During the week of May 4, 2020, we explored what hair means to us and how it is perceived by others.
Day 1 - We watched Hair Love and we asked, "what is YOUR hair story?"
Matthew A. Cherry wanted to create “Hair Love” to encourage kids to love their natural hair and to show an image that is not typically shown on screen, a black father who is present in real life. Taniyah
I feel society makes it difficult for one to love their hair because they focus a lot on the people who may have straight hair, blonde hair or really long hair. Everyone is always so focused on other people’s hair instead of their own and make themselves feel bad about their hair and how it is wishing it was a certain way or different.
Love
Hair stories
A long time ago, there was a family who lived in a beautiful brick home. Their names were Tisha, Omar, and Taniyah.
Tisha, the mommy, loved to do her daughter's hair, but she had to cook, clean, and work late. So one day, the father, Omar, decided he was going to do something nice for his wife. He cleared his schedule the next day, he set the living room with a comb, brush, and detangler and he and his daughter, Taniyah, set off to live in the room. “We founded a seat on the couch, where we both can be comfortable.” He picked up the comb, and began to take out a braid. He concentrated on one braid for what seemed like hours.
My mom came into the living room, and saw my father attempting to take out my hair, and her face brightened up, and a smile appeared on her face, and a sound of laughter left her lips. She was about to walk over to me and my dad, so she could help him take out my braids, but he was not having it, he wanted to do it on his own, so my mom got up, and let him enjoy his new project. I was over sitting on the hard floor, so my dad gave me his phone, and I forgot all about the pain of the floor.
He would not give up on his mission to take out my hair, and adventurally he finished, but my mom was asleep, and I refused to go to sleep with my hair all over the place, so he had to figure something to do with it. A few moments later, he told me to sit back down. He sprayed my hair with detangler, then combed through my hair, after that he began to work his magic, and finally he was ready to reveal the hairstyle, and to my surprise he actually did a wonderful job, he brushed all my hair up into a neat ponytail, then added some accessory, my mom placed on the couch, just in case my hair needed to be saved or blinged out.
T. H.
Whenever my mom does my hair she has to wash it first and that takes such a long time. After that she needs to blow dry it and that takes longer. After my mom blow dries my hair, it would be detangled and a bit straighter but it only stays like that for a day.
I never believed that I had long hair even when my mom would show me my hair in the mirror. It didn't look long to me but now I kind of like it. I used to always want straight hair like my cousins and get a perm to see how long my hair actually is but my mom said I can't get one until I’m at least thirteen.
What I didn’t know was that my mom did not want my hair to get damaged or fall out. That’s why she said, "wait until I'm at least a certain age."
What I learned was that if a person doesn’t use a perm the right way, or they do it too much, their hair could possibly fall out even if they're young. My sister told me how her mom used to do her hair and she permed it a lot while she was still young until one day her hair started falling out so she had to cut it. After that happened my mom started doing her hair and it grew back perfectly healthy. Now she gets her hair done at the salon because she’s older but when she was younger only my mom did her hair because she’s really good at it and knows how to take care of it.
When I was nine my mom took me to the hair saloon for the first time and I got box braids. My mom told me that I wasn’t supposed to be getting them so maybe the lady misunderstood what my mom asked for, but she didn’t get upset about it and I just kept it in a bun.
Whenever my mom does my hair she always tells me I can't get certain styles because it isn’t for my age or it will get messed up quick. I also noticed that every time she does my hair she always tries to keep it in braids, then she told me it was because it makes your hair grow.
L. L.