When Carri Twigg was a toddler, her father styled her hair. Each Sunday, he would wash Twigg’s mane within the kitchen sink, and each morning earlier than college he would divide her unruly curls into six, slicked-back braids. The neighborhood knew at any time when her father went out of city.
Her mom, whom Twigg described as a hippie, left her hair in a teased Afro or a chunky facet ponytail most occasions. Though Black ladies bear differing hair journeys, mentioned Twigg, an govt producer of the brand new six-episode docu-series “The Hair Tales,” it’s a shared expertise, just like the hiss of a sizzling comb or the banter in a magnificence salon, that unites them.
“Hair is an exterior reflection of our inside world,” Twigg mentioned.
Hosted by Tracee Ellis Ross, “The Hair Tales,” which debuted final week on Hulu and OWN, seeks to discover these experiences. Company embody Black ladies from throughout the worlds of media, leisure and politics, amongst them Oprah Winfrey and Issa Rae (“Insecure”), in addition to the rapper Chika, the actress Marsai Martin (“black-ish) and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, all of whom relate their lifelong journeys to self-acceptance by telling tales about their hair.
Michaela Angela Davis, the collection’s creator, mentioned she first got here up with the thought a number of years in the past after noticing that Black hair was an underexplored topic on TV. An activist, a former editor at Essence and a CNN contributor, she felt drained by all her reporting on Black calamity and demise; the expertise made her keen, she mentioned, to inform tales of Black pleasure, resilience and wonder.
In 2016, Davis launched a extra modest video collection, “Hair Tales,” through which notable figures just like the actress Regina King and the Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors shared childhood anecdotes together with a spread of their hairstyles. The collection caught the eye of Tara Duncan, the president of Freeform and Disney’s Onyx Collective, and shortly the manufacturing firm Tradition Home, the place Twigg is a founder and the pinnacle of growth, was on board.
Collectively they pitched the thought to stars like Ross, Winfrey and others, who proved keen to affix as effectively, Davis mentioned. (Ross and Winfrey, who declined to remark for this text, are among the many govt producers.)
“It will behoove America to learn about us higher,” Davis mentioned. “And our hair is a approach to get there.”
The ensuing collection expands vastly on the unique, providing a variety of discussions on magnificence, styling strategies and the politics of hair, with insights from a number of students. It additionally consists of candid conversations with actual hair stylists and their shoppers in a mock Black magnificence salon.
Referred to within the collection because the “Black ladies’s nation membership,” salons aren’t solely thought of a sacred place for Black ladies to vent or be weak, Davis famous; additionally they served as a communal area for activism throughout the Jim Crow period.
“‘The Hair Tales,’ to me, can be a testimony to the employees, to the Black ladies for generations who’ve been standing on their ft, their palms in our head, earning money, sending us to highschool, holding communities down,” Davis mentioned.
Twigg mentioned she usually jokes that her 16-year friendship together with her stylist is her longest enduring relationship. However regardless of the deep belief she has positioned in her beautician, it hasn’t stopped different folks from providing opinions about her curly golden mane — a typical expertise for Black ladies. Kin have inspired her to get a relaxer. A white co-worker as soon as mentioned it seemed as if she had caught her finger in a lightweight socket.
Twigg argued that so long as Black ladies are fired for his or her hairstyles and Black kids are required to chop their dreadlocks for wrestling matches, folks of coloration will lack autonomy. She hoped this collection, produced largely by Black ladies, will assist foster a safer and extra liberated atmosphere for Black folks.
“It feels actually stunning,” Twigg mentioned, “to be including to the canon of Black ladies storytelling, to be including to the canon of how we present up on the display, to be giving concrete proof to our plain interconnectedness.”
Typically that sense of connectedness is strengthened by surprising, and even painful, expertise. In Episode 3, Pressley delves into the expertise of delivering her 2018 victory speech as a newly elected congresswoman with braids. However she additionally describes her emotional journey with alopecia universalis, a situation that causes hair loss.
Moderately than let it beat her, she mentioned it was essential to be up entrance about her new analysis, as she had been together with her Senegalese twists.
“Alopecia is my superpower,” Pressley mentioned in a current cellphone interview. “And I boldly flaunt that as I occupy area, create area within the corridors of energy and coverage and resolution making tables.”
Pressley is a co-sponsor of the federal Crown Act, which stands for Making a Respectful and Open World for Pure Hair. (It was handed by the Home however is at present caught within the Senate; her state of Massachusetts grew to become the 18th state to enact a state-level model in July). However there’s extra, she famous, to hair discrimination. Final 12 months she co-sponsored a Home invoice that would offer protection for wigs beneath Medicare.
“We all know that there’s a disparate and painful influence on Black ladies starting in our studying communities in our faculties all the way in which as much as pursuing employment,” Pressley mentioned.
Hair discrimination wasn’t all the time a difficulty for Black ladies traditionally. In a cellphone interview, Riché J. Daniel Barnes, a College of Florida professor of anthropology and African American research, mentioned as there was no drawback with Black ladies’s hair in pre-colonial Africa. However unfavourable stereotypes arose as Black hair texture was in comparison with white magnificence requirements.
“Relying on the feel of the hair, it doesn’t matter what the pores and skin tone is, the hair texture tells the story of African descent and the way that finally ends up being frowned upon,” Barnes mentioned.
In flip, Black ladies have lengthy utilized their kinky textures as a type of survival and resistance. Throughout the trans-Atlantic slave commerce, they wove seeds and messages into their cornrows, Barnes defined. Within the late Sixties, all-natural hairstyles, particularly the Afro, grew to become synonymous with protest and the Black Energy motion.
Barnes added that it was essential, nonetheless, to respect Black ladies’s hair selections, whether or not they select to put on it pure or relaxed.
“I’m hopeful that this docu-series can penetrate among the ongoing conversations, even throughout the Black group, about what it means to embrace our hair texture,” Barnes mentioned.
Many Black ladies can hint their tales of self-acceptance by following the timeline of their hair journey. In Episode 5, Martin, 18, who grew to become the youngest govt producer in Hollywood historical past a number of years in the past, has by no means relaxed her curls. However on “black-ish,” she performed Diane, a snobbish twin with pin-straight hair.
“How can I be comfy in speaking about one other hair journey when it’s not likely tied to my very own?” Martin mentioned by cellphone. The docu-series highlights a “black-ish” episode referred to as “Hair Day,” through which her character struggles together with her resolution to maintain enjoyable her hair.
Martin, who in the actual world switches backwards and forwards from field braids to ginger-colored hair, emphasised that regardless of the type, younger Black ladies will all the time face challenges together with victories with their tresses. However from these challenges come essential classes.
“When you deal with your hair with the identical respect that you just deal with your self, it’s going to be a neater journey,” Martin mentioned.
