Talk and Heal by Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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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

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Show Seven Transcript 1 June 2018 Guest: Dawn Estefan http://dawnestefan.com/ Dawn Estefan is a fully qualified and BACP Registered Psychodynamic Psychotherapist. Her specialist areas are Complex Trauma (Complex PTSD), Sexual, Domestic and Spiritual Abuse and Intercultural Therapy.

Read More: https://ayeshacasely-hayford.com/wandsworth-radio/

Listen: https://www.mixcloud.com/ayeshacaselyhayford/afro-archives-on-wandsworthradio-with-ayesha-casely-hayford-guest-dawn-estefan/

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKIJpUA_vJKM7BcGYqQUpHdPpXXrAsLqJ

Transcript:

[Faaji intro]

ACH: Hello and welcome to Afro Archives, it’s our 7th show! Today the title of the show is Talk and Heal. that title is gonna be clearer in a minute.

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an especially big shout out to Nicolette today. Nicolette has been announced the winner of the mix cloud best online talk show 2018 in the business category, for her show Mind Your Business. I listened to the first Mind Your Business show at the beginning of this year and was hypnotised. Nicolette is an amazing woman servicing women entrepreneurs like myself. I appreciate you so much Nicollete. Congrats to all the Mixcloud online Radio award winners and nominees - bringing excellence to the digital waves.

Back to Today on the Afro Archives show. We have a magnificent guest who I met a couple of weeks ago when I was charing an event at The National Theatre for Mental Health Awareness Week. Her name is Dawn Estefan. Dawn works in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy, which hopefully starts to shed more light on why this 7th show is called talk and heal. Dawn is a psychodynamic Psychotherapist and specialises in complex trauma, sexual, domestic and spiritual abuse and intercultural therapy. In usual Afro Archives welcoming style, I asked Dawn to select songs for us today, so let’s begin:

[song: “I wish I knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” Nina Simone]

DE: My name’s Dawn Estefan and I’m a psychotherapist and my specialist area is working with trauma but my passion is working with the understanding of mental health and how culture, race and spirituality affects our mental health. So © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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I’m really interested in stories, and, well of course I’m interested in stories because I’m a psychotherapist and I hear stories all the time, but I’m interested in stories about culture and upbringing and how we are brought up, and understanding the subtle nuances that make us as as black people different to others, and embracing that fact and working with that fact in the therapy that I do when I work with people from the African or the African Caribbean community and the Latino community and I also do a lot of talking and get invited to places to talk about black women and black men and community and I’m just really passionate about making mental health a very general subject. A subject that’s not taboo, a subject we can talk about every day, so that we can talk and talk and heal, and telling our stories heals. And that goes back to early tradition, early African tradition, storytelling is a very big part of our identity, so why not use it in a healing way.

So I am, and every part of me, all that my ancestors are, I am Haitian, I am Cuban, but I am also really happy to stand here in all of my black Britsh-ness because I feel that is a part of me that makes me the person I am. And I know that who all my ancestors are wherever they hail from, whether they be African or from the Caribbean, or whether they be from Europe, that they walk with me, guiding me and protecting me and my family and those that I love, every single day.

ACH: The song we opened with was Nina Simone “I wish I knew How it Would Feel to Be Free”, one of Dawn’s song choices for our show. Following Nina that was Dawn, introducing herself. I interviewed Dawn for Afro Archives. Dawn had so much awesomeness to share. The signal was not great but we managed to catch a few very worthy things. It’s because of Dawn that I’ve titled today’s show “Talk and Heal”. There © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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is so much we can learn from sharing our experiences, which is what Afro Archives is all about. In that extract from our conversation Dawn spoke about her work and particular passion in understanding how culture, race and spirituality affects our mental health. Dawn also gave us info about her own cultural background. She identifies as having Haitian, Cuban, Black British and she wanted me to get in a big up salute to her Essex roots too.

My conversation with Dawn was perfectly timed. She’d just had a testing conversation with a parent about her son’s afro hair or “big hair” as that parent described it, and her son’s personal space. The child in the school has become fascinated by Dawn’s son’s afro. We discussed having our hair and heads touched, and also how her son, although wanting to protect himself, does not want to hurt others.

DE: You know what it’s so interesting that we’re gonna do this today and you called me when you did when I had just had the most enormous argument with someone. My son has had an issue at school about his big hair.

ACH to DE: Wow.

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parent, talking about the fact that her son was unnecessarily fascinated with my son’s hair and touching his hair, and that he keeps rubbing his hand over my son’s hair like he’s a bloomin’ genie and my son’s finding it quite upsetting. Not only because it’s my son’s personal space but also because in our religious tradition, our religious practice, the head is where the spirit is or where the soul is and it’s called your Ori. And so we don’t actually let people touch, it’s a sacred space. We don’t let people touch our heads , all the time. So I was trying to have this conversation and her response was something around “yeah, you know he shouldn’t have such big gorgeous hair”

ACH to DE: He shouldn’t have such big gorgeous hair?!

DE: Yeah.

ACH to DE: mmm.

DE: I just found that a little bit, difficult [laughs].

ACH to DE: Is this the first time your son’s experiencing something like this at school?

DE: Yes, and no. When he was much much younger there was a situation where he came in and he wanted his hair cut, because he wanted “flat hair” - he didn’t want to have big hair, because the majority had European hair in the school so we had to have a talk about his hair. And at that time, thankfully the Afro Supa Hero exhibition had just had its first, and I took him the Afro Supa Hero exhibition and he had an Afro Supa Hero badge and an Afro Supa Hero’s poster and he put that up in his bedroom. And I was just like, love your hair baby. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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ACH to DE: What age was he then?

DE: Now I don’t want to get this wrong, I don’t want to get the age wrong, he must have been about 3 or 4 -

ACH to DE: AW!

DE: It was a while back that exhibition, because otherwise I don’t want it to be out of sync, you know with when the expo was live. But it was around that age, must have 3 or 4 when he came home overly concerned with having flat hair.

ACH to DE: And what sort of things do you say to him to make him, to help him, love his hair?

DE: Well, I explain to him, that this is the hair he has and sometimes I’m quite brutal and I say, “you’re never gonna have flat hair!” and this is the hair you have. And in my more tender moments I talk to him about how beautiful his hair is and I sit usually with him either between my legs or on my lap and I curl his hair between my fingers and whatever comes to mind. I tell him stories about hair, I tell him stories about my relationship with hair and mother daughter relationships with hair and I just whatever comes to my mind But most of all I tell him everyday that he’s beautiful, and that his hair’s beautiful and that if anyone thinks they do want to touch it, it’s because it is © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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beautiful and look at all the haircuts he’s had because he’s got much more scope with his hair. It’s an on-going conversation, less so now, he really enjoys the hair that he has. But the instant in the last couple of weeks has been more about personal space, knowing that his head is a sacred space. He’s quite a gentle boy so at the same time not wanting to be aggressive but at the same time wanting to say to someone “please I don’t want you to touch my hair”. You know, he doesn’t want to hurt the other aswell. And I’ve had to explain to him, yourself, actually, being pro you doesn’t mean being anti-yourself.

ACH: That Was Dawn Estefan describing an experience at her son’s school where another child has become fascinated with her son’s afro. Amongst other things, Dawn explains to her son, being pro you, does not mean you have to be anti someone else.

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I asked Dawn to educate us more on the cultural and religious significance of having your head touched and dealing with that. We talked about The Ori. The head and it being a sacred place, the passing of energy when someone touches the head, and the head being a central place of spiritual intuition, and destiny.

ACH to DE: Can you explain to me more about the religious aspects of it?

DE: I suppose, well there’s this thing in Caribbean culture where they will say things like “don’t let too many people put their hands in your head” you know. Or “you go to one hairdressers don’t go to lots of others they’ll make your hair fall out and you go to one barber and stuff. And deeper, I believe to be, and some anthropologists or some expert out there will probably make me wrong, but I believe that there’s lots of little things that we do, and especially people from the Caribbean who basically don’t really realise where those things come from because those traditions come from because those traditions were lost, when they came over through the middle passage. And one of the things in the Yoruba faith there is a thing about your soul your connection to God is in your head, and it’s called your Ori.

ACH to DE: It’s so interesting as it’s similar to the Jewish Orthodox faith. They rationalise, rather than exposing the hair, they cover the hair with a wig, and they say because the hair is sacred…and it means your connection to God. IT’s interesting.

DE: It is interesting, I think it’s less about the hair and more about the head. And that’s where the Ori resides.

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DE: Yeah, so it’s one of those things, it’s a sacred place, and you don’t let people touch your head. People with different energies you know -

ACH to DE: yeah

DE: It’s, literally, the Ori, the word itself, it’s -

ACH to DE: how do you spell that?

DE: Ori? It’s O-R-I- and it literally means head. It refers to your spiritual intuition and your destiny, and it’s in your head. It’s the human consciousness.

[song: “Afro Blue” Abbey Lincoln]

[song: “Don’t Touch My Hair” Solange] That was “Afro Blue by Abbey Lincoln, a choice from our guest today Dawn Estefan followed by Don’t Touch My Hair. Solange . We’ve been talking Ori, the sacred area of our heads, home to our spiritual intuition.

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From this, Dawn and I moved to talking more generally about hair, and Dawn shared about her Lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease when the body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs. One of the symptoms is alopecia, affecting hair, sometimes having hair, sometimes not. We discussed how we express ourselves:

DE: For me personally, it’s a very complicated journey black women and hair I think. And especially when it gets…I feel like it’s becoming a problem as opposed to being a pride. The thing about 4C, whatever whatever, all these definitions of what curl you’ve got, it’s not that different to what grade hair you’ve got. Have you got good hair, or bad hair. And I just think it’s another way of making people separate, making us separate, and I’m just not for anything that makes us feel we’re not together.

ACH to DE: As the human race?

DE: Well no as black women actually.

ACH to DE: Oh I’m with you know. So by grading the hair it’s differentiating between black women too much.

DE: and what’s the desired curl pattern, it’s the same stuff, it’s just worded differently. I just think it can be, it can be, I’ve heard some women say they find it really useful in terms of their hair.

ACH to DE: yeah cause some of it’s so that women can identify their hair type and know what product to use or how to look after it. But are you suggesting that it also makes it look like what’s desirable and what’s not? © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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DE: But I also think well what did we do before all this was in place? People had hair, and looked after their hair, you know, mothers and grandmothers who had to plait my hair when I was a girl, I just think people can express themselves through their hair -

ACH to DE: Express? YeahI can hear you now.

DE: Ok, I won’t move!

ACH to DE: You said people can express themselves through their hair. Yeah! Don’t move! Don’t express yourself!

DE: Stay Still! Yeah, people can express themselves, and whether that may mean wearing it long, wearing it short, shaving it, shaving part the whole thing that if you wear your hair in a particular way then it defines you in a particular way, it doesn’t always. Not always. If someone wears their hair straight, apart from the fact it may be damaging to your hair, but it doesn’t mean if someone wears their hair straight that they want to be white. As a woman that suffers from, I’ve got Lupus, and one of the side affects from Lupus is you suffer from quite severe alopecia. I don’t always have a choice about how I want to wear my hair. Sometimes I have loads and sometimes I don’t have any. I’ve had to do whatever I can do to embrace my situation and sometimes I’m not in the mood for someone to be, if I’ve had a really bad period with the alopecia, I’m not in the mood for people to be looking at me and making me feel sad because they look at me like I’m dying because I’ve got hair missing.

So I cover it. I cover it with head

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[song: “Oh Freedom” Shirley Verrett] [song: “Black Woman” Seun Kutti feat. Egypt 80] We’ve been winning with the tunes today. That was Seun Kuti Black Woman featuring Egypt 80 and before that we had Oh Freedom, Shirley Verrett. All songs from my guest today, Dawn Estefan.

We are coming to the last quarter of Afro Archives, 1st June our 7th Show, which means it’s time for my feature, my TGIF. That girl is fine,

But before we do that I just wanated to loop in an update follow-up from last show’s guest, Lekia Lee. On that show we discussed Lekia’s project Embrace, which is a billboard campaign to celebrate natural afro textured hair, hashtag Afrovisibility. You can look out for them, around London, until 2nd June afro hair is in the spotlight around Barnet, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfiled, Hackney, Hammersmith, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewsigham, © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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Newman, Redbridge, Richmond, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamelts, Waltham Forest and here in Wandsworth. One of the models on the latest billboard campaign is Ama, whose an 18 year old Health and Social Care student. I’ve chosen Ama as my TGIF this week. In the picture on the billboard, Ama’s hair is a mohican of afro puffs. The side is a tight braid. The top is 7 puffs, folded really neatly. It’s an elegant look, and it’s also strong. Ama says “in school I would get asked to sit at the back of the class because my hair was “too big” or “too distracting” a reflection that we are constantly shown beauty images which don’t celebrate natural hair”.

So this week, it’s all about Ama brought to us by Project Embrace, Ama is my TGIF. That’s the end of Afro Archives today. We’ve had background music from music producer Lo-Wo that was Faaji at the start of the show, and from Twofold with Reverence at the end. We’re signed off with Black Woman Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, our last offering from Dawn. Thank you so much Dawn. Before we sign off, a shout out and welcome home to my bestie, Helen. I’ve got a couple songs for you. But before I do that, I want to play Bobby Ferrin with Don’t Worry Be Happy. And this is dedicated to Tashomi. And then I’m handing over to the wonderful George Talbot with Evening Wandsworth. [Song: “Don’t Worry Be Happy” Bobby McFerrin] [Song: “Dancing On The Ceiling” Lionel Richie] [Song: “Don’t Let Go” En Vogue] Bed Music: Intro “Faaji” from Lo-Wu https://soundcloud.com/lowusounds

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http://shadesofnoir.org.uk/unmasked-women-panel-discussion-on-black-british-mentalhealth/ https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/in-our-right-mind/breaking-down-racism-inmental-health-care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori_(Yoruba) https://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/exhibitions/afro-supa-hero/ http://www.jon-daniel.com/ https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/meet-nigerian-artist-yoruba-body-art-beyoncslemonade/story?id=38678748

ÂŠ 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford