Rebekah Bageya Interview 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.

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Interview Transcript August 2018 Read More: https://ayeshacasely-hayford.com/wandsworth-radio/ Listen: https://www.mixcloud.com/ayeshacaselyhayford/ Interview of Rebekah Bageya (RB) with Ayesha Casely-Hayford (ACH) Ms Rebekah Bageya Profile.

30s. London Born and of Ugandan Descent. Rebekah is a lawyer currently based in London with a particular specialism in immigration law. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebekah-bageya-4926104a/ Transcript: ACH: Your locs are pretty long now, about how would you say? How long do you think they are? RB: What in length? ACH: Yeah RB: That’s such a good question, I’ve never measured them in centimetres, but they are passed my shoulder, I don’t know that’s any use to you, I could certainly measure it. ACH: [laughs] How many years has that been for you? RB: It’s been seven years. ACH: And what made you decide to have locs in the first place? How was your hair pre-locs?

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RB: Pre locs - erm, well originally it was relaxed like many other people when were they were kind of teenagers, and then I just kind of transitioned into being natural. I just really liked the feel and texture of my natural hair, my roots at the time. And back in those days you had to be quite religious with relaxing your hair and I got a lot of comments about my re-growth and I guess it kind of started out as rebellion. ACH: Comments like what? RB: Erm, comments, just like, when are you gonna relax your hair? What are you doing with your hair? Your hair looks messy. Erm, you know. ACH: And who would give these [comments], was it family and friends or? RB: Yeah, family and friends mostly and it was people who also had relaxed hair, erm, my mum’s generation are very kind of straight hair, or pressed hair, or flat hair, and that kind of I think, I think goes back to trying to assimilate and, you know, becoming more Western and that that is the appropriate way, the presentable way to look, having straight flat hair. So I would get comments from my mum, erm, and English friends and just people in general, but I when I did not natural I realised that I braided my hair quite a bit and I realised that I loved having my hair in braids. They suited me, they were manageable. And I felt they were more versatile than what I was doing when I had my afro so I thought you know why not just get permanent braids, which would be locs, and that’s was what I did. In fact I don’t even thing, when I © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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started my locs, that my mum even realised that I was locsing my hair, because I think if she had realised at the time. then she would have freaked out, because again it goes back to being presentable.

ACH: Explain that a bit more, what was your mum’s issue with locs? Or, what do you think your mum’s issue would have been? RB: I think it would have been because when it comes to locs there’s still quite negative connotations with Rastafarianism, and then kind of adjacent to that comes the more © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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negative aspects, well, not necessarily negative aspects, but a negative aspect is somebody whose unkept or you know lacks pride in their appearance, it’s just very negative things. ACH: You have sister locs, rather than traditional dreadlocks don’t you? RB: Well actually, I have, they’re not actually sister locs, and I get that a lot. I get that all the time, they’re just normal locs, like palm rolled locs, but they’re thin. ACH: Is that from consultation and relevant to your hair texture? RB: Erm. there was a form of consultation. I have to admit I was a little bit oblivious as to what was going on, I went to a hairdressers to have them installed, or get them done and they just twisted my afro hair, and I did wonder about how they were going to select the size. I didn’t want big ones, I didn’t think that would suit me, and I didn’t want teeny tiny ones, I didn’t want sister locs because I thought that would be too much maintenance. ACH: So you specifically chose not to have sister locs? RB: I specifically chose [not to]. Because with sister locs there’s a process of interlocing, and I didn’t think I could do that myself, you would have to go to a hairdresser and on the other spectrum I didn’t want to do free form locs, where you don’t section it and it’s not as kind strategic as what I’ve got now. That also for me is kind of, for the career that I wanted to pursue © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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ACH: that being law RB: That being law - I just didn’t think that that would work. And I just hadn’t seen anybody with freeform locs, there wasn’t that representation of free form locs that would be a positive representation. ACH: Was there a positive representation of the tradition locs, or would you consider yourself a bit of a pioneer in that? Where was your inspiration? RB: I think, well, pioneer sounds so egotistical! I personally didn’t know anyone who had locs, there wasn’t anyone I could look at and say “Oh I want locs!”. If I saw someone on the train, or out and about, I would kind of stare, and I notice that I get that now in return. But it just wasn’t something that was around. And actually it wasn’t until quite late in my career that I saw barristers, quite senior barristers with locs, and I was flabbergasted! I was like, oh, I could have done this much earlier, I was so surprised. And the time that I did do it, when I was looking for inspiration on where to go, to do it, I erm, did a lot of googling, and I remember that one of the first [search result] places I got from it was in Camden, and it was, it wasn’t for Afro Caribbean hair. And I was really surprised. ACH: It wasn’t? RB: It wasn’t! I don’t think it was exclusively for Europeans, but it was clear that it was a place for European people or people with European hair to get locs. And I found that really confusing. And I found even if I was trying to look for pictures of people with locs, if you Googled at that time, when I Googled locs, or dreadlocs, I would get images of white women, white men. ACH: And when we say that time, we’re talking about like 2001? No, 2010, 2011 sorry.

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RB: Yeah 2010 that I was looking at it seriously, erm and 2011, when I actually did it. So yeah, around 2010. And I didn’t realise when I was [searching online] that I had to actually specify that indeed I was looking for a black woman with locs. ACH: hmmm. And what do you think about wearing locs now, in this current age, and the locs that you’ve chosen? RB: Erm, I’m really surprised at how popular locs are, in this day and age. I actually met someone today in a coffee shop, and she was just starting her locs. She’s like a month or two in and she was asking for advice and stuff. So I’m coming across it more, people who are starting locs. ACH: and is that specifically sister locs? Or more similar to your style? RB: Similar to my style, possibly thicker. Erm, I don’t really see that many sister locs like I did before, which I find interesting. Like I wonder how that’s maintained. As that can be quite expensive. I do think the locs I’ve got are easier to look after myself because you just palm roll it. But I don’t see that, or perhaps I don’t notice people with sister locs because it’s not something I personally identify with. ACH: Why do you not identify with it? What do you see as the difference? RB: I think the main difference for me, is the look of it feels, it seems a lot lighter and thiner and I think when I had relaxed hair, my issue with it, with the ends of my hair that I relaxed they were so thin and for me my hair was quite lifeless and thin. So when I do see sister locs I do associate it with a thinness. That I wouldn’t want for me. But also I’m quite low maintenance and I wouldn’t want to have to go to see someone to interloc, and I don’t think I’ve got the patience to have to learn how to interloc and do that much hair. That would be too time consuming for me. ACH: Interesting because I’ve spoken to a couple young women with sister locs and none of them have actually said anything [like that]. One of them actually chose sister © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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locs because it’s low maintenance. No one’s actually said anything about interlocing being a challenge, in fact they’ve both commented on the thickness of their hair. So do you think there’s a hole in knowledge do you think? About [sister locs]? RB: Yeah, I think that’s definitely the case. And I didn’t know a lot. Because it wasn’t something I wanted, I didn’t research. I think it would be great to have more knowledge about these things. It’s probably out there, I’m just not aware of it. ACH: Well you don’t need to, because obviously your hair is set, and you’ve made that choice. RB: Yeah. ACH: And do you still fee your hair represents you, and that choice, and what you wanted for your hair? RB: Absolutely, I definitely still get asked questions like would you ever cut them off? What if you wanted to do something different with it? I get asked that at least, you know, a few times a year. And I’m always really quite firm in that, I’m happy, they still suit me, I made the right choice. And also it was quite a journey just starting the process because they were quite short. And the reaction and responses I got when they were really short. And having to develop my personality and develop my confidence to deal with that. And as I’ve gone along on like my locs journey, quote unquote, I would say that I still am learning how to care for them, © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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I’m becoming less high maintenance about them. I think there was a period at one time where it was important to always re-twist your roots and it was like a similar pressure to maintain when I used to relax my hair and I’ve kind of rebelled against that now and I don’t twist my hair as often as I used to. ACH: And have you noticed a change of acceptability in the workplace? Has it become more acceptable? RB: yeah, definitely. It has I think. I’m still conscious of when it’s looking, like I still have to be conscious of making sure it’s neat. So if I’m going to interviews, if I’m going to court, I won’t wear my locs down, generally. I think sometimes that can be distracting, and it becomes too much of a focal point. So if I put it more in a corporate type bun. People can associate elegance with it a lot easier and it’s less distracting, I still feel like I have to play the part in certain settings, which is a shame, but, you know, for what I do, I don’t want my hair to be a distraction, I don’t want that to be the first thing that people kind of focus on. I want to try and get them to focus on what I’m saying, or what I’m doing. ACH: And just to finish up, as far as how your hair as it is now, does it make you feel a certain way, if you can compare it to pre-locsing? RB: Oh definitely. I think I noticed it, when I started getting my confidence, from me, and not from other people, when it did start getting longer, I would get noticed in a positive way, like I would get called things like Empress. And I first it was a bit weird, but now I love it. And, I feel quite empowered by my locs, and I love that I’ve got natural hair, and I love that it can be as low maintenance as I want it to be or that I can make it as elaborate as I want it to be. Yeah I love everything about it and I would definitely say it’s been empowering for me, the whole process from the start to where I am now. And even now I’m getting a few greys, and I’m quite exited about whether, you know, how I’ll grey, in terms of locs, like which patches it will start in. And I think that can be quite an empowering process in itself as well. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

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Chastity Jones Case commentary: ACH: If you were asked to cut of your locs for a job you wanted? Rebekah Bageya: If I was asked to cut of my locs for a job I wanted, It wouldn’t happen. And I’m really glad to hear that this is at least a case heard in court. There would never be a reason for me to cut my locs unless I chose to. For an employer to be concerned about my hair or people with locs having messy hair, erm, well what is mess hair? What is unkempt? What is untidy? There are people with very straight European hair, or European curly hair who could be deemed to have messy hair, so I don’t see how locs can exclusively just fall into that category. I think here there’s a bigger population of people who practice Rastafarianism, and that has to obviously be a consideration, but for those of us who choose to have locs, for there to be that assumption that locs are unkempt and messy, well, that’s just an assumption that’s unfounded and actually there’s a culture of people overly maintaining their locs because of the perceptions. Yeah, no I wouldn’t, that would not happen and I would definitely pursue a case [against an employer], if that was a requirement. ACH: Why would you consider it to be race discrimination? RB: Well, I think, obviously it is going to capture people of Afro Caribbean descent more often than not. And I do feel that there are cultural ties, even if they’re not religious ties, to having locs. I do think, there is something quite spiritual and cultural about appreciating and growing your hair as is and not cutting it and not prescribing to unnatural hairstyles like relaxing for example or wearing a wig or wearing a weave if you don’t choose to. Yeah it’s just the people that it would impact, which is why I think it’s a racist quality. It’s less likely to impact someone that’s, that’s white really.