lukusa, adele -final cut 

Thu, 4/29 12:07AM 
45:41 
SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
hair, braids, black, natural hair, people, abi, alyssa, combed, perm, head, mom, style, siblings, cornrows, learning, texture, gender, long, grew, part 
SPEAKERS 
Ledya, Sasha Pinnock, Adele Lukusa, natural hair youtuber excerpts, Abi, Tiffany Barrow, Alyssa, Andre Walker 

Adele Lukusa 00:07 Hi, I'm Adele, a 21 year year old Ryerson journalism student, the eldest of five, and first daughter Congolese immigrants. I grew up in Kitchener, Ontario spent nearly all of my elementary and secondary school years in super white French Catholic schools. From kindergarten to my senior year, I was one of the handful of Black students among my peers. And that has impacted me in countless ways. Personally, I feel that my hair has been one of the aspects of myself that I'll always struggle with. Currently, I have 4C hair that hits my shoulders when it's straightned every blue moon. But more often than not, it's braided with colourful extensions for the winter and fall, or in a messy twist-out during the spring and summertime. The thing is, for me, I've always had my mother do my hair, especially when it comes to braids. Before I moved back to Toronto, for my final and fourth year at Ryerson, I gave myself one task--I was going to braid my own hair. I took a lot of that process, how to properly prep and part of my hair. What hair extensions to use, the grip and tightness necessary to make braids last. But what really stood out for me was how exhausted I was after doing it, not just physically, but mentally too. I don't think non-Black people understand how much work goes into Black hair, regardless of its texture or length, and I don't think Black people as a whole have truly reckoned with what having consistently healthy and presentable hair does to a person, especially if said person suffers from issues like chronic illness, mental disorders and disability. And that's what I really want to get into this episode. Black hair care is a lot of work. A lot of labour for any regular person. So why do we pretend like it is? Why do we rarely address how exhausting Black haircare can be? Growing up when it came time to do my hair. My mother spent her weekends parting, twisting, slicking, straightening, or braiding hair into new looks for me and my siblings. Well, my mother has five girls and one boy, and that's a lot of heads to take care of. So when I was entering teenhood, I was free to do my own hair for the most part. Luckily our transition from perm to natural hair also coincided with the boom of natural hair YouTube. 





natural hair youtuber excerpts 02:32 "Hey guys, it's Chizi and I'm back with-" "NappyFu checking in-" "Hi guys, it's Layla-" "So today I'll show you how I cheat my flexi rod sets." "Alright, so here are my edges." "Hi everyone, it is time for us to tackle my daughter's high porosity hair-" 
Adele Lukusa 02:47 And I watched hundreds of hours worth of videos. Even when I had convinced my mother to braid my hair, I still ended up deep diving every couple of days to plan and figure out what products tools or styles he's going to try out next. For every style I wore to school came dozens of hours spent in my bathroom cycling, trial and error, all while having to pencil in time for homework. It was hard enough for me to learn about my own hair. And it's comforting to know that even those who've done hair professionally for years have also gone through similar struggles. 
Sasha Pinnock 03:20 I know for me the first time I did a wash-n-go I was like, "What is on my head?" 
Adele Lukusa 03:24 That's Sasha Pinnock, a natural hair stylist from Crown N Glory natural hair studio. She's been in the hair business since the mid 2010s and her journey into natural hair came suddenly when she landed her first job at a hair salon for curly hair. 
Sasha Pinnock 03:39 And I remember actually leaving leaving work, because that's what I did my first washing goal and I felt so self conscious. In my head, I was like "Oh my god, what am I doing? Should I be out here like this?" I remember going to the subway station and I think I was looking in one of the really big billboards that you can see --you can see the billboard, but you can also see yourself and I looked at it. I was like, "Oh my god" and I heard a guy yell out: "Don't worry, your hair looks good." And I was like, "Oh, okay. someone likes it. So I guess I should start liking it." So that was kind of my first experience and what kind of led me to continue wanting to style more Black hair. 




Adele Lukusa 04:27 For Tiffany Barrow, the natural hair guru behind Tiffany Dawn, becoming a hairstylist also motivated her to discover the potential of her own natural hair. 
Tiffany Barrow 04:36 I have done everything. My hair has been relaxed. My hair has been natural --it's currently natural. I have texturized my hair. I’ve had long hair. I've had shoulder length hair. I’ve had had short hair. I’ve had nearly shaved hair. I feel like I've done everything except for locking my hair, you know, so it greatly impacted how I navigate with my hair. I used to do my hair. But not as often as I do it now. Though, becoming a hairdresser, I was really exploring my own hair, what it can do, what products really reacted to my hair, testing out certain theories or things you would hear out there in the hair industry of treatments, of different styles. Like, I was just so willing to explore my hair and understand my hair. And that kind of helped me understand my clients. Not that we have the same hair, but I get that hair is actually a journey. 
Adele Lukusa 06:05 And that's the thing about natural hair. It's a journey, and not an easy one. And there are so many reasons for that. But I didn't want to rely solely on my own experiences or those professionals to tell that story. I didn't want to seek out incredible stories or one-of-a-kind --so I spoke to three Black people in the GTA and we talked about the good, bad and ugly of natural hair. So, Alyssa, let's start with the first question: what has your natural hair journey looked like? 
Alyssa 06:34 So personally, I've always had natural hair. And that's not true for everyone in my family. My elder sister had her hair permed as a child because she didn't like her texture. It was 4C mixed with 4B, a bunch of fours in there. And we didn't have any of these terms to describe it, we just had coarse or loose and she didn't like that she had a coarser texture. 






Adele Lukusa 06:57 When it comes to Black hair, the most typical way to understand is through Andre Walker's hair type system. Andre Walker is one of Oprah's most notable hair stylists during her talk show days. I'll let him explain his typing system. 
Andre Walker 07:10 So I thought the best way to do it was to divide the different textures into four different categories; four being kinky, three being curly, two being wavy, and one being straight. And within each of those categories, there are subcategories. Say for instance, if you're a type four, you might have a coily texture or you might have a zigzaggy texture one that might be a little tighter than the other. So hence this, four A or B. 
Adele Lukusa 07:48 Andre's typing system is now foundational to the natural hair community in spite of its flaws, my hair type according to his scale, is 4C. So back to Alyssa and their eldest sisters different natural hair experience 
Alyssa 08:01 When she was a teenager, she permed it and my mother just insisted that the youngest three sisters never perm their hair because she saw how damaging it was. And she just decided she's going to spend the time once a week to braid everybody's hair. My mother braided my hair every weekend until her arthritis kicked in. And she couldn't do it anymore. So when I was about 10, I took over braiding my own hair and my two younger sisters hair. So I spent most of my life once a week doing like a big braiding spree. 
Adele Lukusa 08:16 Did your mother kind of learn braiding through her own family? 
Alyssa 08:34 My mother has an even looser texture than me. My mom is mixed race, South Asian and Latina. And she has some Afro-Caribbean in there, but her hair is extremely loose, so she doesn't need to comb her hair at all. She can run a brush through it, she doesn't need to braid it. She doesn't need to use special shampoos and conditioners, but she learned because she grew up in Jamaica and most of her family's Black, most of her friends are Black. So she learned to comb Black hair to take care of the other children in her family. So like there's, there's a common thread between my mom and I have just stepping up where you're needed to care for the younger people around you. 



Adele Lukusa 09:14 Black haircare is beautiful like that. It really is a labour of love. And there's something so special about getting your hair done as a kid. And Alyssa truly gets that. 
Alyssa 09:22 It's not only that they need their hair to be neat and cared for for convenience, but like they need to be shown that their hair is beautiful. They need to have someone take time with it and care with it. Comb it gently not like pull up the roots. There's a lot of people who are described as tenderheaded. But really, someone who's combing your hair is just frustrated with how your hair is difficult to manipulate for them and doesn't take time with it doesn't use the right products doesn't give you the right attention and care or give you breaks to stretch your legs if your hair takes a long time. So my mom learned to do all of that as a kid, even though she doesn't need to do it for herself. And then she taught me. My natural hair journey has been more a journey of connectivity and community and of offering care to others, while also caring for myself. 
Adele Lukusa 10:10 Yeah, that's really interesting because I know from my mom, she said that she kind of knew how to braid here. But then when she came to Canada with like my father, she was like, "I don't know how the hell you do this." And aunts and uncles from my dad's side -­because most of my mom's side are not in Canada --they tried to teach her but eventually, she was like, "Ugh, whatever, let me just learn my own technique." And this is before all the natural hair youtubers or whatever, so she did not know what the hell she was [doing], she was just like, "No, let me just go into the beauty shop, see whatever there is there and then figure it out." It's very funny that you say the whole tenderheaded thing because my mom did not--she did not care what your head was going through. She's like, "Well, I said, we're doing it now. So we're gonna do it." When I look back at it now, I was instilled at a very young age that beauty was pain and I hadn’t truly unpacked that saying in connection to my hair until years later. But the pain of Black haircare, as Alyssa alluded to with their eldest sister’s experience, is truly subject to texturism. There’s this idea of “good hair” which when referring to Black hair, is a direct symptom of white supremacy and eurocentric beauty standards, that upholds anything nearing whiteness over traditional African features. Like with colourism, where lighter skinned folks are deemed more desirable, the also goes for texture — the looser your curls are, the more desirable you are. And this may have been introduced by white colonialism, but it continues to be shared and reinforced by our own communities. Like Alyssa, Ledya’s hair falls within type 3 hair, hailed as “better” than its coilier cousins, and this very difference has shaped their own natural hair experience. 



Ledya 11:51 My mom used to do this thing, it was actually something she told me about after I was much older. Because I was born in Ethiopia. I was, I was in Ethiopia for nine years before I came to Canada. So back home everything, everybody kind of had the same experience. We all hadprotective styles, and we had braids or cornrows. But even in that, I think there was there was some differences in the experience I had in comparison to my siblings. I guess when children are first born, if their parents want their hair to grow back fuller, they would shave their hair--and so she used to do that. And she told me like, "Oh, when you were born, I didn't do that to your hair." I was kind of curious as to why and that was when I realized like, oh, okay, So,even from a young age, this kind of texturism was a dynamic in our community and in our family. Because she was like, "Oh, I didn't want to, I didn't want it to like lose that texture that it had." 
Adele Lukusa 13:07 For people will type three hair, Ledya and Alyssa's experiences are so distinct and show the nuances textures and brings from family to family. That's why I loved hearing about Abby's relationship with their hair and contrast, despite us both having 4C coils, the lessons we learned about are hair are so different. What has your natural hair journey look like? Within that answer, you can also talk about how that has been shaped by your community and your family and stuff like that, or however you wanna start. 
Abi 13:34 So to get some context, I was born into a family of Jamaican and Ghanaian heritage. My hair is a 4C texture. And I'm on the darker scale. Within within my family as it stands now in my gender I'm figuring that out, but I'm probably non-binary or gender non­conforming. But I was the first daughter that my mother had. So my hair journey was very, very interesting, because the conversations that were had with the boys and men of my family were obviously very, very different than the ones had with the girls and the women of my family. But I am one of the people who exists that never have the hair relaxed. I've never had a perm or anything like that. So I can appreciate the memes, but it's never been part of my experience. 




Adele Lukusa 14:40 What you said about perms is really interesting. I know for myself I had a perm when I was younger and then my mom just let us go natural randomly, because she just got tired of doing perms. And I just remember learning it and being like "Wait, oh my gosh, my hair can do a lot of things. Also my hair is not allergic to water? That's so weird." 
Abi 15:03 And it also helps that I had a parent who made sure that she exposed my sister and I to like representations of Black hair and of 4C hair, and would get dolls for us that had braided hair. And if the dolls didn't have braided hair, she would braid it. And just like helping us understand that thereare options for us, and there is beauty for us. Growing up, my mom would always braid our hair weekly, we'd have our wash today, we'd have our braiding days, we had the moments where we would fall asleep when our neck would just poke from all sorts of directions. And she's trying to do our hair, but it's impossible. 
Adele Lukusa 15:51 And, more often that not, despite how far into your natural hair journey you may be, taking care of it feels impossible. Impossible when you factor in issues such as texturism, family dynamics, and more, which Ledya and I bonded over in my interview with her. 
Ledya 16:06 For a long time I was bonding with my mom over her doing my hair. And that was like our thing. But it became something that I was kind of uncomfortable with or critical of once I realized there's some type of power dynamic going on here.I think it was probably after we came to Canada that I started to realize there is actually some discomfort in my relationship with my siblings when these things come up, these microaggressions. And I started realizing these compliments are kind of correlated to like, compliments around colourism and compliments around skin tone. And so I just started to think like, How does that feel? You know, in their body? How does that feel? For my sisters, I think they got to a point where they were frustrated with their own experiences, and they would ask her to perm it or to texturize it. And it says something about a parent's relationship to their different children — and, in this case, to their children's hair, if you say yes to one and you say absolutely no to the other, you know that, obviously creates some type of, I guess, a feeling of neglect maybe. Or a feeling of just having to do it on your own. So I think my siblings had to start doing it on their own much sooner than I did. 






Adele Lukusa 17:45 Yeah, I definitely relate — the thing about my family though is that we all have like 4C-ish hair. But my mom like she'll like deal with whoever's hair and she will be like “Oh, this hair is too much.” Like, my three youngest siblings, they all have like 4C hair with like, but they vary in degree on how easier it is for my mom to manipulate [their hair] and how they respond to my mom's manipulation of their hair, because my mom also just does not have patience. So it's very interesting because [my] nine year old [sister’s] hair is permed, but the rest aren't. So it tells you a lot about their hair and what she thinks is easier and what she thinks is actually presentable and stuff like that. For me, I just do not understand why you would perm one and not the rest. Or if you can do the other two siblings hair, why can't you do the other one? It just felt very weird to me. 
Ledya 18:42 And even Yeah, like who you have more patience for? Depends on who you think has easier hair to manage, right? Whoever you're more gentle with might depend on like, whose hair you think you can handle more. 
Alyssa 18:53 So, how much patience do you have for the task? Because it's time consuming. I understand why parents sometimes are a little rougher than you'd like because it's just-in the list of chores they have to do, that's one more thing. 
Tiffany Barrow 19:09 You have to take some sort of time to invest in your hair. 
Adele Lukusa 19:13 That's Tiffany again, of Tiffany Dawn. 
Tiffany Barrow 19:17 I'm firm believer, if you treat your hair with gentleness and respect, I do believe that your hair will--I'm not gonna say it's going to flourish to something that's not within its parameters, but your hair will be well maintained. And I think sometimes when people are like: “Oh I want long hair”, “Oh I want thicker hair”, “Oh I want this type of hair”, I think my main advice is to maintain what you have. Before you ask for anything else, maintain what you have, master what you have, and then from there that should lead to growth in different areas.If you are going to teach yourself a skill of just learning how to cornrow or something, it is not something that [you will learn] in a day. It literally takes time to build up to that. So I would say don't be discouraged, really, with the path that you're on in terms of your hair. Hair is a journey because you're learning about your hair in a way that probably wasn't taught to you prior. So you're going to have to take time with yourself in terms of learning, and take time with your hair — be gentle, be very gentle. 





Adele Lukusa 20:51 But being gentle, and being patient can also be a struggle of itself, which I shared when I spoke with Sasha from Crown n Glory. Yeah, I know that I myself still learning how to be patient because I can't do it. Yeah, it's just so frustrating. Sometimes. 
Sasha Pinnock 21:10 It's very hard. Even for myself, sometimes sometimes, for the most part, even on lockdown now, or quarantine, whatever you want to call it. I just have twists. And I keep it that way for like, two, three weeks, and then I wash and repeat. And in between, I'll try and moisturize my hair. It's hard, like, not everyone, you know, wakes up looking beautiful all the time, right? Let's just be honest about that. It's hard for me and I'm a hairstylist --is it's hard for everyone. 
Adele Lukusa 21:45 And that's the crux of it, isn't it? Natural hair is hard for everyone. For parents, for kids. For adults. No matter where you are on your hair journey, permed or natural or texturized, there is still struggle. 
Tiffany Barrow 21:59 Your mental health can play a huge barrier to how you look, and how you feel, and what you're comfortable with. If you don't feel good in your head, that can put you in a state of not wanting to do anything, which also affects your self care --or your lack of self care. 
Adele Lukusa 22:18 When speaking to Tiffany and Sasha, I had the chance to get some real insight on the gaps of knowledge Black folks have on our hair, as well as what to focus on as community 
— and as much as that is important, I wanted to delve deeper into what makes natural hair so hard. And I feel that for a lot of us — our hair is inherently connected with our sense of self, both physically and mentally. I feel that for Black folks, the easiest way to conceptualize that relationship is the way white people interacted with us as children. And that's where we'll begin. First with Abi, then Ledya, and Alyssa, 



Abi 22:53 Two of my siblings and myself went to school in Hyde Park. And so the school that we went to, again, as you can imagine for the neighborhood, was predominantly white, and predominantly non-Black POC. So came to find out at the end of my elementary school career, my teacher was saying things like, "Oh, we were always so excited for Mondays because we wanted to see what Abi and their sister hair was going to look like" because he always wants to know what your hair was gonna look like. And that seemed to be like the imprint that I could give to people, not my kindness, not how brilliant I was not the fact that I was bullied for so long. But it was like, "Oh, what does your hair look like? What's your hair doing?" 
Ledya 23:38 When I started going to school here, I was like one of the only black kids in the class, it was apparent that it was always something people wanted to bring up. Like, “Why do you always have braids?” Or “How do you wash your hair?” And my bad insecurity would come up and it would be that false sense of, “Oh, well, at least my hair's longer” or “It's a different texture” that would give [me a] sense of confidence back. So it was like, a love and hate relationship with my hair for a while. Like, going back and forth between thinking my hair was, you know, the only thing that was kind of valued about me, and so, putting it up on some type of pedestal. And then also feeling like I was always, being micro aggressed or policed by just the whiteness of school, you know? 
Alyssa 24:38 As a child, I really liked my hair and people in my community really liked my hair; because I'm mixed race I have like 3C hair, which ranges from curls to waves. So I was hearing positivity from my own people, my own family, for honestly pretty colorist reasons. But when I went to school, I was being mocked incessantly, and white kids really would not just say things to me, but do physical things to bully me about my hair, like, throw things in it, put garbage in my hair, stick pencils in my hair. I would have to shake my hair out after certain classes and like, get all the trash that they'd stuck in. So I guess like bullying did affect me at one point, and there were years where I would try to straighten it almost every day. This is extremely damaging, and not a good idea, obviously, and I destroyed my curls, so I'd have to keep cutting them. And I'd be sad that the straightness is still there, because I was kind of only doing it to fit in, I wasn't doing it because I like having straight hair. So once I'd seen the damage I’d caused, I'd cut it off. And so many times in my life, I've been kind of damaging my hair, to try to be more acceptable to people who are actively bullying me, and then regretting that I'd done that and having to chop it all off. 




Adele Lukusa 26:06 It was so interesting to hear the various ways whiteness has affected their relationship they hear because despite being able to relate my experiences is also unique. If my obsession with pop culture has taught me anything, it's that whiteness is the ideal. And it sucks to say, but I bought into that idea until I was nearly 15 years old. Despite all the Shea Moisture products I had wishlisted and several Pinterest boards dedicated to natural hairstyles, part of me still ached for the simplicity of conforming to the ideals of white supremacy. And despite all my growth, I still struggle with that to this day. But as much as whiteness plays a hand in the ways we internalize what desirable and typical hair looks like, things like mental health, chronic illnesses, as well as gender and queerness all have largely affected me and my fellow interviewees. 
Alyssa 26:55 I also have depression, like seasonal depression and depression that just comes about randomly throughout the year. But also general anxiety disorder. And I think that actually the anxiety can be the harder thing with my head, because I'll make these grand plans for what I'm going to do what braids I'm going to do, I'll buy the hair. And for weeks, I'm just like trying to work up the energy and the initiative to actually do it. And I'm mentally working up the task of combing my hair in my head, and it seems impossible, it seems like something I can't do. I'll watch YouTube videos to make sure I know how to do the style. I'll ask friends asked my little sister to help me parted at the back. And I still just feel like the task is insurmountable depending what's going on in my life, depending on how anxious I am, how many other things I have to do. 
Adele Lukusa 27:46 I feel like people really underestimate the effort of parting. 
Alyssa 27:49 Oh yeah. 




Adele Lukusa 27:50 I remember one night I'd spend like just like doing two rows of the back of my head. And then like I was like, "This is terrible." I took them out. I spent like another two days literally just parting all of my hair [into] little braids, and then doing my hair again. And then spending hours and hours and hours actually braiding everything to make it look even and actually having every thing actually attached to the hair was just so much work and so draining. 
Alyssa 28:15 I really relate to what you said about those the first two rows this style I currently have — which, because this is an audible medium, I will describe it. I have black roots, which are partially my roots and partially the ombre kanekalon hair I'm using, and then it goes to a darker green, and then it goes to a mint green. And I put a whole bunch of beads, glow in the dark beads in different shades of green, and white and yeah, it's really tricked out hair. And it took me a long time. But what took me the longest was actually those first, the first row where it's right at the nape of your neck. The hair there is really short, the hair, there's really tender. If you pull it too tight, you're gonna cause yourself pain and possibly breakage. And what I did was get help. I called my youngest sister and honestly what she was offering more than just parting the back of my head, what she did was moral support, because I kept pulling it out again and saying it's not good enough. I did that for hours. Four braids--I'm counting them, there's four braids at the nape of my neck, and I did them and redid them for hours, because they were never the way I wanted them to be. And like yeah, that's perfectionism. But you're thinking about the fact that you want this style to stretch out for as long as possible. 
Adele Lukusa 29:36 And Alyssa makes a good point there. Not only is maintaining our hair good for its long term health, we also want to be able to do these intricate styles in order to protect her hair from harsh weather and constant manipulation. After spending all that time during my braids before and during my move to Toronto, the style didn't even last a month. So it's hard not to beat yourself up about messing up a style, especially when it's as time consuming as braids. It's even harder when your depression gets in the way of even starting those styles, which Lydia can attest to. 
Ledya 30:06 So like after, way after I started doing my own hair, there was a huge correlation between 




when I was depressed and when my hair was just like totally neglected, or when I was feeling really anxious, and I would have a nervous habit of scratching my scalp or things like that. So if I'm neglecting it, I'm not moisturizing it and I'm constantly scratching at it, it's going to create open sores and things like that. So my scalp wasn't healthy. You could tell that around my temples is where my hair thinning. And that's because that's one of the places where I just absentmindedly scratch. 
Adele Lukusa 30:46 And it's taking more of a toll on folks like Abi, who have used their braiding skills as a source of income. 
Abi 30:52 I'm now 28 and since I was around 21 I have been styling and braiding my own hair, as well as it accidentally becoming a side hustle. But I've gotten to the point where I've had to stop and I exclusively do my own hair now. One of the reasons is that, at the beginning of 2019 I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel. And so my capacity for braids wasn't where it was at anymore. And the time that it would take to do hair at the quality of which I would usually do it started to take longer and longer and longer. So very quickly a four hour session will be six hours for example because I'm having to take more breaks. In terms of symptoms, my hands will just go numb. And then they'll just like drop things. Or I'll get like cramps in my forearms and things like that, or my fingers will twitch. And it's just very distracting, so it's difficult to push through an activity, including the maintenance of my hair. So I've really gotten to the point where it's like, okay, when I have a good hands day, that's a good time to do a protective style in my hair, and figure out the best way to maintain it for as long as possible. Because I'll know that I can't refresh my braids and styles every two weeks, like I used to. 
Adele Lukusa 32:18 And with the pandemic coinciding with Abi’s carpal tunnel not only has it affected her side hustle, but also their own relationship to their gender, which Ledya and I can also relate to. 
Abi 32:28 I remember growing up, I didn't like having my hair done. I hated it. I have four older brothers, the youngest of the brothers I grew up with at home and so I’d always look to him as like my north star of the sibling I wanted to be like. When I was a toddler, I was like “I want a buzz cut just like his. I don't want all of this.” I was born with a full afro and my hair grew past my shoulders when I was a toddler and I hated it. I was like “Fuck this noise, take it off my head, it’s too much to deal.” Then growing up, I always loved the two cornrows. People would call it the dutch braids; I loved getting those done. And then my mom started doing the fishbone version of it so it would actually last all week. But then I remember getting on the bus with high school students and they would always question my gender identity. Like, “is that a girl or a boy over there?” Was either this or that, or whatever. [laughs] And I wasn't angry about the question itself, I was angry about being a subject of speculation continuously. 


Ledya 33:30 I think, especially since COVID, because it's time to sit and think, that's one of the things I've been thinking about, about gender expression, and how I'm perceived, and how I perceive myself — and if those two things align. There was always this understanding I had, and I'm not sure where it came from, but this idea that longer hair was very feminized. And then for periods of my life where I just was not identifying as very feminine. It was just something that was kind of hard to unpack, you know, as a teenager and now that I'm older, I'm like, “Okay, let's unpack that.” Still, there's this push and pull relationship with my hair. And now I'm adding this layer of being queer and gender questioning. So now I'm really politicizing the hair. And I'm like, “Damn, what does my hair communicate about me?” “What do I want to communicate about me?” “And how do I like reclaim agency over it?” These are things that I'm constantly mulling over, you know, like, do I want to shave it? Or is that just me, again, trying to lash out against something outside of myself? Will that affirm my gender for me? Or will that put me into another kind of crisis of self and self esteem? 
Adele Lukusa 34:51 No, I definitely, relate to that. Because, within this pandemic, since I'm not really performing gender, I'm not really going anywhere; I'm usually wearing sweaters and loose stuff all the time. So, I've thought a lot about how I perceive femininity and masculinity and how that has affected how I present myself with my hair. Because I love long braids, and super colourful braids ,and stuff like that. I'll do that all the time. But I know, especially as a kid if I had cornrows, I would feel like so terrible. I could not even deal with even the thought of [wearing] these like, quote unquote masculine type styles. I kept on thinking that if I have cornrows, they're going to start calling me Jaden Smith and Bow-Wow and I don't want that. Like, I don't want to be perceived that way. And yeah, like, I think it's just been taken a lot of unpacking right now just to think about “Why am I disgusted by that?” “Why is that such a bad thing?” That's just part of how black hair stays fresh, that's how you protect black hair. 






Ledya 35:57 Yeah, like, I remembered that. And I remember that I hated cornrows. Like, I used to think “Oh, I don't like my forehead.” “I don't like my hairline.” And I don't know if that happened to me, like students calling me Bow-Wow, but like you said that and I was like, “Why do I remember this happening?” 
Adele Lukusa 36:15 I don't even think they call me that. I just have that memory of “I don't want to be compared to them.” Or like Snoop Dogg. Why did I have that in my head? I don't know. 
Ledya 36:25 They used to call me Snoop Dogg. I was very lanky and taller than a lot of the other kids in elementary school, and they used to call me Snoop Dogg. Wow, I can't believe that. Kids can be so mean. 
Adele Lukusa 36:38 To this day, I genuinely cannot tell you who put that thought in my head. That could honestly be a podcast of its own. But, before we head to the final segment, I feel that Abi sums up best my thoughts on my hair. 
Abi 36:50 I kind of wish sometimes that it wasn't so important to me. Because it ends up causing a lot of stress. I kind of wish sometimes that it was just like a regular degular thing. And it's just part of, it's just part of our general expression in the same way that makeup is in the same way that nails does. But everything that black people do is, again, this topic of like, “Whoa, what are they going to do next” “What are they going to innovate next?” 
Adele Lukusa 37:09 We’ve covered some pretty tough topics so far, got into some of the nitty and gritty aspects of Black haircare — I had the amazing opportunity to chat to these amazing Black folks about patience, about family, about mental health, about white supremacy, about gender expression and queerness and all the other aspects that make Black haircaire as complex as it is. And, finally, I’ll share how Alyssa, Abi and Ledya find joy in 



their, or others, Black hair. 
Alyssa 37:50 My favorite part is that it's a community building thing that I associate with all the heads of hair I've combed. I've never combed anyone's hair for money. I've combed friend's hair, I've combed cousins’ hair, I’ve combed my little sister's hair, I've now combed my girlfriend's hair. And it's kind of intimate the way we do it; I sit on a couch or chair and they sit on the ground between my legs. And this isn't something I would just do with anyone. I believe that there's an energy exchange involved in combing someone's hair. I'm feeling their texture, figuring out what's good for them going through my large arsenal of products and picking what would work for them. And it's intimate, it's personal. It's kind of spiritual, it has cultural significance. It has meaning to be sharing this experience with somebody, and to have them let me be this close to them, and trust me to make them look in a way that they'll feel comfortable with, and to not hurt them while I do it. And it just has so much value to me. I don't even know who I'd be without it. 
Adele Lukusa 38:50 That’s something I really admire in Black folks like Alyssa, the way she perceives Black haircare as communal, as mutual aid, as spiritual. I hope to one day be able to see it that way too. I also love what Alyssa and Abi shared about how their hair has been a portal into their gender expression. 
Alyssa 39:11 And it allows me to experience gender differently. Having [a] close cut was really affirming, a lot of people were using different pronouns on me than I'd ever had used before. And I didn't even know that I liked when people use he or they to describe me, but when I had a close cut, I was giving masculine vibes and I was getting affirmation from strangers and friends alike. And I like the morphability of black hair, I like that I can have all of these different styles without appropriating because this is actually my culture. I'm not taking from anybody in order to shift into these different versions of myself. I'm just emulating my own people. And if sometimes I'm emulating a more masculine style, I'm not putting on a costume, I'm just getting to be another side of myself. And that feels really, really empowering. 






Abi 40:07 I’m in my late 20s and I — they won't be seeing this on the [podcast], but I did an undercut finally. I've always wanted to cut my hair, and the back of my hair is always shorter than the front of my hair. So when I wanted to style it up, the back wouldn't always catch. So I was like, “I'm just gonna cut it.” And now I have this look where like my fro kind of bangs in front of my forehead. And it's really helped me lean into my androgyny feels where I'm like, I can style it and put braids in it and do cute space buns and shit and whatever. Or I'll wake up one morning and be like, “I kind of want to be more boyish”, or “Kinda want to be more high femme and girly.” I love that I can manipulate and control what my person looks like. It's really nice to be able to explore expression without shame. And it comes into our Blackness, and it comes to our queerness and our gender expression. And it's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. But also, 
Adele Lukusa 41:03 I mean, I've been noticing I've been seeing so many other Black people right now just doing so many cool different things with their hair. I’m seeing men get braids with just their natural hair, but also with extensions. 
Abi 41:17 Yes, I love seeing the blurred lines of our hair among Black people. 
Adele Lukusa 41:23 Seeing Black people with really cool hair is one of the reasons I first began to love my own hair for at least its potential late and I can really relate on that. 
Ledya 41:35 I love seeing like Black people with like coloured hair. I love seeing that I love really colourful wigs and like extensions and braids. Like I love colourful hair, I wish I could braid my hair so that I wouldn't have to burden somebody else whenever I want to change it. Because I feel like if I start, I'm going to change it like every week, that's how much I want to play with colour for a bit. But yeah, just seeing Black people with colourful hair that's like something that I feel is such an expression of joy. 
Adele Lukusa 42:08 
And I would love to leave it there. But it wouldn't be fair to discard the honesty of what his response. So instead of hammering again about how we should be holding spaces for all the complex feelings, the good, bad and ugly of Black hair, I'm going to let Lydia take over for a bit. 


Ledya 42:24 I had thought about this question. And my initial response was going to be like, “No, I don't actually find joy or liberation in my hair right now”. This binary, this oppositional narrative is -it's not as simple as that. And it's superficial too. It's part of misogyny, it's part of patriarchy to reduce the aesthetic of hair as like a superficial thing, as a self indulgent thing. Our relationship with our hair and the significance of our hair, the history of it, the power it has to inform our experiences, even with things like sadness and low self-esteem and mental health and feeling like displaced and feeling like you don't belong, feeling other, like these are all really powerful experiences, especially for young children. So, it's not just hair, so it's so much more. It's tied into so many things that define us and define our experiences. So resisting all these like patriarchal systems and like, oppressive systems to say, “No, I'm going to own all the complicated feelings that come with my hair. I'm going to love it and hate it and I'm going to reclaim my agency and you don't get to have a say." 
Adele Lukusa 43:57 All in all, Black hair is... complicated. It’s fun, it’s liberating, it’s cultural, it’s beautiful, it’s versatile, it’s resistant — but in the very same breath, it’s hard, it’s time consuming, it’s a learning curve trying to understand and cater to, it is almost irrevocably connected to our pain, self worth and self esteem, it’s policed and judged starting with our families but also from non-Black and Black strangers alike, and no matter how long we work on ourselves, those comments and perceptions will always be at play when others interact with us. There is so much layers to this topic and even as the mind behind this podcast, it’s taken me a lot out of time to truly sit with all these interviews, to sit with the knowledge and stories shared, to edit it down to its final form without ignoring my dry hair and even dryer scalp. But this is my hair. No one’s going to deal with it but me, so I’m gonna try my hardest to do what I can and not stress myself into another spiral, to be as gentle with my hair as Alyssa is with her friends and family, or as I should be with my already fragile mental health during this panoramic. I’ll try today, and the next, and the one after that too, for as long as I can — and I hope every Black person listening to this tries to too.