Speaker 1: What's up? Daily Show Ears Edition listeners, It's Roy Wood Jr.
Speaker 1: Coming to you again with a fresh podcast recommendation. While
Speaker 1: The Daily Show was on break this week, what you're
Speaker 1: about to hear is a recent episode of Beyond the Scenes,
Speaker 1: which is the podcast where we take a closer look
Speaker 1: and unpacked past Daily Show segments with the show's correspondents,
Speaker 1: writers and experts. This episode is a conversation about natural
Speaker 1: black hair, identity and discrimination, featuring correspondent Dulce Sloan, writer
Speaker 1: Josh Johnson, and producer Chelsea Williamson. If you like it,
Speaker 1: don't miss new episodes. They're out every Tuesday, and be
Speaker 1: sure to tell a friend. Available on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that
Speaker 1: goes a little defer into segments and topics that originally
Speaker 1: aired on The Daily Show. This is what this podcast
Speaker 1: is like, right, all right, you're pregnant, you're having a baby.
Speaker 1: You go to have the baby, right, and the doctor
Speaker 1: be like, surprised you got a baby. Then the doctor
Speaker 1: be like, it's another baby in there. It's a little
Speaker 1: smaller than the first baby, but we think you'll still
Speaker 1: love it the same. That's pretty much what this podcast is. Today,
Speaker 1: we've got a topic that was featured in the Dull
Speaker 1: Saying segment of The Daily Show. This segment is hosted
Speaker 1: by a Daily Show corresponded, dul Say Sloan. In this
Speaker 1: episode of dul Saying, she discussed the history of natural
Speaker 1: black hair. That's right, y'all. They got beauty of topics too.
Speaker 1: Throw the clip. Black hair is like blue. White people
Speaker 1: are scared of it, but for some reason they're obsessed
Speaker 1: with it. And for most of America's history, white people
Speaker 1: have done whatever they can to stop black boats and
Speaker 1: wearing our hair. And it's natural glory, and our hair
Speaker 1: has a lot of natural glory. When we lived in
Speaker 1: the Motherland, hair was so important that you could tell
Speaker 1: a family's name and social status just by their hairstyle. Basically,
Speaker 1: your hair was how you told all your business. And
Speaker 1: this is still true today. Show me a black man's
Speaker 1: ways and I'll tell you if he drives the bins
Speaker 1: or runs after the plus. But when the slave masters came,
Speaker 1: they cut off our hair as a way to controller
Speaker 1: and a race who we work. And you know how
Speaker 1: some people cut off their hair after a bad breakup.
Speaker 1: It was like that, except they didn't give us blond
Speaker 1: high so to walk me through this topic of natural
Speaker 1: black hair because I do not have a lot of hair,
Speaker 1: so I can't be talking about no hair journey. I'm
Speaker 1: joined by Dulce Sloan and a couple of other producers
Speaker 1: and writers from the Daily Show. First up, Well, first off, Dulceay,
Speaker 1: how are you doing to date? I'm well, Fran, how
Speaker 1: is you friend? Friends? Also joining us Daily Show Deep
Speaker 1: by producer Chelsea Williamson and Daily Show writer Josh Johnson. Chelsea, Josh,
Speaker 1: welcome to be on the scenes. How's it going? How
Speaker 1: you doing? Hey? Roy? Well? Thank you Chelsea for sounding
Speaker 1: excited about talking about black women's hair. This damn misogynists
Speaker 1: over there. This is I talk. I didn't made to
Speaker 1: do what they think bad. Are you excited black women hair?
Speaker 1: You know? This is actually why it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to find love because no one believes that's a whole lot.
Speaker 1: You got a whole girlfriend. You don't been one before years?
Speaker 1: Shut up, Joshed, I said, find but you found it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but before that. This sounds like a topic for a
Speaker 1: separate podcast. Still say, before we get into this conversation
Speaker 1: about natural hair and everything that goes within that journey,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, just break down the term natural hair
Speaker 1: and what it means to be natural. So the term
Speaker 1: natural hair literally just refers to hair as it how
Speaker 1: it grows out of black people's heads. So just our
Speaker 1: natural curly hair. So hair that's not been processed by chemicals. Um, so,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been relaxed, it hasn't been jerry curled, it
Speaker 1: hasn't been as curled. Ain't nobody putting no conk in it?
Speaker 1: But now, and I'm just asking as a layman and
Speaker 1: also a stupid man. Uh, does heat when you apply
Speaker 1: heat to hair? Is that still technically natural hair? That's
Speaker 1: just styled natural hair? It's styled because with hair that's
Speaker 1: been straightened, once you wash you the curls back up again. Okay,
Speaker 1: got you? Now? First off, how long have you all
Speaker 1: been natural? Let's just start there, like, and was there
Speaker 1: anything in particular that made the two of you just go,
Speaker 1: you know what? Fuck it? I'm done? I would ask you, Josh,
Speaker 1: but I know sometimes you just put a pick in
Speaker 1: your hand, let the afro grow. But Chelsea will start
Speaker 1: with you walk us through the journey to you deciding
Speaker 1: to go natural. Yeah, so I had kind of reached
Speaker 1: a point in college where I was getting the relaxers
Speaker 1: UM and then I was getting my hair straightened every
Speaker 1: two weeks. And in college you don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money and that is expensive to do UM. And
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense anymore either for me because like
Speaker 1: my hair is like fine, so like the relaxers and
Speaker 1: my hair were not jiving very well. So I went
Speaker 1: natural and I transitioned, which is like basically I kept
Speaker 1: the same length of hair for like three issue years
Speaker 1: and they were just cutting it. The relaxed ends off
Speaker 1: like over a period about like three years, like I said,
Speaker 1: And they'll say when when when? When? When was your
Speaker 1: Is it called an awakening? What's it called when you decide?
Speaker 1: You know what different a decision because it's like, so
Speaker 1: there's two ways to do it. I so I have
Speaker 1: been natural at multiple times, but because like my mother
Speaker 1: did my hair, because you know, she went to beauty
Speaker 1: school and all of that, So my mother relaxed my
Speaker 1: hair and my mother would do my hair. So like
Speaker 1: in middle school, I just always had braids. So braids
Speaker 1: are considered like a natural hair style. But I remember
Speaker 1: asking my mother. I was like, Mama, should go natural.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, you always need a perm But that
Speaker 1: was because she didn't think that I would do the
Speaker 1: work needed to maintain natural hair. But in like two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, I was like, I'm good with this because
Speaker 1: like my mama told me, like she stopped because only
Speaker 1: two thousand and six she was like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: be doing your hair anymore. And I was like, no
Speaker 1: one agreed to that, and so I was having it.
Speaker 1: Now go to like the Dominicans, but go get my
Speaker 1: hair done. And I was like, I'm kind of over
Speaker 1: this because also it's like, I like like big hair,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, well, wait a minute, I
Speaker 1: grow big hair. So because I was just tired of
Speaker 1: just seeing what I looked like relaxed, and I'm just like, well,
Speaker 1: let's see what all this works. So I grew my
Speaker 1: hair out for a year because my hair with girls,
Speaker 1: so I would have to get a relax for like
Speaker 1: every eight weeks because I would truly have two different
Speaker 1: textures of hair, and my hair would not sit down
Speaker 1: because it was curls with flat of hair on the
Speaker 1: end of it. So I grew my hair for a year.
Speaker 1: I had like so ends. I had braids like tree
Speaker 1: braids and all kinds of stuff, and then I did
Speaker 1: what's all the big chop? And so after growing it
Speaker 1: out for a year, I went to my mom's house
Speaker 1: and I was like, cut it, and you're gonna cry
Speaker 1: because when she used to trim my ends as a kid,
Speaker 1: I used to ball and my hair was getting shorter,
Speaker 1: and she's like, they're gonna cry, and I was like,
Speaker 1: chop it off. Cut it. She cut it all off.
Speaker 1: It's like, how do you feel? I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt pretty because I wanted to see what my
Speaker 1: hair looked like because I had done so much work
Speaker 1: trying to not have not have my hair on my
Speaker 1: head like it grows out of my head. So I
Speaker 1: was excited to see what it looked like and what
Speaker 1: I look like as an adult and a styled afro,
Speaker 1: because I've never had a styled afro before. You know
Speaker 1: what's interesting about that? You know, as it compares to
Speaker 1: black men, and you can correct me from wrong, ladies,
Speaker 1: but it seems like because women have so many different
Speaker 1: alterations of yourself, that making the decision to go no
Speaker 1: as my hair grows is what I will choose to
Speaker 1: style and deal with. Josh, were you making decisions because
Speaker 1: you have a throw? Now? At what point did racism
Speaker 1: and scrimination, if at all, play a role in deciding
Speaker 1: to finally wear a fro or keep you from having
Speaker 1: a frow for a while. I think that for the
Speaker 1: most part, what ended up happening is that my hair
Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand it, and so I used to
Speaker 1: when I lived in Chicago, I would just cut my
Speaker 1: own hair. I would just shave my own hair. I
Speaker 1: tried to give myself a line up, but it didn't work,
Speaker 1: and it looked like the bat symbol. It looked like
Speaker 1: that sambole every single time. And here's the thing, my
Speaker 1: natural hair. My natural hair looks like the bat symbol.
Speaker 1: So then people wouldn't even see the work that they
Speaker 1: actually thought that I made it the ears on purpose,
Speaker 1: and I did. It's just that that's how my hair grows.
Speaker 1: So then eventually I was like, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: see what my hair looks like, something similar to what
Speaker 1: dual Site is talking about, where I was like, let me,
Speaker 1: let me just grow it out, because I grew it
Speaker 1: out in high school and I went to this like,
Speaker 1: obviously you can't call it all white because I was there,
Speaker 1: but I went to a dominantly white Catholic school. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that there was something about my hair
Speaker 1: that was very proud of, especially my junior senior year
Speaker 1: that I wore and it was it was so different
Speaker 1: because not only was I different, but now I had
Speaker 1: a hairstyle that was very different, and I, as opposed
Speaker 1: to thinking it would make me insecure feel weird about,
Speaker 1: I was actually very proud of it. And it got
Speaker 1: to the point where other people thought it was as
Speaker 1: cool as I thought it was. And I only ended
Speaker 1: up um shaving it when I moved Chicago because I
Speaker 1: just couldn't take care of it or anything. And then
Speaker 1: when I grew it out again this time as an adult,
Speaker 1: I faced a different set of problems because at first,
Speaker 1: like when I do my hair, when I shave it,
Speaker 1: there's the bat symbol, which is a problem. But then
Speaker 1: when I when I grow my hair out, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of other problems that begin. So you know,
Speaker 1: duels Say has been a true angel and friend and
Speaker 1: helped me out a lot in this journey, taught taught
Speaker 1: me things that didn't know that probably I should have known.
Speaker 1: I I probably looked like a person undercover trying to
Speaker 1: get black hair secrets from a black woman because because
Speaker 1: I would ask her things sometimes where she was always
Speaker 1: she was never this this is the thing, this is
Speaker 1: why dult Say is a true friend. She never looked
Speaker 1: at me like, so, who would you like steal this
Speaker 1: hair from? Like like like this, clearly is it your
Speaker 1: heads or growing it out of for you to be
Speaker 1: asking me all these questions. So she was always very patient,
Speaker 1: helpful and everything. And then I think it became as
Speaker 1: I started to do more comedy and m and get
Speaker 1: a little bit more known, it became synonymous with me,
Speaker 1: like just that that extra circle around the circle that
Speaker 1: is my head and that that's like how people saw
Speaker 1: me from far away. That's like how people came to
Speaker 1: know me. The fact that my hair has changed. Now
Speaker 1: I'm really fine about who my true friends are because
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't recognize my face and we're
Speaker 1: not talking about a beard situation where no one's seen
Speaker 1: my face before my face looks like it looked I
Speaker 1: had an afro, and now I just have these twists
Speaker 1: that people are like, what it I got a mask
Speaker 1: on top of that too, you got a mask, you
Speaker 1: look different, My bad. I walked into the cellar no mask.
Speaker 1: So the comedy club where you work regularly. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were some people who were like, hey, we uh was it?
Speaker 1: Oh hey, I'm gonna be to see your vaccination card.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, you've seen it. I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: a comic, Josh. I'm like, yeah, this isn't a face
Speaker 1: off situation, like it's still my same head. And so
Speaker 1: that that now I've I've moved into the twist scenario.
Speaker 1: I've moved into the because duels say, actually, over the holiday,
Speaker 1: did did a whole little twist up for me? You
Speaker 1: know we we we celebrated the first day of kwanza
Speaker 1: I mean twisting his hair after washing and deep conditioning
Speaker 1: because if Dave, because Christmas Day, I detangled his hair.
Speaker 1: Then he came back over and I washed in deep
Speaker 1: conditioned and twisted his hair on the first day of quarts.
Speaker 1: Why you'll never offer none of that ship for me.
Speaker 1: I know my hair shortly. Are you trying to get
Speaker 1: me an edge up or something? I got clippers, Hey man,
Speaker 1: I know to do no clippers if it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of and the things that made me the most mad
Speaker 1: about twisting up Josh's hair is Josh has the hair
Speaker 1: that I wish I had. Like this, Nick has so
Speaker 1: much hair. I'm just sitting there doing his hair, going
Speaker 1: I'll kill you. I was so jealous the entire time
Speaker 1: I was doing with his hair, Like the twist that
Speaker 1: I had just in the back of his head was
Speaker 1: the number of twists I get on my whole head,
Speaker 1: whole ass hair envy. So Chelsea, the Deep Dive department,
Speaker 1: I've tried to explain it to people that the job
Speaker 1: of Deep Dive as a research unit is to go
Speaker 1: and find the groceries and then the writers in the
Speaker 1: correspondence decide what meal to a symbol with the groceries
Speaker 1: that you go and find. So when you made the
Speaker 1: decision to pitch this, dy'll say in segment on natural hair,
Speaker 1: what were some of the things that you discovered that
Speaker 1: you didn't know about the journey of black women in
Speaker 1: natural hair? What are some of the things you want
Speaker 1: to you you discovered uncovered You know, y'all know the
Speaker 1: hell I'm trying to say, shit now, what what were
Speaker 1: some of the things you uncovered in your research? And
Speaker 1: then after that they'll say, I want to hear from
Speaker 1: you on some of the things you wish could have
Speaker 1: stayed in the piece. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: didn't know was how many like legal cases specifically existed,
Speaker 1: especially in the eighties, like we did go over the
Speaker 1: Bow deeric ten moment where she wore breeds and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it was like a craze all over
Speaker 1: the US. And you know, there was actually a specific
Speaker 1: legal case where a black woman then was fired by
Speaker 1: her employer for wearing braid and it was because the
Speaker 1: employer was like, this is trendy, you know, like this
Speaker 1: you just saw ten and that's why you did it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, no, this is a cultural hairstyle and
Speaker 1: she lost the case. UM. So I feel like I
Speaker 1: didn't know like all the details of the legality, Like, um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't as aware of that. So it was good
Speaker 1: to learn about that side of things. And then other
Speaker 1: than that, I think just how far it goes into
Speaker 1: dress and workplace codes, Like it's like you know about it,
Speaker 1: and you know that is the reason that black women,
Speaker 1: um and black men did not grow out our hair
Speaker 1: for so many years was because of dress and workplace
Speaker 1: in societal codes. But just like hearing about like you know,
Speaker 1: the military especially banning black hair specifically in natural hairstyles
Speaker 1: and all of that, you know it, but it's like
Speaker 1: to actually like read it and see the cases themselves.
Speaker 1: It's it's always a little bit different. And so then
Speaker 1: based on all of that, dull say, what were the
Speaker 1: parts that were important to you? What were the points
Speaker 1: that you like they got to know this because we
Speaker 1: always go into segments like all right, we know it's
Speaker 1: a lot of groceries, we can't put everything into the meal,
Speaker 1: but what are the things that had to be in
Speaker 1: there for you? I think the great thing is is
Speaker 1: like the things that were included in the piece was
Speaker 1: everything that I wanted to see. But I think something
Speaker 1: that would have been interesting to talk about that we
Speaker 1: never really talked about is that when I started going natural,
Speaker 1: a lot of the slick comments that I got were
Speaker 1: from older black women about me going natural, Like I
Speaker 1: would just be out in some women would just walk
Speaker 1: past me like, oh, your hair is nappy, and I'm like, bitch,
Speaker 1: do you know how long it took me to comb
Speaker 1: this out? I did a twist out, I combed it
Speaker 1: like it's like this hair is style, this hair is done,
Speaker 1: but we don't talk about how because that hair, our
Speaker 1: natural hair, was seen as unkept and nappy and unprofessional.
Speaker 1: That permeated through Black culture to the point that you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't wear I have natural into like the seventies,
Speaker 1: and then after the seventies, everybody was relaxed again, and
Speaker 1: then we did it again in the nineties when the
Speaker 1: pro Black movement, and then we relaxed again. And then
Speaker 1: now we've come back to because after the nineties we've
Speaker 1: kind of been able to kind of maintain having natural hair.
Speaker 1: But like in the eighties, you really didn't see he
Speaker 1: saw Alfred waterd maybe he was a sister soldier immediately
Speaker 1: if you had he who called you Antelo Davis? No, No,
Speaker 1: what called me a Davis? Okay, it wasn't a bief thing.
Speaker 1: I was gonna make a totally different point, but yeah,
Speaker 1: to what you're saying, I feel like, because our hair
Speaker 1: was seeing as this unkempt or it had to be
Speaker 1: conformed in a way to make it comfortable for other people,
Speaker 1: no matter how uncomfortable it was for us. That now
Speaker 1: you see crazy hairstyles that I actually think are super progressive.
Speaker 1: I feel like the weekend has the things for black
Speaker 1: hair that we're never gonna have to go back like that.
Speaker 1: The weekend has made no no, The weekend has made
Speaker 1: such an insane move that the Overton window has shifted
Speaker 1: so much that now everything is is dope them locks
Speaker 1: where everybody just looks like a lego or palm tree, right,
Speaker 1: the palm trees first time played Old Man or the
Speaker 1: um like the Mexican the candy, the Spanish candy where
Speaker 1: the tamarin comes out the peal. That's what that looks like.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, so we're just honestly, I'm
Speaker 1: glad we're free, uh to be able to walk out
Speaker 1: here like Jim Henson characters. But sometimes it's like, okay, sir,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't get it. And also there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things I just don't get and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, this isn't for me, you know, this is
Speaker 1: for the children. I'm glad they're this free, But your
Speaker 1: dreads look nuts. And that's my only thing where I'm
Speaker 1: just like, it can be wild, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to look right like it's like but I can say
Speaker 1: that it's just the person's interpretation because we've all seen
Speaker 1: certain like certain sets of locks and been like that's
Speaker 1: just the wilderness or people's afros where just like or
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, when Josh would get the sleep box right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing, here's the thing. Not only did
Speaker 1: I love by short it was short, I actually felt
Speaker 1: like it looked like a plan because when it was,
Speaker 1: when it was short, it was like so tight in
Speaker 1: my sleep. But okay, so for anyone listening that doesn't
Speaker 1: know what a sleep boxes, um, I when I was
Speaker 1: initially growing my afro out, I so I have night terrors, right,
Speaker 1: and so I would go to bed and I would
Speaker 1: do a lot of rolling around because I'm in my
Speaker 1: in my dreams fighting for my life. And when I
Speaker 1: woke up, I would have essentially a nice, smooth, overpressed
Speaker 1: look that was completely even. It was like a miracle.
Speaker 1: It was like completely even. And once my hair got
Speaker 1: long enough, it no longer looked like a plant or anything.
Speaker 1: But the begin sleep box was amazing. Say, listen, you
Speaker 1: know we were never on board. Um, but because the
Speaker 1: thing is, if he tried to do it, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have made sense. But what you needed was those two
Speaker 1: two good hours on this side and then two good
Speaker 1: hours on the back and then two more hours on
Speaker 1: the other side, and so you just had that pressure
Speaker 1: kind of so it looks like a box haircut. And
Speaker 1: so sometimes people come in. But you know, I loved
Speaker 1: how because Josh, didn't your mom call you? Will I
Speaker 1: ain't one day. Look, I've had a lot of hair
Speaker 1: and things happening in my life. Okay, So this is
Speaker 1: my thing. The reason I bring up the weekend, the
Speaker 1: reason that I think all this is good stuff is
Speaker 1: because to me, that's what freedom looks like. Freedom is
Speaker 1: the freedom to maybe not make the best choices. That's
Speaker 1: real freedom. I mean that is And it's like so
Speaker 1: the fact that we don't ever talk about how like
Speaker 1: the things that we say to each other because like
Speaker 1: I knew growing up, I couldn't walk around be a
Speaker 1: little girl at the afro because aunties would not allow
Speaker 1: with like that hair is not getting pressed, it's not
Speaker 1: getting relaxed. Like the only time is a little black
Speaker 1: girl that your hair can be really natural is if
Speaker 1: your mother's putting it in like barretts and little braids
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. You were never walking around with
Speaker 1: an afra ever, because you're walking around with an Afra
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, your mama didn't have time to do
Speaker 1: your hair. Why are you out here looking like the
Speaker 1: After the break, I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that Bo Derek situation and the kind of
Speaker 1: modern version of it with regards to the Kardashians, and
Speaker 1: once you choose to go on the natural hair journey,
Speaker 1: I need to know how do you learn, Where do
Speaker 1: you learn, who teaches you, who becomes your natural hair? Yoda,
Speaker 1: We'll do that beyond the scenes. Chelsea, you just told
Speaker 1: us excuse me Daily show Deep Die produced Chelsea Williamson. Uh,
Speaker 1: you just spoke in the previous break about a black
Speaker 1: woman who lost her discrimination case with her employer because
Speaker 1: she had on rose like Bo Derek, which surely she
Speaker 1: only did because of both Derek. Can we talk about
Speaker 1: how ridiculous that is and also like, wasn't that like
Speaker 1: more of a present day version of that with the Kardashians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean cultural appropriation of black hairstyles is nothing new,
Speaker 1: um in the least, and I feel like it is
Speaker 1: something that we've been seeing for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and most recently through the Kardashians. Like I remember when
Speaker 1: Kim first started wearing those French braids, and they started
Speaker 1: calling them boxer braids, but actually they were boxed. It
Speaker 1: was just like they were taking and making all these
Speaker 1: new words for these things that like black women specifically
Speaker 1: have been doing for like hundreds thousands of years. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: this is my mound of hair. You mean afro, no
Speaker 1: mound of hair. But the thing is like, and I'm
Speaker 1: not always here to defend because I mean, I love them,
Speaker 1: nobody says. But the thing that was like because remember
Speaker 1: as a little girl, warning like the French braids because
Speaker 1: a little girls have French braids. And then my mother
Speaker 1: kept putting corn rows in my hair and it was
Speaker 1: like two French braids look was great. Two corn rows
Speaker 1: does not look cute, right, especially it doesn't get the
Speaker 1: same effect right unless it gonna be huge. And so
Speaker 1: because like two corn rows is like this is utilitarian,
Speaker 1: like I've got this is I'm getting hair out the
Speaker 1: way because like I currently have on a wig, my
Speaker 1: hair is in two corn rows going underneath it. I
Speaker 1: only learned how a corn row decently during lockdown, and
Speaker 1: it was only to get my hair under a wig
Speaker 1: because my protective style in the wintertime, because winter, cold
Speaker 1: weather is too much for an afrol, it's wig. So
Speaker 1: when I started seeing because the reason it's not I'm
Speaker 1: calling box of braids because those UFC girls, we're wearing
Speaker 1: them to keep their hair out of their face because
Speaker 1: I guess a ponytail wasn't enough, right. And then all
Speaker 1: of these white girls started wearing the box they call
Speaker 1: the boxer braids, and we were just like, they're just
Speaker 1: corn rows. And then it became a trend. So the
Speaker 1: Kardashians started wearing it, and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's cultural appropriation. Wait wait, why wouldn't we yelling at
Speaker 1: them UFC girls because they started it, Because that's where
Speaker 1: the stupid term came from. Because if we would have
Speaker 1: started with the Kardashians, they would have been called boxer braids.
Speaker 1: That would have been called like, you know, hitting something else.
Speaker 1: You you know what I'm saying, Like Chris Jenner would
Speaker 1: have coined the term for this. You know, the term
Speaker 1: came from girls in the UFC, So no one was
Speaker 1: saying that it was cultural appropriation on that side. But
Speaker 1: now we're yelling at the Kardashians were doing copro appropriate.
Speaker 1: I think the issue is that I don't think any
Speaker 1: of the UFC fighters knew that they were getting boxer braid.
Speaker 1: They were just like, just braik your hair, so don't
Speaker 1: so you don't get knocked out. And then it was
Speaker 1: called boxer braids by the people, the Zeitgeists at large,
Speaker 1: if you will. So, I guess the thing is that
Speaker 1: the Kardashians, because they've always aligned themselves so close to
Speaker 1: black culture, anything that they do that dabbles in black culture,
Speaker 1: I think there's an expectation or demand from black people
Speaker 1: that the Kardashians have a knowledge of what it is
Speaker 1: they're doing, and I think a lot of the time
Speaker 1: they don't. But when those girls who did UFC, they
Speaker 1: also grew up in America, so they know what corn
Speaker 1: rows look like. Because if the option was they could
Speaker 1: have just got French braids, because the only difference between
Speaker 1: a French braid and a corn row is how you
Speaker 1: turn your hands. It's the same technique, except for a
Speaker 1: corn row you pull their hair under the braid and
Speaker 1: for a French bread you pull the hair over the bread.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Because I literally did like a
Speaker 1: when commusion places in a communication class in college, we
Speaker 1: had to do a like a speech where we had
Speaker 1: to like teach how to do something, and that's what
Speaker 1: I taught was that this is a corn row, this
Speaker 1: is a French braid. And there are black girls and
Speaker 1: white girls in classes, like wait a minute, we've been
Speaker 1: doing the same thing the whole time, Like basically, but
Speaker 1: those girls knew they were getting corn rows, so they
Speaker 1: should have been getting heat too. Everybody should have. We're mad,
Speaker 1: We're mad. Why we picking and choose? It the only difference.
Speaker 1: The only thing I'll say about the pick and Choose
Speaker 1: that his people came for Kim because she cannot fight.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people wanted to say
Speaker 1: something to those two girls, but they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: she has covered in blood. She clearly doesn't have operate
Speaker 1: at the same level. Like maybe We've got to let
Speaker 1: this one go. Like a lot of those a lot
Speaker 1: of those UFC fighters have partners, and I'm sure what
Speaker 1: the partners wanted to be. There might be there might
Speaker 1: be a partner that just do saw the whole thing
Speaker 1: covers like baby, you may want to call them coral
Speaker 1: rolls because never mind, you know what I'm gonna get,
Speaker 1: tell me what to do. I'm a fighter. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and get dinner ready. Uh, don't don't worry
Speaker 1: about what I said. So Chelsea to Do says point
Speaker 1: about learning corn rows basically as an essential tool for
Speaker 1: the creative evolution of her career. What was your journey
Speaker 1: like in learning how to do different natural hairstyles and maintain?
Speaker 1: Like where did you learn? Like, once you make the
Speaker 1: decision all right, I'm gonna be natural, where do most
Speaker 1: people will go to learn how to do that to
Speaker 1: the maximum? I feel Josh. I would ask you, Josh,
Speaker 1: but you go to Dolcy's house, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: ask you. I definitely learned on YouTube University what it
Speaker 1: was called YouTube University. Yes, I learned on YouTube University,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I was just looking up various
Speaker 1: like natural hair YouTube videos like that was like, I
Speaker 1: want to say, the like mid twenty tens is like
Speaker 1: the peak of like natural hair YouTube. Um so I
Speaker 1: was just in honestly with like everybody else and all
Speaker 1: the natural hair blogs like so there was just a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to kind of figure it out. But
Speaker 1: I tried everything. Most of it didn't work, honestly, Like
Speaker 1: I remember when everybody's like, oh you gotta put the
Speaker 1: oil in the gel and then the and all this
Speaker 1: stuff that was taking like twenty steps, and like I
Speaker 1: had to go through all of that putting like I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, or at one point putting rice water in
Speaker 1: your air's supposed to help, and like you know, henna
Speaker 1: and rice water, putting henna on your hair, like just
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff that like it makes it
Speaker 1: stronger and it works so well for natural hair and dada,
Speaker 1: da dada. I went through all of that. Um. Only
Speaker 1: more recently have I started like following natural hair stylus
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and I've like got down pat Like in
Speaker 1: the past, like six to eight months would I say,
Speaker 1: Like now I'm like, okay, I have a generally like
Speaker 1: three step rule. It's pretty quick and like I don't
Speaker 1: take all this time because it really used to be
Speaker 1: a wash day for me and I was tired of it,
Speaker 1: like I was like, nobody has time for this, and
Speaker 1: now I'm like it's like an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: I'm in and out like because I was like I
Speaker 1: can't do this. I think you get to a point though,
Speaker 1: And it's also been taught to a lot of girls
Speaker 1: because we do you learn from a lot of people
Speaker 1: from the internet is you think you have to do
Speaker 1: like these ten to twenty steps to get your hair
Speaker 1: to look a certain way, and it's like you really don't. Honestly,
Speaker 1: for most of us, it's best to keep it simple,
Speaker 1: but you do have to kind of have that trial
Speaker 1: and tribulate. Like the trial in tribulation of it. I
Speaker 1: feel like every natural hair girl, like every girl's natural hair,
Speaker 1: has gone through it where you were just at one
Speaker 1: point doing a bunch of things and it was taking
Speaker 1: you seven hours to do your hair. Well. The other
Speaker 1: thing is just like one. That's where like hair type
Speaker 1: started being such a big deal because it's like my
Speaker 1: mother and I have completely different hair types. So my
Speaker 1: mother's hair is a much looser curl than mine, So
Speaker 1: my mother's hair grows differently then my hair. So I
Speaker 1: had to because like when Josh came over, when I
Speaker 1: deep conditioned his hair, I made a conditioner, because when
Speaker 1: I deep conditioned my hair, I make the conditioner. And
Speaker 1: so like a party, yeah was doing it. I thought
Speaker 1: she was cooking for a second, like like like somebody
Speaker 1: condition would be smelling good dog because she smells edible.
Speaker 1: She had the egg and she had the avocado and stuff.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I didn't I didn't know it
Speaker 1: was gonna be breakfast too. This is amazing. It was
Speaker 1: an egg and avocado and uh olive oil because I
Speaker 1: didn't have enough. I didn't have enough my sweet almond oil,
Speaker 1: and I blend it up and then if it's I
Speaker 1: make enough where I'm gonna put it in the fridge
Speaker 1: because this is all I'll take some of like my
Speaker 1: uh regular like the store bought deep conditioner because there's
Speaker 1: like preservatives and chemicals in it, and I'll mix some
Speaker 1: of that in sometimes if I'm making a big batch,
Speaker 1: so it'll stay in the fridge. Because if you just
Speaker 1: put olive oil and the egg, you just basically fancy
Speaker 1: ass mayonnaise. That's not gonna last a month. So but
Speaker 1: in something like the last time I did it, I
Speaker 1: took like a whole leaf of alow blended that bitch
Speaker 1: up too, because like people are like making their own gel,
Speaker 1: so you have to customize it based on the texture
Speaker 1: of the hair, is what you're saying. It's not even
Speaker 1: just a texture of the hair, it's you know, like
Speaker 1: Josh has low porosity hair, meaning that Josh's hair hair,
Speaker 1: hair is ash. His hair is always dry. My hair
Speaker 1: is high perox, so it takes Josh's hair a long
Speaker 1: time to get wet and then it drives very quick.
Speaker 1: My hair gets wet quickly and does it takes longer
Speaker 1: to dry, So you have to know when you're conditioning.
Speaker 1: It's like people kept talking about the lock method, the
Speaker 1: lock method, so it's like use like a liquid and
Speaker 1: then an oil and then a cream. And then I
Speaker 1: remember going, well, oil seals the hair, so if you're
Speaker 1: putting a cream on after you seal the hair, then
Speaker 1: you're just wasting products making it's not making sense. And
Speaker 1: then every and I remember, I remember when everybody was
Speaker 1: putting always like there was like everybody was putting coconut
Speaker 1: oil on everything, was putting on our skin, we was
Speaker 1: putting in our hair. And it's like you have to
Speaker 1: learn that putting oil on something doesn't moisturize it. Putting
Speaker 1: oil on something makes it oily. So people are putting
Speaker 1: coconut oil on dry hair and then they just had
Speaker 1: oily dry hair. So then we had to go through
Speaker 1: this whole cycle with a coconut oil. And then everyone
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, we should be doing this like this
Speaker 1: so it was like, okay, it was moisturizing it. So
Speaker 1: there's every couple of years there's a trend. It's a trend.
Speaker 1: But the reason that there's a trend in the way
Speaker 1: we treat our hair is because for so long we
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to wear our hair as a crew out
Speaker 1: of our head. So we literally lost a connection of
Speaker 1: how to take care of our hair because for how
Speaker 1: long up until like the seventies they brought us over
Speaker 1: here sixteen nineteen. From sixteen nineteenth to the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: we weren't doing our own hair. We were braking it
Speaker 1: up and putting it underneath something you weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: or like if you look at like the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: they were styling their hair to look like European hairstyles,
Speaker 1: so you were still putting heat on it. You know,
Speaker 1: they can tell like the Marcel iron in hot comb
Speaker 1: and all the other stuff. We were putting heat on
Speaker 1: our hair to be able to do here European hairstyles
Speaker 1: and black men even though they were their hair quote
Speaker 1: unquote natural, they still had to keep it cut low. Ye,
Speaker 1: they had to keep it cut low. It was, and
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like black men were walking around with
Speaker 1: big gass afros in nineteen thirty five. Now it was
Speaker 1: putting parts in it and the thirties looking like Cad
Speaker 1: Galloway and ship Concident. So with the waves after the break,
Speaker 1: I want to expand on that point, don't say, because
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the responsibility that we have
Speaker 1: to one another as a black community to foster positive
Speaker 1: relationships with our natural hair and what the resources are.
Speaker 1: And we need to talk about the legislation side of
Speaker 1: this and the Crown Act and exactly what that is.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you about the terrible haircut I
Speaker 1: almost got in Canada, but we were wanta talk about hairstyles.
Speaker 1: We regret this. This is beyond the scenes, guess Canada.
Speaker 1: I was up there. Let's talk about the Crown Act.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the legal side of change on this
Speaker 1: issue with black hair, and then let's talk about what
Speaker 1: we could be doing as a black people's in the community.
Speaker 1: Chelsea break down the Crown Act for us. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the Crown Act was founded and it stands for creating
Speaker 1: a respectful and open world for natural hair. Um if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, and it basically was created to fight
Speaker 1: these legal battles and to try and make sure I'm
Speaker 1: sorry them letters may as something Yeah, any as I
Speaker 1: thought was just always triving it wrong and it would continue,
Speaker 1: are all right, we did our research, no problem. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's created to fight against these um discriminatory like practices
Speaker 1: and codes that are existing in laws and in workplaces
Speaker 1: and dress codes. Um. And I think it's been legalized
Speaker 1: in quite a few states, but not every state. It's
Speaker 1: legal to like where your natural hair as is, which
Speaker 1: is crazy to say out loud, but it's true. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's what the Crown Act is seeking to do.
Speaker 1: It's like seeking to actually go and make sure that
Speaker 1: natural hair is legal in every single state because that
Speaker 1: should be a no brainer. The only time that that
Speaker 1: seems like a bad idea to me is when I
Speaker 1: see these football players with the long wrong locks because
Speaker 1: I was watching some football game and I saw a
Speaker 1: lock on the field. They deliberately target your locks and
Speaker 1: then we'll take it off the field like a trophy
Speaker 1: like the predator. Because they said it's not a part
Speaker 1: of because like grabbing the locks isn't concluded like grabbing
Speaker 1: the uniform, right, Yeah, it's it's all part of your
Speaker 1: physical being. I can legally grab that. If you're a
Speaker 1: football player, wouldn't you tuck your locks into the back
Speaker 1: of the because then how would you not know I'm
Speaker 1: a bad motherfucker or not? Yeah? Yeah, some of them
Speaker 1: do it. Oh got you got you that don't want
Speaker 1: a bald spot? They do it. But you're gonna leave
Speaker 1: with a plug. Have a plug. Do they make the
Speaker 1: guys with just like long hair, do they make them
Speaker 1: tuck their hair like Detroit Pamelou used to tuck his hair.
Speaker 1: I feel Paula Mallo, I feel like his I feel
Speaker 1: like his hair flowed from under his hair. But like
Speaker 1: that's he's on the NFL players with a with a
Speaker 1: shampoo commercial, right, he had a head and shoulders at Well,
Speaker 1: that's some gorgeous man, though. Is he tonguing someone? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Somewhere over there, and I ain't gonna guess. I ain't
Speaker 1: trying to get canceled. He from over there. I'm making
Speaker 1: people with one of them. I'm making humans with that.
Speaker 1: I got that right there. So we can legislate some
Speaker 1: level of acceptance, But what are things that we could
Speaker 1: be doing as a people to create more acceptance within
Speaker 1: our community. When it comes to supporting people on the
Speaker 1: natural hair journey, are we not supporting? I mean, embrace
Speaker 1: everything that you see because I feel like this is
Speaker 1: what's happening when you're white. You can have like literally
Speaker 1: the same hair or somebody else minus one thing and
Speaker 1: it's a whole different hairstyle. There's no there's no way
Speaker 1: to wear hair that is not considered a style like
Speaker 1: that you can't like even if it is unkept. They're
Speaker 1: still like that's where grunge came from. Like there's no
Speaker 1: situation with white people where they're doing something wrong with
Speaker 1: their hair. They may be doing something that's like unkempt
Speaker 1: to someone else, but everything is a style, and I
Speaker 1: think that we still have like a little bit of
Speaker 1: of of ways to go when it comes to like
Speaker 1: they're the ways our hair grows naturally, So a lot
Speaker 1: of people naturally lock up, a lot of people naturally
Speaker 1: get a froze everything. But then there are some things
Speaker 1: where I think that kind of to what Dulsay was
Speaker 1: saying before, there is like some self police again there
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, why can't he have like you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of like s curl to the side or
Speaker 1: what like whatever, goofy thing it looks like because then
Speaker 1: the same way that fashion works, that will like give
Speaker 1: rise to a thing that's actually cool one day because
Speaker 1: I think, but I think it's because we have been
Speaker 1: taught that we have to be presentable. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's just all black people are the southern
Speaker 1: black people, but we have when you step out the house,
Speaker 1: also we are flashy asked people. We are flashy, asked,
Speaker 1: get dressed, like because I remember being in Vegas and
Speaker 1: we were going to a show and the only people
Speaker 1: that were dressed up to go to because like these
Speaker 1: are like you know Vegas shows, like big as Vegas
Speaker 1: shows of these hotels and stuff. These white folks out
Speaker 1: here in cargo pants and Margaritaville t shirts. Black folks
Speaker 1: was dressed. There might only been a few of us there,
Speaker 1: but we go we when we go out, we go out.
Speaker 1: You can't even the most hood asked dude, his sneakers
Speaker 1: are still clean. You see what I'm saying. So for
Speaker 1: us to get past the self policing, we would also
Speaker 1: have to get past the fact that, like, yo, if
Speaker 1: you don't come out the house look in a certain way,
Speaker 1: even if you have no money, you still come out
Speaker 1: the house looking decent. You see what I'm saying, decent
Speaker 1: within our people, right because you still have to come
Speaker 1: out of the house looking presentable, because you already have
Speaker 1: to deal with all of the racism and all the
Speaker 1: other stuff. No matter how many degrees you have, if
Speaker 1: you're nigger in the Bends, you were nigger in the Bends,
Speaker 1: it don't matter. You're still a target. So the mindset is,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna be a target, I gotta look good.
Speaker 1: So it's like why so I think sometimes I'll see
Speaker 1: certain people like, yo, why are you gonna if you
Speaker 1: out here with your head looking like this and your
Speaker 1: clothes is a little ug cap, you're inviting the cops
Speaker 1: to funk with you? And I think that's how sometimes
Speaker 1: we think, because even if you out here looking nice,
Speaker 1: the cops are still gonna funk with you. But see
Speaker 1: what I love now about us as a people, do
Speaker 1: say to that point, if I can piggy back and
Speaker 1: extrapolate on your point to that point, what I love
Speaker 1: is that in the nineties and Alabama, the perception would
Speaker 1: have been why he out here looking in any kind
Speaker 1: of way? You ain't got no good head. You need
Speaker 1: to rush your head. Whereas now I could see a
Speaker 1: black person with locks, with dreads with the afro that
Speaker 1: they ain't quite figured out what they want to do
Speaker 1: it yet, and just respect that they own the journey.
Speaker 1: It's almost in the same way the hoodie has become
Speaker 1: this accepted you. You didn't want to look like a
Speaker 1: certain type of person if you're where it is where
Speaker 1: now it's like, no, this is what I wear. I'm
Speaker 1: proud to wear it, and I want you to respect
Speaker 1: and accept me no matter what I'm doing on my body,
Speaker 1: being hair or close Chelsea, how much does what role
Speaker 1: does retailers because because y'all y'all know mcgirl, y'all know,
Speaker 1: my partner salone and saloon like meets with other women
Speaker 1: with natural hair just on the street, like they just
Speaker 1: see each other and just you got your hair, I
Speaker 1: got natural hair. Where you get your natural hair stuff
Speaker 1: and it's like a conversation, like it's like buying weed.
Speaker 1: In nine how much of a responsibility do retailers play
Speaker 1: and getting more hair care products and creating more shelf
Speaker 1: space for this style of hair that's becoming more prevalent.
Speaker 1: I think they're a big part. I also think that
Speaker 1: a lot of them need to stop having an ethnic
Speaker 1: hair caroline, Like I'll um, there's still a lot where
Speaker 1: it's literally called the ethnic hair care Ill. It's like,
Speaker 1: just put it in the hair care section and we
Speaker 1: will know. Here's your section, Negro. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love it. I don't want to get confused by panting
Speaker 1: and all this other goofy shit. Have my ship over
Speaker 1: here that you can segregate there. I don't have time
Speaker 1: to being. I don't we going through garnier fruit trees
Speaker 1: on that suave ship. No, put my ship over here.
Speaker 1: I know my hair gonna get moisturized instead of me
Speaker 1: getting tricked by bottles looking at like not all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I got baby ship. I got Johnathan and
Speaker 1: Johnson my house keep you can keep my ships separate.
Speaker 1: Excuse excuse separate, but equal over there. Go ahead, and
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying. I do understand what you're saying,
Speaker 1: though duels say. And I also don't mind. Maybe if
Speaker 1: you have it in a specific section, that's fine, But
Speaker 1: I just don't think that needs to be called the
Speaker 1: ethnic section like I think, look at it, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does not need a name. If we look at it
Speaker 1: and I see can too and shame moisture. I know
Speaker 1: where I'm at, you know, right, Um, so I would say,
Speaker 1: like that's a big thing. And then also a lot
Speaker 1: of these companies need to be a lot more worry
Speaker 1: about what they're putting into these black hair care products,
Speaker 1: because hair care products in general have a lot of chemicals,
Speaker 1: but especially black ones because they were made for like
Speaker 1: a lot of them used to be made for people
Speaker 1: with relaxers. They had to have a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in them, um that may not have been very good.
Speaker 1: I think that could also be um improved. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: also just depending on the different textures, like I think
Speaker 1: you need to carry stuff that's for all textures of
Speaker 1: curly hair, um, not just for women with looser curl textures.
Speaker 1: And just so everybody is being included. All I know,
Speaker 1: if one more white person comes up with me talking
Speaker 1: about Diva curl, I'm going to jail. Do they try
Speaker 1: to touch your hair? Are white people still trying to
Speaker 1: touch black women? Is the memo in Spridge? No people
Speaker 1: still trying to touch women? Um in any year, in
Speaker 1: any decade. No, it's white people all of a sudden
Speaker 1: are now wearing their curly I guess it's trickled down
Speaker 1: to them now they're not straightening their hair like they
Speaker 1: used to. And I know whose company, Diva Curl is.
Speaker 1: I've never met any black woman who has any type
Speaker 1: of four texture that uses it. I don't even know
Speaker 1: abody with the three that uses it. You know, they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Diva Curl, And I'm like, I don't use this ship.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I have four sea hair. We're not. We
Speaker 1: don't have the same needs. You're still having to strip
Speaker 1: oil from your hair. I don't mean there's no there.
Speaker 1: I have nothing to strip. I'm just trying to cleanse
Speaker 1: and moisturize. So now they're starting to triple that. So
Speaker 1: now there are you know, non black people of color
Speaker 1: and white people with curly hair that are now like.
Speaker 1: Shame Moisture got in trouble a while back, Chelsea, You
Speaker 1: remember this Folks was mad because they had a commercial
Speaker 1: and it was some curly hair, red haired girl in
Speaker 1: the commercial. And I think the main thing was that
Speaker 1: was the first commercial that Shame Moisture was going to
Speaker 1: put on TV and it was a curly haired white
Speaker 1: girl in it, and black women were like, Yo, we've
Speaker 1: been on board with y'all since day one, and y'all
Speaker 1: do yall's first commercial as a white girl in it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: hell are you talking about? And they and I think
Speaker 1: they ended up pulling the commercial or something. The story
Speaker 1: that I always cared the most naturally like black hair
Speaker 1: products for me that wasn't the beauty supply store was Walmart.
Speaker 1: I was about to say Walgreens. Yeah, yeah, Walmart had it.
Speaker 1: And then Target all of a sudden started because like
Speaker 1: before you had to go hunt down Carol's daughter, you
Speaker 1: had to go hunt down shape moisture, you had to
Speaker 1: go hunt down to leave with g products, right, and
Speaker 1: so now it's I can roll and Target and go
Speaker 1: and get these products. And so there has to be
Speaker 1: a thing where it's like we have to talk about
Speaker 1: you know, we have different textures of hair, and different
Speaker 1: textures of hair have different needs because like I can
Speaker 1: tell if there's a black girl on TV that curl
Speaker 1: gonna be loose. Yep. We don't even have time to
Speaker 1: even get into that. Because the more natural hair styles
Speaker 1: you see on television helps to normalize natural hair. But
Speaker 1: then that means that you have to hire people who
Speaker 1: know how to do natural hair so that you can
Speaker 1: get the right hair care for the actors and the
Speaker 1: actresses set who have natural hair. Lord, this lady tried
Speaker 1: to cut my hair the wrong direction one time on
Speaker 1: the show. We don't even have time the direction. I
Speaker 1: cut my hair to the front. She took them clippers
Speaker 1: and went to the back like I was getting enlisted
Speaker 1: in the Marines. So to close out the show, let's
Speaker 1: stay right there in that pocket, everybody, one by one,
Speaker 1: give me your worst hairstyle you ever had, hairstyle you
Speaker 1: thought was the ship, and you look back on it
Speaker 1: and go, I should not have done that, Josh Johnson.
Speaker 1: It's fitting that I go first. I guess, Wow, what
Speaker 1: an attack because you said all of it like you
Speaker 1: were ready right, like just your worst hairs that he
Speaker 1: thought was popping. That it was at Josh john like
Speaker 1: it was. It was all one breath one. I know
Speaker 1: you got six or seven in the clip. Gon give
Speaker 1: us one. Well, I'll give you one. That was not
Speaker 1: my fault. So I got a hair cut from a
Speaker 1: guy that while he was cutting by hair, his fiance
Speaker 1: broke up with him, and so then he still tried
Speaker 1: to finish the cut. Emotional like stressed out everything. Then
Speaker 1: then then at what point he like tries to call her,
Speaker 1: so he's like can I can I just say? I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, do what you gotta do, and that
Speaker 1: he calls her doesn't win her back on the phone call.
Speaker 1: So now I just he has the less of my worse.
Speaker 1: Now he's worse. Now he has the rest of my
Speaker 1: head to do. And then I get I get on
Speaker 1: the bus and I know I don't look good because
Speaker 1: he didn't offer me the mirror. He was just like
Speaker 1: he was just he was finished. And there was like
Speaker 1: I Pippen, like I appreciate you coming through, appreciate you,
Speaker 1: understand of everything, but like he's still like so upset
Speaker 1: that he's not in the world. And so then I leave,
Speaker 1: and there was there was someone who genuinely walked up
Speaker 1: to be all the busses when I was in Chicago
Speaker 1: watching me all the bus. I was like, uh are
Speaker 1: you are you all right? Like do you do you
Speaker 1: have somewhere to go? I it's like you were hopeless
Speaker 1: a hundred percent a hundred percent. And they gave me
Speaker 1: a one love as they got off the bus, and
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, Okay, this is the probably the
Speaker 1: worst haircut that I've ever had in my entire life.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know what, you know what? The
Speaker 1: only thing I can compare to is uh, it's actually duels,
Speaker 1: like this is why I was so stressed out about
Speaker 1: getting haircuts? Was this this exactly? But it was the
Speaker 1: close that can think to. It is in the commercial Roy.
Speaker 1: You might remember in the commercial for the video game
Speaker 1: I think it was Ready to Rumble where one of
Speaker 1: the guys, like the black guy with the afrow really
Speaker 1: hard and a piece of his afro came out. It
Speaker 1: was like, Chelsea, give us a legacy hairstyle that you
Speaker 1: look back on with regret. I'm gonna guess I feel
Speaker 1: like you had finger waves at some point. No, I
Speaker 1: never had finger waves. But the first time and only
Speaker 1: time I ever did twists on like when I was transitioning,
Speaker 1: but pretty much natural. I got them done in the salon.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happen. Well, my hair is fine
Speaker 1: and thin. Let me say that because finding thing girl
Speaker 1: girls will understand, Um, my hair is not made to
Speaker 1: be twisted like that. I looked like an ostrich like.
Speaker 1: I sent a photo to my father and he was
Speaker 1: literally like, you look like an ostrich because it was
Speaker 1: just like all these curls that were just sticking out
Speaker 1: and it looks like like single curl. Like. It looks
Speaker 1: so bad. I literally had to go home and wash
Speaker 1: my hair and do it all over again. They'll say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess yours. I'm gonna say, Queen Latifa, mother
Speaker 1: of Egypt, high top fate. Okay, my mother would never
Speaker 1: mormitted me to have a hot top fade. Um. What
Speaker 1: I can say is that in the early nineties, I
Speaker 1: lived in Miami. We moved back to Miami, and the
Speaker 1: trend at the time in Miami was to make every
Speaker 1: little girl look like a grown ass woman. So I
Speaker 1: remember being in Pe and me and other little black
Speaker 1: girls they were like, we're playing flag football, were like
Speaker 1: these finger waves gotta last all week, coach, and so
Speaker 1: I have finger waves in Miami. I have French roles.
Speaker 1: So you basically had every hairstyle from the movie Baps
Speaker 1: with Halle Berry. Not that bad, but because I would have,
Speaker 1: I would tell you I looked like I was ten
Speaker 1: years old, nine ten years old, and I looked like
Speaker 1: a young executive. That's what I would tell you I had.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about So basically some of the hairstyles from
Speaker 1: like the movie Uh Boomerang, right, So I had the
Speaker 1: finger waves that went to a French role, like I
Speaker 1: looked like I was running hr when really I was
Speaker 1: learned how to divide. That's really what I was doing.
Speaker 1: But the thing is I hated the most because I
Speaker 1: loved all them my hair souse, but my mama. So
Speaker 1: when a Lady of Rage came out, it's like ninety four,
Speaker 1: I guess like the afro puffs was. You know, she
Speaker 1: came out with the referen stuff for the afropuffs, but
Speaker 1: my hair was relaxed. But my mama wanted me to
Speaker 1: have afropuffs. So what she did is she jelled my
Speaker 1: hair up in a big, two big twony tails and
Speaker 1: then got the two tone black and burgundy weave and
Speaker 1: gave me afro puffs like the curly black and burgundy
Speaker 1: hair because burgundy hair was really big. Burgundy and platinum
Speaker 1: blond is real big at the time. And gave me
Speaker 1: burgundy and black big afro puffs and absolutely I hated it.
Speaker 1: Burgundy and Atlanta Falcons fan that was the because in
Speaker 1: Miami at the time, it was you had like a
Speaker 1: two tone where it was like black that faded into burgundy.
Speaker 1: The kids call it like a bolliage on her own
Speaker 1: brain now, but the ship was two tone hair. It
Speaker 1: started black when burgundy or it was blonde. And since
Speaker 1: I was a little girl, they were like, she can
Speaker 1: wear burglary, but she can't wear do say his mama
Speaker 1: gave her a fast and furious paint job. First of all,
Speaker 1: what will not be allowed, respectfully, respectfully, respect Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: this is Miami's in the early nineties. It was putting
Speaker 1: a crylic on people's toes. You understand. It was a
Speaker 1: colorful time. My worst haircut is the one I ended
Speaker 1: up not getting. I was doing a show in Calgary,
Speaker 1: and Calgary for the people who don't know, that's a
Speaker 1: part of Canada that's very wyoming montana esque in terms
Speaker 1: of what it feels like and the black population up there.
Speaker 1: And I was there. It was the last day of shows,
Speaker 1: and I had an audition in l A the next morning.
Speaker 1: Like as soon as I land, I got to get
Speaker 1: straight to the audition. So I knew there wouldn't be
Speaker 1: enough time to get a haircut in l A. So
Speaker 1: I figured we'll let me just roll the die ice
Speaker 1: and see if I can get a hair cut here
Speaker 1: in Calgary. And I asked one of the other comedians, Hey,
Speaker 1: whereas he goes, well, there's a barbershop. He didn't say
Speaker 1: this spot does black hair. He just said there's a barbershop.
Speaker 1: And it was in the mall. That will strike one.
Speaker 1: I don't know any black person get their hair cut
Speaker 1: across from a father twenty one, but it was there
Speaker 1: and I walk in and as soon as I walk in,
Speaker 1: there's two white barbers and God bless them, they both
Speaker 1: looked up at me and they just go, we can't
Speaker 1: do it. And like, for a split second, I thought
Speaker 1: it was racism, but they was like, I'm happy to try,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if you will be happy with
Speaker 1: what the results will be. I can't do it. I go,
Speaker 1: didn't you have to learn it to do this job?
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, you're learn it, but you're only as
Speaker 1: good as your last cut, mate. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you that it's been some years. I said, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the honesty. It's years and I can't cut black hair
Speaker 1: in a while. Now I assume you're coming in here
Speaker 1: because you can see the desperation in my face. He
Speaker 1: knew ipposite that we both know what the funk it is, right,
Speaker 1: So I just ended up going to Walgreens and buying
Speaker 1: some clippers and just having to hatch it myself up
Speaker 1: in the mirror. I ended up not getting the role.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering, I'm gonna tell you what the worst
Speaker 1: feeling is getting on set and seeing a black woman
Speaker 1: that can't do my hair, and that has happened a lot.
Speaker 1: Getting on set and she being like says, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at her being like, I can see the vision.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be touching me anyway. So yeah,
Speaker 1: literally coming to set having my own hair care products,
Speaker 1: with me doing my own hair, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of for the same way that that barber had not
Speaker 1: cut black hair, because doing your own hair and doing
Speaker 1: somebody else's there's totally different. But there are black hairdressers
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry that, because of how the industry is,
Speaker 1: have only really worked on white people. Now that's something
Speaker 1: we're gonna unpack for the next due saying. But that's
Speaker 1: all the time we have for today. Hopefully we taking
Speaker 1: you beyond the scenes. Thank you so much to Dulce Sloan,
Speaker 1: wonderful correspondent, Daily Show Deep Dot producer Chelsea Williamson, and
Speaker 1: of course, the wonderful Daily Show writer EMME nominated writer
Speaker 1: Josh Johnson. Thank you all so much for going beyond
Speaker 1: the scenes with you. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond
Speaker 1: the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.