” because it is different from their own. It’s “exotic” almost, in a sense. I remember thinking the same about them- their hair was perfectly straight and perfectly shiny, different from my own curly, wild mane. To black women, there is a certain power associated with having “good hair,” and by “good hair,” I mean the closer to Caucasian hair your hair is, is good hair. Once your hair is black, thick, dense, and strong, it is less valued and is considered to be “bad hair.”

I love my hair because it’s a reflection of my soul. It’s dense, it’s kinky, it’s soft, it’s textured, it’s difficult, it’s easy and it’s fun. That’s why I love my hair.

-Tracee Ellis Ross

My entire life, I have not only been expected to strive to meet mainstream, eurocentric standard of beauty, but I have been expected to comply with those standards which completely go against my very being. My hair has been discredited, fetishized, and misunderstood by society for centuries, and with that, my identity has suffered as well. Maybe that is not something I can unlearn within four months. Maybe it cannot even be unlearned in the next four months, Perhaps this has taken a lifetime of learning and unlearning and teaching and allowing myself to embrace my natural hair, and in turn, embrace the person I am. And perhaps I’m still doing that.

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.”

-Maya Angelou

Works Cited

CHERYL THOMPSON (2009) Black Women, Beauty, and Hair as a Matter of Being , Women's Studies, 38:8, 831-856, DOI: 10.1080/00497870903238463

Majali, Zukiswa, Jan K. Coetzee, and Asta Rau. 2017. “Everyday Hair Discourses of African Black

Women.” Qualitative Sociology Review 13(1):158-172. Retrieved Month, Year (http://www.qualitativesociologyreview.org/ENG/archive_eng.php).

Joseph, Allison. “Apologies to My Hair: A Black Woman's Sonnet.” Callaloo, vol. 27, no. 3, 2004, pp. 657–657., doi:10.1353/cal.2004.0125.

“10 Powerful Quotes About Beauty and Natural Hair From Black Women We Love.” Black Girl with

Long Hair, 13 May 2015, blackgirllonghair.com/2015/05/10-powerful-quotes-about-beauty-and-natural-hair-from-black-women-we-love/.

“Let's Ace Law School.” Case Briefs, Outlines, Lessons, and Exam Prep for Law School Students - Quimbee, www.quimbee.com/cases/rogers-v-american-airlines-inc.

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udagency · 7 years

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Casting Call for Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas Feature Film ‘August September’

Production Title: August September Independent/Student/Studio: Independent Production Type: Feature Film Production Start Date: 07/21/2017 Production Wrap Date: 08/01/2017 Producer(s): Joshua L. Covarrubio, Tristan Spohn Writer(s): Tristan Spohn Director(s): Tristan Spohn Additional Attached Cast/Crew: Devin Sternes, Elle Brittin, Peter Sanchez, Kyrah Coker, Esmael Modabberi Synopsis: Charismatically awkward Senior August September navigates his way through the final […]

Casting Call for Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas Feature Film ‘August September’ appeared first on ShortFilmTexas - An Online Community Powered by Texas Filmmakers!.

from Short Film Texas - Texas Cast and Crew Calls, Film News, Filmmaker Interviews, Movie Reviews http://ift.tt/2vC1AMM via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Short Film Texas - Texas Cast and Crew Calls #Film News #Filmmaker Interviews #Movie Reviews

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pacific-bound-blog · 7 years

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Saturday, May 20~

This morning we got up a little early so that we could get to the 東京 Sky Tree. That was a really cool place! It’s the tallest tower in the world, and it has a spectacular view of the city. There were also a million people there yesterday, and we basically got there when it opened. It was wild. Kyrah and I got ice cream at one of the Sky Tree cafes (きっさてん) and looked out over the city as we ate. It was really crazy to be up so high! We then went to explore and somehow Kyrah ended up on the 5th floor lolol. She got in a line and didn’t realize where it was going until she was basically at the bottom of the tower. For context, we were on the 350ish floor! She made it back to us, however, with the help of her limited Japanese knowledge.

After the Sky Tree, we hopped on a train for Akihabara (あきはばら), home of the large electronic shopping center and a thousand anime/manga (アニメとマンガ) stores. We got something to eat at a noodle store, where I helped translate what the foods were and also got to chat with a very nice old lady who worked there. Once we finished up, we went and explored あきはばら, checking out a few shops before we ended up at a Sega arcade. We played Pokemon (ポケモン) and I tried to win prizes out of the claw machines. I was pretty good at the ポケモン game, but I was super bad at the claw machines. The cool thing about Japanese arcades, I noticed, was that for the equivalent of a US dollar, you get to play for quite a while. I think that American arcades would be doing much better if they operated that way. I only spent about 500円, and we were there for probably a half hour, forty-five minutes. But on our free day, we’re thinking about coming back to あきはばら there was so much that we didn’t get to see, and we still had a lot of fun.

We went back to the hotel after あきはばら, and I got some homework done. We went off for dinner in the area around 6:30, and we ended up at an American-style steakhouse. This steak, I kid you not, was some of the best steak I have ever had. It was seasoned and cooked perfectly, and it came with this amazing wasabi mustard??? So good. We were all glad we stopped there.

We went for a walk after dinner and ended up by this park that is behind the nearest train station. An intoxicated guy came up to us and started talking to us about music from the 80s, but he couldn’t remember what any of the song titles or artist were, so he basically was just singing to us. It was a wild time. His English was so clear, too, like I hope that I get to be fluent enough in Japanese that I can still speak it clearly when I’m a little toasty lolol.

But we winded down in the evening with a homework study session in the hotel lobby. It’s hard to believe that the trip is winding down to the end. It still feels like we have so much time here, but realistically, we don’t. I’m just trying to enjoy every minute of it.

#japan #journals #tokyo #adventures #tokyo sky tree #akihabara #food #random strangers?? lol

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artsvark · 7 years

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Cast in rehearsal for 27th Clover Showtime revue

Relaxing during rehearsals for the 2017 Clover Showtime Awards Revue, A Grand Night for Singing, which runs from January 23- 28 in the Little Theatre, are dancers (l to r) Rachel Parker, Gia Smith, Britney Shaw & Skye Phillips. Photo: Chris Gertsch.

Bob Eveleigh writes: The company of the 27th annual 2017 Clover Showtime Awards Revue, A Grand Night for Singing, went back to work after the festive season break.The show’s opening night is on Monday, January 23, at the Little Theatre at 7pm, running to Saturday, January 28.

Clover Dairy Products, a sponsor for the past 16 years, will have naming rights in the revue, as it did last year, and the company’s National Promotions Officer, Milly Kemp, will be visiting Port Elizabeth for the main awards evening on Friday, January 27.

The show is being presented in the refurbished, upgraded Little Theatre, which was its home for its first 11 years and the Port Elizabeth Musical and Dramatic Society (Pemads) will be collaborating in co-presenting the stage production.

A Grand Night for Singing has Marlene Pieterse directing once more, with Wayne Hughes back as Musical and Vocal Director. As the revue features a separate troupe of six dancers, their routines and all choreography will be staged by Siobhan Day. She has won several Clover Showtime Awards at both Senior and Junior levels

Rocky Mann and Lance Bright are technical consultants, with Rocky designing the lighting.

The revue, which this year focuses on the many songs with music by Richard Rodgers, in the first half of the show with lyrics by Lorenz “Larry” Hart and after interval with Oscar Hammerstein II, has a core cast led by last year’s Showtime debutantes Shannon Hubbard and James van der Merwe, supported by new Showtimers Abi Ranwell, Amber April, Kayla Mathiesen, Isabella Rosochacki, Kerry-Lee Jeffrey, Kyrah Lloyd, Kyla Smith and Arthur Daniels.

The dancers are Britney Shaw, Gia Smith, Kayla Auld, Rachel Parker, Skye Phillips and Ma-Bell Muller, who performed in the 2015 edition, Walkn’ Happy.

Also, back are a group of Charlo Primary School pupils, Anneke Pienaar, Dane’ van Dyk, Kaylin Roberts, Lea Carelse, Lene’ Scheepers, Meagan Vogel, Dillon Roberts, Jared Doubell and Sam Vos.

Tickets for the awards nights on Tuesday, January 24 (Juniors) and Friday, January 27 (Seniors), are R70 throughout the house and the performances on Monday, January 23, and Thursday, January 26, are private houses for Senior Citizens Residences and Combined High Schools Collegiate, Pearson and Alexander Road, respectively. For the two public nights, on Wednesday, January 25, and Saturday, January 28, admission is R70 for adults and R50 for senior citizens, students and children.

Vouchers are obtainable, however, from company members at slightly reduced pricing of R60 and R40.

Usually, with Clover Showtime booking, any form of voucher or invitation letter is only exchangeable at the Computicket box office there, but as that theatre is closed until January 19, booking can only be done, regardless of type of reservation, by e-mailing [email protected]

Booking opens on January 13.

Showtime is again supporting the Animal Anti-Cruelty League in this 27th year and so anyone attending the revue is invited to bring along a tin or packet of dog or cat food and deposit this in the receptacle placed in the theatre foyer for this purpose.

Cast in rehearsal for 27th Clover Showtime revue was originally published on Artsvark

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