Correction: Marcel Grateau (who invented the hot comb) was a FrenchMAN.

UP NEXT... light-skinned privilege



Episode Notes:

Intro [0:00-4:55]

SAC's Facts [4:56-7:53]

Discussion [7:54-17:53]

Blacktivity/Game [17:54-21:04]

Mona Lisa's Pieces [21:05-22:26]

Outro [22:26-23:34]

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Copyright 2022 Shannon Chatmon and Talisa Hale

I'm Shannon

and I'm Lisa

and you're listening to Blacktivities,

a celebration of all things black

black culture, black history,

black perspectives, and black panache

celebrating our blackness doesn't mean exclusion

everybody's invited, but you gotta come in and have a seat.

So let the Blacktivities begin.

All right.

Welcome back to Blacktivities.

Are you returning with myself, Talisa, actually known as Mona Lisa the

poet, and then the lovely, lovely Ms.

Shannon.

Welcome to episode two of a celebration of something great.

With a side of positivity and a dash of panache.

Remember, you're here to celebrate every other Thursday

we're back with a new episode.

Okay, so Shannon real quick.

I have a title of this episode.

I wanna title this Hair-tivities.

[Okay.] So I feel like this is really, really fitting,

considering something recently that happened to one of my children.

I am a mother of three and, um, I have to say I have history.

Okay.

When it comes to hair doing my own hair, when I was younger, I had girls, you know,

used to ride the bus home and I would put box braids in their hair when I was 12.

So you would think that I was a master.

Okay.

A cosmetology master when it comes to hair.

Mm, no, not this time.

my youngest daughter.

We decided that we was gonna do something a little different,

like we gonna shake it up.

I decided to braid her hair up.

And instead of letting her natural hair just be free, I decided that, Hey,

I'm gonna buy one of these little fake poom poom balls to sit at the top, you

know, kind of cheating a little bit.

Cause that's what we do.

You know, go ahead and do her hair the night before the next day.

I'm thinking.

Okay.

I have successfully conquered and masked her hair.

I go on with my regular Workday.

I go and pick her up.

Okay.

She gets in the car and she is highly upset with me.

You wanna know why she's highly upset with me?

She informed me that she was playing in gym and she felt something

brush the back of her neck.

And she was like, wait a minute.

What was that?

And she looked down and the poom poom ball, the Afro ball was laying on

the ground in the middle of the gym.

Okay.

[Oh no] The school she goes to there, there was African Americans

sprinkled throughout the school.

There's not a whole big, you know, it's just sprinkled.

Okay.

So I was like, oh my God, like.

What did you do?

She said, mama, I picked it up off the floor.

I put it up under my shirt and I just ran out the gym.

I ain't ask nobody to go.

I didn't ask for permission.

I just ran.

I was just like, where did you go?

She said I went to the bathroom?

And, I don't know.

Somehow she ended up at the, at the school nurse.

Okay.

Now this was an emergency to where she was like, I gotta go to the school nurse.

She said that the school nurse who is Caucasian put it back on and pinned it.

Okay.

She pinned it back on there.

And I sat that in disbelief, like, oh my God, one, I did my baby like this.

I did her dirty, I didn't secure the bun.

first of all, but two someone that night, she was able to fix my baby.

She saw my baby in distress and she was able.

To assist her.

So I wanna do a round of applause for that for her, you know, assisting my baby.

Yes.

Yes.

[Most definitely.] Yes.

Yes.

Cause I embarrassed.

I embarrassed the shit outta my child.

[poor baby.] Yeah.

Poor baby.

I, I feel so bad when it comes to that.

So when you have situations like this and.

I know that I'm not the only person that have been in, you

know, an embarrassing situation.

Everyone has had their embarrassing hair story.

It just comes with a territory and as crazy as it is, as it is, um, we still

have to embrace this hair, this history and this free-ish choice of hair-tivities,

which brings us to SAC's facts.

Yes.

Well, before we do SAC's Facts Talisa, I have to applaud

you for being a mom of three girls, because I can tell you this.

I have one girl and trying to do her hair.

I feel like I need a drink.

Like it's, it's

a lot.

Look, it's gonna get worse, but then it's gonna get better

and they're gonna appreciate it.

So you got this.

Okay.

Well.

I'll just stay tuned then.

all right.

SAC's Facts.

If you don't know you should, our hair has been one of our prized

and distinct characteristics since we were still in the motherland.

Before they brought us here.

Our hair said a lot about our identity.

You could tell who had the juice and who folks repped by their hairstyles.

You could tell who was going to war and who was in mourning all by their hair.

Some even believed that hair was spiritual and brought them closer to God.

Our hair is part of our flair then and now.

And people have been trying to dim our light since they brought our

ancestors to this country and cut off their precious hair and enslaved them.

In 1786 in Louisiana.

They passed laws called Tignon laws.

And it probably sounds different when I say it with my country accent, but

that made us cover our hair because it became a threat to white women's

security when they saw our beauty was catching the eyes of their men.

But what did we do?

We showed them that we are a whole mood by throwing our flair into those head wraps.

We owned it and we still turned heads.

When Louisiana became part of the U.S.

In 1803, those laws went away, but we continued to wear our head wraps

as a way to fight the powers that be.

Post slavery in the 19th century, society said that if we wanted to be beautiful,

We needed to straighten our hair.

We started using chemicals and hot combs to do just that.

And we owned it like we've done for centuries, but in the sixties

and seventies, we said, we ain't going, y'all finna get these fros,

and we finna get these rights.

And once again, our hair became part of the protest.

Meanwhile, our Marcus Garvey inspired Rastafarian friends in

Jamaica started wearing dreadlocks in the 1930s as a part of a belief

that the hair should not be cut.

Today, we are still working that panache with our hair.

Black hair is a multi billion dollar industry.

Some of us have gotten off the creamy crack and...

Oooh, don't do that.

Some of us, some of us...

and we're still wearing our hair anyway we want to.

Long, short, fro, kinks, locks, wigs, weaves, all different colors.

Hair is still a huge mode of expression in the black community.

And that's SAC's Facts..

All right.

I love it.

I love it.

In the beginning, you said your hair, it represents us.

What would you say your hair right now?

Say about you.

Uh...

right now, I think my hair says.

I D G A F.

Okay.

Okay.

okay.

Um, but with you, I think with your hair, the way it is, and if,

I don't know if y'all seen her, her hair is short and she got it dyed.

Oh my God.

I'm in love with this color that she has on there.

I think it, it, it does.

It says that, but it shows again you're strong and the

natural thing, it just with me.

Yes, I do have a relaxer.

I'm obsessed with the edges, but I know if I go natural, I'm gonna have to I'm lazy.

I'm gonna have to like, try to figure out my whole edge game.

Cause I like it swooped and stuff.

Like [You like a swoop.] Yeah.

Swoop.

[Okay.] I think if I had to I'd be like, I'm on like a Josephine baker

type thing right now with the shorts.

[Okay.

Okay.

I got you.] So that that's like, that's the thing, but I know I wouldn't be

able to achieve that look, you know what I'm saying with, with the natural.

So...

I mean, I had a really big fro and I love my really big fro, but [mm-hmm]

I don't know how to do hair that great.

So like, I would just wet it, put some product in there and just kind of

like poof it out and that would be it.

But then when I wake up, it's like smushed to the side of my head.

Mm-hmm I have to applaud people with natural hair though.

It's funny that we growing up, they say, okay, your hair, her hair is nappy.

And they say that they, they point it out as being lazy.

[Mm-hmm.] But my older two children, they're 20 and 16.

And I sit and I watch them.

The amount of money that they spend on hair products, what it takes like their

process far as wash day, yo that's hours.

Like I applaud them.

[Oh yeah.] And it's like, I remember, you know, when they were younger doing

their hair, like I was sitting here, man, my hand cramped up and I had to

do both of their hair back to back.

Sundays was the wash day, you know?

So.

I have to applaud it.

It it's more than less when it comes to lazy people with the relaxing stuff.

That's lazy.

No, no people with natural hair.

I give y'all the emoji, the, the strong arm emoji I have

to, because it is amazing.

It is so amazing.

My baby girl, she has an awesome curl pattern.

[Mm-hmm] but it also gets tangled cuz she is four and she just refuses

to keep the bonnet on at night.

But yeah, it takes hours to wash and do her hair [mm-hmm] and

all the while she's like, owww...

mommy, it hurts.

With head wraps and the braids and the crowns, and like the shells

we was used to put in the hair and to kind of like represent us.

What place does the wigs and the lace fronts represent today?

Is it a strong like statement as the head wraps and you know, the

shells on the end of the beads?

And dreadlocks?

Is it, does it give the same message in your opinion?

I don't know, I think wigs and weaves and lace fronts.

Like, I think it's kind of just another statement of our creativity, because

it's like the possibilities for the way we do our hair are like endless,

cuz even now, like my hair is short and you would think, okay, well she

can't do much with it, but you know, I might come in with long hair one day.

Let me tell, let me tell you baby, if y'all know where I work at.

Dem white men where I work at baby.

They love it.

When I come and I be short one day Halle Berry, and the

next day be long to my butt.

They come peeping at me.

It's cool.

But I, I, I totally agree with you.

I do agree with you far as like switching it up.

Just don't come asking me, is that my real hair?

[Right?] Cause I'm gonna give you the side eye.

You know, it ain't like, Ugh.

What about the trend of men getting lace fronts?

Now, I don't know about that.

I don't know about that.

Could you, could you that, that's what we need to ask people,

ask women, could you go on a date with the man that, you know, has

a lace front on his head or beard?

They even doing the beard joints.

I've seen the videos.

I just...

don't tell me.

I don't wanna know.

What if, what if like, OK.

I know you're married, but I'll just say, okay.

For women out there.

What if you're like out on a date and a dude that has a lace front

has an embarrassing moment, like my child did, like, what would you say?

Would you say, oh, would you help him out and be like, yo, your beard coming up?

You know what I mean?

like, what would you do?

Like, would you mash his edges down?

Like, cause the glue coming up, like what would you help?

[Oh no...] we need to ask.

We need to ask so they can, yeah, we, we going, we gonna open it up so we can...

We're gonna take that to social media.

Yes.

Yes.

Cause that right there, I don't know.

It'll throw me for a loop.

It would me too, cause I wouldn't be expecting it.

Right, right.

So I'm gonna ask you a question when it comes to perms versus being natural

in your opinion, before I share, what do you think men's preference is?

Hmm.

I don't know, because I feel like a lot of men are embracing the natural styles.

I feel like a lot of men like that exotic look and so they go for these women that

wear the long lace fronts and stuff.

[Mm-hmm.] So, I don't know.

I asked a couple men, do they prefer nappy, natural, or straight hair.

Now I did have one gentleman correct me.

He said now baby, it ain't nothing nappy.

He said you could use the term natural, but ain't nothing nappy.

I said, I clutch my pearls.

I said, OK, OK.

Cat daddy, where we going?

you know what I mean?

But this is what he said.

He said, I'm not sure where this falls, but first I like a woman with clean hair.

[Okay.] And I was like, okay.

He said, if it is natural, straight, it really don't matter.

He said, I like her scalp to smell good.

And as long as she's presentable, she is totally my type.

Long as she makes it work for her.

And I was like, okay.

[Yeah.] Okay.

I can hear that.

Okay.

Okay.

He just want her to be clean.

Now another gentleman said I prefer natural.

I think it is very sexy for a woman to have a fro.

And I was like, okay, another guy said he prefers natural.

Now I purposely asked a gentleman who is not African American, his preference.

[Okay.] And he said he prefers straight hair.

[Okay.] I don't wanna say that's to be expected, but now this character,

this is the one that corrected me.

and I hope that we can get him on cuz he is very hilarious.

His TikTok is booming.

He said that I don't like to use the term nappy.

When talking about women or black people in general, I would

say textured or course hair.

I love when women hair is natural, the fros the natural hair entices me.

He was like, however you say it, but that's my thing.

Okay.

So team natural.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm still getting a relaxer.

I don't care what y'all say.

Ain't nan one of them paying my bills.

The men that I asked, they natural is the thing.

But my thing is when you see like rap videos or like men, like they don't,

you don't see natural women out there.

If, if I'm wrong, correct me, but you always see the lace

fronts and the straight hair, like that's, that's what you see.

[Mm-hmm] and long eyelashes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, but some of y'all taking it too far with them eyelashes,

but that's a different...

Yeah, that's a D no, I was gonna do it.

I said, no.

Anyway, I was happy to, you know, Ask these men, their opinions

and it, it really did it.

It shocked me to hear that men really prefer women with natural hair.

It intrigued me like, okay, maybe I should kind of like try it out, but I'm scared.

I'm gonna cut mine off of my head.

Gonna be shaped funny.

Like, you know how you get the peanut M&Ms.

It won't, your hair's already short.

It won't.

All right.

What do you think about.

I know you had bought this up to me, hairstyles that are renamed and rebranded,

like boxer braids?

Yes.

The Kim Kardashian braids.

I said, I wasn't gonna say her name.

Them is not her braids.

we've been doing that.

Right, right.

I look at that, like the two braids to the back.

That's when your granny didn't feel like doing that and your mama done

dropped you off at your granny house.

She's like, come in here, get that combed.

And she know the Vaseline and she parted the middle braid two braids to the back.

You outside and play.

Kimberly was nowhere around then.

I got no words for that...

no words.

So how about this?

Let's do a little trivia.

So let's see if you are up on your hair-tivities.

Again, this is just a couple.

All right.

First off.

How can we talk about hair without mentioning first millionaire,

Madam CJ Walker, African American entrepreneur, activist, philanthropist.

Did she create the hot comb?

True or false.

She did.

Did she create it?

Yeah.

People say she did.

I don't think she did though.

Yep.

That is true.

People give her credit for creating a hot comb and she didn't.

Now she may have took the idea and ran with it and threw

some other stuff with it.

But no, she did not create the hot comb far as that devil hot comb

that killed me mostly on Easters.

It was created by a French woman in the late 1800s by the name of Marcel Grateau.

I think that's how you say her name.

Every little black girl can smell that hot comb and the burnt....

Mm-hmm let me tell you, we, we, we get like shell shock.

Like if we hear a sizzle, we just like, we kind of like move our head

over, like, ah, it'll be nothing.

It be like a, it could be like a gnat or something.

All right.

True or false.

You can still find Madam CJ Walker hair products in stores today.

I'm gonna say that's true.

Yes.

Ma'am.

That is true.

You can find these products mostly online at Amazon.

Obviously they have everything.

It's the portal of everything [mm-hmm] Walmart and supposedly

Sephora carries some things too.

I'm gonna go.

Okay.

That one's surprising.

Mm-hmm I'm gonna go research that.

All right, one more...

true or false Shea Moisture and Carol's Daughter is black owned..

Just based off the fact that there are a lot of

companies that are black started, but then they get bought by...

Look at you.

Other companies I'm gonna say no.

That...

that's the...

that's right.

And Cantu Cantu also no longer black owned?

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

And I think that's fascinating that, I mean, would you start a

business and like, is there a dollar sign on you that you could just

be like, you know what I'm done?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Well, boom, there you have it.

Buy me out.

I think I have to like still put in a contract cuz it's your vision, you know,

put in a contract like you can't make any changes, like don't, don't go out the.

That part would be hard, but then when you have your millions and

mm-hmm, you sitting out on the beach, you might not kinda cared that much.

Yeah.

That kind of does like trump it all.

I think it's time for Mona Lisa's pieces.

I had to title this piece that I wrote Hair-tivities.

So just, just come vibe with me.

Smiling from ear to ear grin, just as big as the Nile.

Smirk on how the changing appearance have their curiosity coiled around

hostile thoughts of melanin style influences, random minds, whatever

compels you to do it well, do it.

Chin up.

Forever confident.

He doesn't need hair for that.

She doesn't either.

Strong fist crouching nigga it's more than reciprocating the fro and the figure.

The chemistry mixed up in a glass bunsen burner.

Then poof, the smoke clears and the swag's the winner.

Pin him first.

The fair has been won and everyone agrees it was the one who was able to square up.

No matter what, all eyes will never blink twice.

They watching.

So look your best at all times.

No sweat.

Just continue with success.

Marcus Garvey said, you must remove the kinks from your mind, but not your hair.

Mona.

All right.

Yes.

I love it.

Yay.

Thanks.

Well, this party's coming to a end today, but let 'em know

where they can continue to party.

Come on out to the cookout.

We saving you a plate.

It's already wrapped up.

Uh, you can check the show notes for links to our Patreon, social media, the articles

we use for SAC's Facts, and to get your own blacktivitees and other merch it's all

in the show notes, everything is there.

Gonna have some conversations going around this hair thing too cuz there's a lot

more that we did not talk about today.

[Yes.] And we wanna hear from y'all.

But until then...