Free The Hair

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“On Air” Podcast Show Two: “Free The Hair” © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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About Afro Archives

Afro Archives explores heritage and identity within UK society.

It investigates images of black women through promotion of self-expression and confidence to be who we naturally are. This project seeks to promote and celebrate afro hair by having inclusive discussions about hair and hair-related experiences with people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and creeds.

Big Thanks to Wandsworth Radio, in Battersea, for hosting us.

Wandsworth Radio is a local Community Radio Station. It covers Battersea, Putney, Balham, Southfields, Earlsfield, Wandsworth Town, Roehampton and Tooting. The Station exists to celebrate the borough’s greatness. “Over 300,000 people call Wandsworth home and they deserve a community radio service providing local news and other content showcasing the people who live here”.

Creator Ayesha Casely-Hayford is an actress, award-winning voice artist and employment lawyer of Ghanian descent, born in London and raised in Kent. With her roots in law, specialising in discrimination, and as former chair of the board of trustees for The Act For Change Project, a charity campaigning for greater diversity in the arts, she is uniquely positioned to see the social, performative and legal issues facing black women in the UK today.

Photo credit: Helen Murray Photography

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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Show Two Transcript 9 March 2018 Guests: Professor Wendy Greene https://www.samford.edu/cumberlandlaw/directory/Greene-D-Wendy Professor Wendy Greene is an Employment Lawyer and Legal Scholar. Professor Greene has a special interest in grooming codes discrimination, a phrase she personal coined, and is a leading expert in the area of black women, hair and matters of discrimination.

Valley Fontaine http://www.hairvalley.com/ Valley Fontaine is a BBC London Journalist, and author of the book “How to Grow Longer, Healthier, Natural Hair whilst Wearing Weaves, Wigs & Braids, Like I Did!” Read More: https://ayeshacasely-hayford.com/wandsworth-radio/ Listen: https://www.mixcloud.com/ayeshacaselyhayford/show-two-afro-archives-onwandsworth-radio-with-ayesha-casely-hayford/ Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKIJpUA_vJKNSIVwpB-_ugcyO6bQjq0Fl

Transcript:

[Intro Songs: “Whip Your Hair Back and Forth” - by Willow. “Black Magic” by Little Mix]

ACH: We are back with the hair! This week I’ve been reflecting on what it takes for me to keep my hair chemical free, and what choices I have for styling my hair. I’ve also been having a think about about Little Mix (which is new) I mean Jesy Nelson and her faux © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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dreadlock extensions, which made the news a couple weeks ago. When she did this, there was a backlash and accusations of cultural appropriation. So I’ve been thinking about the choices white people have with their hair, compared to the choices I make with my afro hair. I invited a couple of amazing expert guests this week to explore these topics with me and I’ll introduce them shortly.

For me, putting no chemicals in my hair means having good health and a healthy lifestyle. After doing it for 14 years to make my afro hair straight, I am convinced that putting chemicals in my afro hair is not good for me. It burns my scalp and who knows what else to my body internally. It was also costing me a fair amount every 6 weeks.

Stopping putting chemical relaxer in afro hair is part of the natural hair movement which has become a big deal in recent years. In its natural state, my afro hair requires a certain level of maintenance. The way oil is excreted from my scalp and how it makes it way down the curliness to the ends, I have to take action to stop my hair from breaking too much. It is different from my friends with Caucasian and Asian hair. Most particularly, they wash their hair more often than I do, to avoid it looking what they call greasy. Where as I wash my hair less and each day add more moisture. As I said, I do this to help protect my hair from too much breakage. There are also certain hairstyles I wear to help this breakage prevention too, I call them protective hairstyles. These includes wearing my hair in twists, and braiding my hair, sometimes with braid extensions.

To make it look banging, I might style it up - but essentially, my personal choice for braids or twists, is a health choice. It’s related to how my hair grows and wanting my hair to grow well.

This week I caught up with two women that I’ve met on my hair travels, Ms Valley Fontaine and Professor Wendy Greene. Interestingly, I met them at the same event. It was © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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on 15th September 2017, at World Afro Day. I’ve asked them about hair choices for afro-hair, and also white people wearing their hair in braids and what they think about this being labelled Cultural appropriation. Ms Valley Fontaine is a British journalist and BBC London Reporter. She is also the author of a book called “How to grow Longer Healthier Natural Hair whilst Wearing weaves, wigs and braids, like I did” or WWB, Weaves Wigs and Braids. Ms Fontaine’s book is my personal hair bible and she is my actual living breathing hair guru. I’m so happy to be sharing her words with you on this show.

My second guest is Professor Wendy Greene. Like me, Professor Greene specialises in Employment law. She was with her colleagues when I met her at World Afro Day, Kimberley Norwood, Professor Angela Onwauchi-Willig & Professor Trina Jones. I was in awe of these incredible women. Professor Greene has a particular interest in workplace grooming policies and was the perfect person to speak to about hair choices and hairstyles. I’m also delighted to be sharing her important work in the area of afro hair and discrimination with you. More after this:

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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[song: “Price Tag” by Jessie J ]

ACH to WG: Thank you so much for being with us Professor! We have Professor Wendy Greene with us. Professor, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

WG: Sure, I’m a Professor of Law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham Alabama and currently I’m a visiting Research Scholar at the University of California Irvine School of Law’s Centre on Law, Equality and Race and I largely specialise in Employment Discrimination Law, and Comparative Slavery and Race Relations Law in the Americas and the Caribbean with a specific focus on grooming codes discrimination or the ways in which workplace grooming codes affect individuals on the basis of race, colour. gender, and religion.

ACH to WG: And the grooming codes, is that what brought you to, I mean we met in September at Afro World Day, World Afro Day! I never know which way round they put that! And it was the Grooming codes that brought you to that event, is that right?

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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WG: Yes, that’s correct. So we were invited, three of my colleagues and I were invited, to World Afro Day in large part because of our advocacy related to African descendant women and girls who adorn natural hairstyles like braids, twists, locs, afros, and are discriminated against on those grounds. So Professor Kimberley Norwood, Professor Trina Jones, Professor Angela Onwauchi-Willig, and I were invited to participate in World Afro Day because we have engaged in advocacy around that issue, and Professor Angela Onwauchi-Willig, Professor Trina Jones and I were able to participate in World Afro Day advocating for broader understanding, of a more global understanding, of the ways in which African descendant women and girls are discriminated against because of the way our hair grows naturally out of our heads.

[song: “Hair” by Little Mix]

ACH: Hi I’m Ayesha here on Wandsworth Radio, and that was Little Mix with “Hair” featuring Sean Paul.

I’ve been talking to Professor Wendy Greene this week. I wanted to discuss hairstyle and choices and we got chatting about a case involving an African American woman called Chastity Jones. Now this case is significant because it is the latest case that has made it to the law courts in relation to black women, their hair and discrimination. We don’t have anything like it in the UK on a legal level, where they are trying to make links between hair and race discrimination. I asked Professor Greene to tell us all about it.

The full title of the case is EEOC versus Catastrophe Management Solutions. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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Catastrophe Management Solutions was the employer in the case and The EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was founded by the United Stages Congress, represented the employee. So, into Chastity Jones:

WG: “The EEOC vs Chastity Jones case and that’s a case whereby the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the Federal Agency that enforces our anti-discrimination laws here in the United States, and so one of the anti-discrimination statutes one of probably the most pivotal anti-discrimination statutes that we have on the books here in the United States, is Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And So Title VII prohibits discrimination, workplace discrimination, on the basis of race, colour, sex, national origin, and religion, and so in this case the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided to represent Ms Chastity Jones, an African American woman, who was adorning blonde dreadlocks when she was in the process of being interviewed for a position as a customer service representative with the employer and she went to a series of interviews. She came to the interview with a suit on, a blue business suit, and her loc’d blonde hair in a curly formation that we would call curly locs, and she went through a series of interviews. She was extended the job offer and at one point during the interview process she was asked if her hair was locs. To which she replied yes. And so at that point the Human Resources Manager told her that she would have to rescind the job offer if she continued to wear dreadlocks because dreadlocks, at least in her opinion, tended to get messy. Even though Ms Jones’s dreadlocks at the time would not be deemed messy. So in essence what the Human Resources Manager was asking Ms Jones to do was cut off her locs, or cut off her hair, as a condition of employment. Even though her hair did not bear any correlation to her ability to perform the job at hand, nor at that time did the HR Manager consider her hair to be messy it was just a notion that there was this propensity to be messy.” © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH: So as Professor Greene was explaining, Ms Jones was asked to cut her locs, she said no. So the employer rescinded the offer. We had something happen here in January 2017 with Harrods and the Telegraph reported it online. Unfortunately it was the week of the Trump inauguration so it got, well, lost. In our UK case, Harrods asked the prospective employee, a black woman, to chemically straighten her afro hair. She said no, and the job offer was withdrawn. It didn’t make it to the courts though and so all we still have to go by is what the US are doing, and Ms Chastity Jones’s steps.

WG: “What Ms Jones did is that she filed a complaint with the EEOC and considered this a form of race discrimination violative of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So the EEOC then went on to represent Ms Jones in this case and challenge this decision, this adverse employment action, on the grounds that it constituted intentional race discrimination. And so this case is the most recent case decided by a Federal Court deciding whether or not prohibitions against African American women’s hairstyles like locs, twists or braids, or afros constitute unlawful race discrimination.”

ACH: What really fascinated me about this and what I had not realised though, and what I did not realise until I spoke to Professor Greene, was that Ms Chastity Jones did not only have locs, but that they were blonde locs…hmmmm © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH to WG: Do you know Professor that is so interesting because you’ve just given me some facts which I had never found online and that's it they were blonde locs, so she’d dyed them?

WG: Presumably, yes she had coloured locs.

ACH to WG: That for me changes it a bit, actually. It’s really interesting because I think as a look - it becomes something a bit different than if it was her natural hair colour.

What do you think?

WG: You’re right. Very excellent point. I’ve also written about how African Descendant women have been discriminated against when they wear blonde hair. And so the presumption is, and I’ll go back a little bit too, often times when they are being discriminated against it's pursuant to sometimes subjective ideas about what is professional or what is natural to black women or what may be deemed excessive or unusual hairstyles or hair colours and so sometimes is based upon subjective ideals and other times it’s an interpretation, a subjective interpretation, of what we will call neutral employment practices or neutral grooming policy whereby the employer may mandate that individuals cannot wear hairstyles that are deemed unprofessional or excessive or hair colours that are deemed unusual and so what happens is in these cases like say in

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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the blonde hair cases, you’ll have employers tell black women that they can’t wear blonde hair because they think that it’s unnatural.

ACH to WG: On them!

WG: And so in turn what it is implying is that only white women or non-black women can naturally have blonde hair and thus when a black woman wears blonde hair it is deemed unusual and thus violative of the grooming policy. And so what we see here is that, we've seen that in a lot of different cases here in the United States, whereby, for example Hooters, you might be familiar with Hooters Restaurant Chain? They did tell a black woman who was a server, or a waitress, at Hooters, that she needed to change the colour of her hair to what they considered to be a natural hair colour for black women when she had blonde highlights in her hair.

ACH to WG: So we’re not just talking about the strictly commercial industries here?

WG: No, when we talk about this grooming code discrimination it’s happening in all different industries and all different types of industries. And so this is one of the reasons why I have been advocating for protection or at least recognition under Federal antidiscrimination law as it pertains to different forms of discrimination because it's © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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pervasive and it’s happening at all levels of industries and all levels in let’s say workplace structures.

ACH to WG: Not to mention the fact that people of colour can have blond hair. I know some women.

WG: Exactly.

ACH to WG: So it’s just factually inaccurate.

WG: Exactly. And naturally so.

ACH: That was Professor Greene talking with me about grooming hair policies in the US and their operation across industries, from the corporate world to Hooters. Who knew!

Hi I’m Ayesha and we’re here on Female Friday with Afro Archives discussing hairstyles and choices. I’ve been chatting with Professor Wendy Greene about a major case in the US involving an African American woman Chastity Jones who was asked to cut off her locs in order to get a job. Ms Jones refused, and sued. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH to WG: So focusing back on the Chastity Jones case then, they did focus on this, they said they were looking at the locs they didn't attach it to the colour and that has not come through because as I said I've never known that, so that's not coming in the literature that's been publicly circulated. I think it's a bit messy because I think the colour must have had something to do with it but they said it was locs so therefore a white person with locs would be treated the same way that's their point right?

WG: Presumably yes. But we don’t know.

ACH to WG: So are they trying to put locs in the same category of like, if someone has a tattoo?

WG: Exactly, exactly.

ACH to WG: And so are you saying hairstyle choice is not in the same, do you think locs are a hairstyle choice? I should ask that really.

WG: Well, it depends right? So there are some individuals who wear locs because of religious reasons or religious associations and so in that sense it may not be deemed as a choice in the very literal sense. Some individuals wear locs because that’s the way in which their hair naturally grows without manipulation. And it’s an easier way to maintain the natural texture of one’s hair. And also for some people say in a less expensive way or in a more natural or holistic or healthy way in order for individuals to don their naturally textured hair. So in that sense it may not be a choice because for some people they cannot wear their hair say in straightened hairstyles say by chemical © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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relaxants or by extreme heat because it’s extremely damaging. And so the locs, really in effect, may not be as much as a choice as some people would like to call it simply by virtue of the person’s natural hair texture and the health consequences if they are to alter that hair texture. And so for other people it is a complete choice and just a matter of, this is how I prefer to wear my hair because I feel beautiful wearing my hair in this hairstyle, or I feel confident, in wearing this hairstyle, and this is the hairstyle that I find most suitable for me.

ACH: So just as a final point on this then, we've got two camps one camp that says this is the hairstyle I prefer so in that situation, if that was Chastity Jones’s case this was her choice but there's another camp, I mean so that’s in the realm of having a tattoo so a workplace might say that’s not suitable, but then we've got the next camp which is saying actually this is a healthcare choice or could be, this is me being in my natural state. And we’re looking at which camp this is in right?

WG: Right.

ACH to WG: Ok cool.

WG: And so I think that the Federal Judges who have been deciding this case for the most part are viewing this as a choice not really thinking about the health consequences at all, or the health related consequences, and that this is something that is easy to be changed. Meaning that if you were to get rid of your locs, or your braids or your twists that this is something that is easy to change. And so there is a fundamental misunderstanding about our hair, that is underlying some of these decisions. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH: Unfortunately We don’t have time for me to share the whole of my discussion with Professor Wendy Greene, but I’ll upload it on my website so you can go ahead and have a full listen.

[song: “ain’t nobody” LL Cool J]

We’ve been talking about choices we’ve made with our hair and how these choices may even effect our employment prospects, and as we saw a couple of weeks ago with Jesy Nelson, attract allegations of cultural appropriation.

We’re now going to look at some other hair options, weaves and wigs and I asked BBC Journalist Valley Fontaine to share with us and discuss these hairstyle options as well as her book all on growing afro hair in weaves, wigs and braids.

ACH to VF:Valley? your book, let me just give the floor to you. Why did you decide it was necessary for the world to have your book?

VF: Ok my book, let me give you the title, the title is really long, that’s the only thing that irritates me about my book, even though I like my book myself, and I would read it myself: “How to grow longer, healthier natural hair whilst wearing weaves, wigs and braids, like I did”. No the reason I wrote this books is back in 2009 I used my last perm, I had my last perm, I didn’t know I was going what is called natural, in other words I was going to stop chemically processing, chemically straightening my hair but when I was due to have my hair relaxed or rather chemically straightened some months later, I decided at that point I didn’t want to do it and then I started at that point looking at YouTube © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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and I then I found all these other women around the world particularly in North America who were also getting to the point where they didn’t want to chemically straighten their hair themselves. They problem is though, when you’re growing out a perm what you have is the roots come in at the natural texture, and mine is very tightly curled and then you have these straight ends and where the two meet, that’s the breaking point. Now I didn’t want to end up with half an inch of hair because when i put my comb through it my hair would have snapped off because that’s the weak point but my hair looked really odd because there it was, but the roots were quite thick and it just held strangely after about nine months and I thought I can’t go down the road with my hair looking like this, it looks odd, it really did, it looked terrible to be honest. So I thought what am I going to do? I’ve got to go to work, what am I gonna do?

And that’s when I decided, mmm, weaves, and wigs, I’ve never worn them before. This was going to be my first entry into the arena of weaves wigs and braids.

[song: “Three Little Birds” Bob Marley]

ACH: That was Bob Marley with “Three Little Birds” and before that I was chatting with my guest Ms Valley Fontaine who was talking to us about a hair journey experience unique to those with afro-textured hair after stopping chemically straightening their afro-textured hair. What Ms Fontaine did, was write a book about the challenges she

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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faced on this journey. Having been on my own hair journey, Ms Fontaine’s book has been a personal life line.

VF: Now, I’d decided to make my own particular style of half-wig. I had braids a few times, braid extensions, and what I did realise was they too could also cause damage to the hair. They could make my hair snap, they could actually cause my hair to break.

They could cause traction alopecia which is the biggest enemy of afro hair as it seems that the majority of black women with afro hair have some form of hair loss due to styling, due to the relaxing straightening process or due to braiding the hair extensions on or the weaves or wigs cause damage. So basically I realised very soon that actually, although I wanted to wear wigs and weaves and things to stop my hair, or rather to not show my hair and I didn’t want to have to cut it all off, which is what a lot of other women did, and I thought, gosh this is terrible a lot of women are doing this and causing a lot of damage. Then I started doing my research and then sort of about six years in when my hair was in good shape and I’d grown out a lot of the perm and my own hair was looking, as far as I was concerned, fantastic, I decided to write about it about how I did that without breaking my hair, without damaging my hair, how I managed to wear these hair extensions without causing damage because it’s easier said than done. As I said, it’s the number one cause of hair loss. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH to VF: Well without a doubt your book is a resource for me to consult because you take it through in stages, you break it down to what to do before you put them in and how to wash them afterwards, and the length of time so it definitely is a step by step guide of what to do so that people can safely protect their hair. It’s been invaluable for me.

VF: Ah, thank you.

ACH: My full chat with Ms Fontaine will also be on my website in the next couple of days if you want to take a visit and have a listen. Finally, as we head into the last quarter of the show, I want to shine a spotlight on the Jesy Nelson and cultural appropriation situation. I asked both my guests about this and fortunately, I think anyway, they had pretty different views, which means, ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what you think! What seems clear is that, like Ms Fontaine says in my interview with her, there are differences on approach between the UK and the US. But to help you with some thoughts on it - here’s what Ms Fontaine and Professor Greene had to say:

ACH to VF: So to cut straight into it. What are your views on cultural appropriation when it comes to hair styles such as white people wearing dreadlocks?

VF: I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I think it’s - I know I’m gonna get…

ACH to VF: Yeah, it’s a big one isn’t it!

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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VF: You see to me, I don’t know how I, or we, how people can criticise a white person wearing dreadlocks then at the same time think it’s ok for black women, in this day and age, knowing what we know, think it’s ok for black women to wear weave, and straighten our hair, you can’t have it both ways.

ACH to VF: Do you think though a black woman might be wearing braids or dreadlocks as a protective hairstyling and that isn’t the same for a white woman?

VF: For me dreadlocks isn’t a protective style. For me dreadlocks are…have the potential to damage hair as much as a weave in that what you have is dead hair hanging on to hair that’s still attached to your scalp. That for some women, causes traction alopecia, causes hair loss.

ACH to VF: I don’t think Jesy Nelson was wearing dreadlocks, it must have been braids because you can’t take in and out dreadlocks.

VF: Well you can wear dreadlock extensions.

ACH to VF: The faux ones.

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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VF: yeah.

ACH to VF: Which is kind of basically braids aren’t they.

VF: Yeah, extension braids. That’s what we call braid extensions.

ACH to VF: What about that then, white people wearing braids as opposed to black people wearing braids as a protective hairstyle?

VF: I don’t think braids are a protective hair style. I think they are a hair style. And this is where my book comes in. I am not encouraging women, and I sometimes wonder if I chose the right title. Because I said how to grow natural hair whilst wearing wigs weaves and braids. I’m not suggesting that women should wear wigs weaves and braids.

ACH to VF: You’re saying IF you’re going to…

VF: I’m saying IF you’re going to! Here’s what to be mindful of.

ACH to VF: Lovely.

ACH: And this is what Professor Greene had to say:

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH to WG: And then we just get to the whole thing of choices therefore, and who is wearing dreadlocks. So we had a recent case in England of, do you know the band Little Mix?

WG: I don’t unfortunately.

ACH to WG: Never mind! It’s a popular band here in the UK through these talent finding programs and this girl band was put together and one of them, a white woman, has recently had faux dreadlock braids put in and everyone was in uproar that this was cultural, well not everyone, a large community of people were upset, that this was cultural appropriation. Are you guys facing these kinds of battles over the pond?

WG: Yes we are, recently, Kim Kardashian, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this?

ACH to WG: Oh yeah

WG: But recently, Kim Kardashian posted a picture on Instagram where she was wearing blonde locs and she made a reference to Bo Derek braids. You know, that these were Bo Derek locs that she was donning, and so this too engendered a huge backlash here in the United States as it relates to notions of cultural appropriation and that she wasn’t giving proper credit to African Descendant women who have long been wearing braids © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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and locs again either by choice or again by virtue of the way their hair naturally grows and so we’re definitely having those conversations here in the United States and definitely there are some charges of cultural appropriation when individuals, like personalities, these super celebrities, are associating their donning of locs to white women.

ACH to WG: So is it about who’s making it cool? So if a black person wears it, it’s kind of not really heralded and then a white woman does it and it’s like the coolest thing. Is this what the problem is?

WG: Right, exactly, so the idea is that black women wear their hair naturally and they are being stigmatised or they are being viewed as wearing hairstyles that are unkempt or not beautiful or not attractive whereas when white women don these same hairstyles they are being celebrated for doing so and being thought of as popularising the hairstyle. So they are not being subjected the same kind of say, negative treatment that black women are often subjected to when they are wearing their natural hairstyles like braids or locs or twists.

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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ACH: And so there we are, lots to think about.

ACH: To finish up, it’s time for my feature, T.G.I.F. That girl is fine. An en pointe afro hairdo in the media. I’ve had a look to The Oscars and I’ve picked Lupita Nyong’o’s hair to describe.

Ms Nyong’o’s

hair is held in an up-

do. It is regal.

Her natural hair is held

in large twists. It

looks like the twists

have been

parted into sections

on her head.

From the front there is

a side parting,

and the front twist has

been folded up

at the front in a high-

rise. A thin

golden thread has

been twisted

into her hair, along the

with the twists

themselves, making it

look like Ms

Nyong’o has golden

streaks. The

way the thread is

moulded in, it looks like a crown is on her head.

Next week, I have a live guest, Ms [Sic: Sandra Soteriou]. I’ve invited [Sic: Ms Soteriou} because of her business Knots-UK.

On their website, they say “I have always worn a head Wrap ever since I was a child. I am Haitian so it’s part of our culture. My Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother always wore one so it was perfectly natural for me. I used to think they look so regal © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood

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and bold and always stood out - I wanted to feel that way too. I wear my head Wrap because it makes me feel confident and strong. Like I’m ready to tackle the world! I am a wife, mother, sister, aunt and friend all things in between but mostly I am a Woman.”

They source their Head Wraps all over the world and they only buy from women. I hope you’ll join me for more Afro Archives next week. Next up is George Talbot, with Evening Wandsworth.

But as I part from you, I shall leave you with some Nina Simone.

[Song: “my baby just cares for me” Nina Simone]

References & Links: https://www.allure.com/story/lupita-nyongo-traditional-rwandan-hairstyle-oscars-2018 https://www.samford.edu/cumberlandlaw/directory/Greene-D-Wendy https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=877329 https://www.samford.edu/cumberlandlaw/directory/files/BNAs-Employment-DiscriminationReport.pdf https://concurringopinions.com/archives/author/wendy-greene https://perception.org/goodhair/ http://www.hairvalley.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43126568 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5325085/Kim-Kardashian-blasted-fans-hairbraids.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5341575/Bo-Derek-DEFENDS-Kim-Kardashians-Bo-Derekbraids.html

https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/facpubs/2859/

© 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford Photo credits: Africa Fashion & Robbie Spotswood