Welcome to the Tweet Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl! And you are tuned in to Tweet Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Today, let's talk about the Crown Act. Let's get started. Today, we're talking about the Crown Act.
And in case you're not sure what I'm talking about, Crown is an acronym which stands for creating a respectful and open world for natural hair. Now, the Crown Act is a law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination. And if you're not sure what that is, that means that there's a denial of employment or educational opportunities or other opportunities because of your hair texture, or the fact that you may be wearing it in a protective style, and if you're not sure what that means, a protective style is something that basically protects your ends. And that would be maybe braids or locks, twists, band-to-knots.
I can go on for days about that. It seems to be that some people don't believe that this is a thing. And I look at it like this. I don't have to be a person and have my leg amputated to then be able to hear the story of someone who's had their leg amputated and feel for them in what they've gone through.
Whatever the things are that they have difficulty with, I shouldn't sit there and say that that's not true because I've never experienced it. I should be able to look at that and say, you know, okay, I understand. Let's try to make things better for you so that you don't have as much trouble. And so this whole situation with the Crown Act people, like I said, they're not believing it.
They don't feel like that's a real thing. But we can go back into the history books and see where this whole thing got started and how it's just kind of continued to go along and people don't really talk about it. They don't come out and say it in your face. But you can tell when you're talking to somebody and they're looking above, they're looking at your hair and not like in your eyes.
And that's the problem. So, but let's go ahead and jump back into the history back to the 16th century, back when the transatlantic slave trade was expanding and the New World became reliant on the life and labor of enslaved African people. Back then, Europeans created theories that rejected Africans as being beautiful. Why did they do this?
To justify the fact that they were enslaving them. Wow. So the classification of cultural differences such as skin color and hair textures existed to show that African people were ugly, disgusting, worthless, and naturally suited for slavery. Slave masters would cut or shave the hair of men and women because they were repulsed by the side of black hair.
A lot of times they weren't even allowed to refer to their hair as hair. Cotton or wool was the better term. And then even some slurs like nappy, which somehow got reclaimed by the community. Those were things that started off as slurs against black men and women in order to dehumanize and embarrass them publicly.
And although we may not realize that a lot of what is going on now is stuff that was going on back then as well. People still feel some type of way about their hair. And so therefore they get relaxers, they wear wigs, they do other things to try to fit in with the aesthetic of what beauty is here in the United States. You gotta fit in.
You can't stand up because if you do, then you'll be shunned. Back in 2019, United States Senator Cory Booker first introduced the Senate version of the Crown Act. And then just last month, March 2022, he was applauding the bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives to pass the Crown Act. Some people are still saying why is this necessary?
Well, here we go. Although existing federal law prohibits some forms of hair discrimination as a type of racial or national origin discrimination, some federal courts have narrowly construed those protections in a way that permit schools, workplaces, and federally funded institutions to discriminate against people of African descent who wear certain types of natural or protective hairstyles. We've seen it across the country. There have been several reports about how young girls are being kicked out of class, sent home, told that they can't participate in graduations or proms or functions like that because they have their hair in protective hairstyles.
Well, the Crown Act changes that by making clear that discrimination based on natural and protective styles associated with people of African descent is a prohibited form of racial or national origin discrimination. And those styles include tightly coiled hair, tightly curled hair, locks, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, and afros. With all of that though, discrimination against natural hair also remains a significant barrier to the professional advancement of people of color, especially people like me, black women. And I, it's hard to explain to somebody how I have, I have a drawer.
And in this drawer, it's full of ponytails and wigs and other types of extensions and hair pieces. And I have them because of the situation. Because I've always questioned whether I wanted to push the envelope. Did I want to wear my hair natural?
Or do I just want to put a wig on and pretend for that brief little moment in time? If I get the job great, if I don't, great, move on, but just to almost make them feel comfortable, I'll do something different. And I hate to say that. It saddens me to admit that, but it's the truth.
It's the truth. As a matter of fact, for what I do now, occasionally I have to send out videos. And when I do, I always put on a wig. Just because in my mind, it's like I would hate for the person receiving the video to not hear a word I said because they were too busy focused on what my hair was doing, how my hair was styled.
And I wouldn't want that to affect the bottom line at work. So I'll just go ahead and put a wig on. Let's finish off with the kids. And I'm going to start with this big one here.
I'm going to start with myself. I can remember when I was little, my mom used to do my hair before school. And I can't say that I had issues when I was really, really little. But I know definitely by the time I was in the seventh grade, actually middle school was when it was like a deal breaker with this whole hair thing.
But seventh grade, I was in the band and we would go on trips to amusement parks and sometimes you might go on a water ride and your hair will get wet and shrinkage is real. Okay? So your hair gets wet and then it's all matted. You finally get home and then it's a time in the land and get your hair done.
So my mom was like, you know what? Let's go ahead and get you a Jerry curl. So I got one, but my hair was very thirsty. So it never looked like a Jerry curl.
I think people just thought it was my natural hair and it was just kind of curly. But we did that later on by the time I graduated from high school, I got in a relaxer and it was all still to fit in, to feel pretty. And, you know, everything changed though when I found out that I was having a daughter. And I said, you know what?
I'm going to stop with the relaxers. I'm going to go natural and we're going to learn this thing together. And my daughter has beautiful, thick, full, long hair. But because of her curl pattern, it appears a lot shorter than what it really is because it kind of shrinks up.
It curls up. And, you know, in talking to her, you know, we have books at our house like Beautiful. I like myself. Big hair.
Don't care. We've got all of those positive books here to kind of say, you know what? You've got to keep it there in your mind that you're beautiful. You've got big hair and, you know, it's yours.
It's beautiful. And that's it. Nothing else to it. So I ask her questions every now and then.
At one point, I asked her, I said, you know, do you ever have issues with people messing with your hair with your hair berets? And she admitted that yes, she does. And as a matter of fact, one of the people that she's had issues with it was with a little girl that lives two doors down from us. And she said, you know, sometimes she'll pull my hair.
She'll run up behind me and grab my hair and pull it or she'll try to take my hair berets out and stuff like that. And so we had to work on her voice. You know, I couldn't tell her what to say to this little girl. I needed her to be able to say it and it come from her.
Because I can't go around fighting her battles for her, but I need to be there to support her in this journey because I know that it's not going to stop here. It only gets worse as you get older because then as you get older, you know, you have these ways that you want to present. And, you know, it's a challenge. It really is.
And speaking of that, I saw this short video titled as early as five from the Dove company, Beauty Company, right? And so I'm going to play this for you in a grant. This is just the audio, but you can get the video by going on YouTube, search for Dove as early as five, and race-based hair discrimination. Here we go.
I always told me that I should love my hair. So I did. Wait for me right here for some. Excuse me, sir.
We have a strict hair policy here. But for you, I can't let you attend school today. Even when it wasn't easy. Talked about this.
You can't wear braids. You want to watch a graduation. Even when no one else did. My dad always told me that I should fight for my hair.
So I am. Before I continue, let me just say this. I'm aware that the stuff that my daughter's gone through, that's not discrimination. But what it does do is it causes her to be self-conscious because it draws attention in certain ways.
And so I almost feel like sometimes when she enters a room and she enters a situation that she kind of shrinks back until she can actually get a feel for how this particular group is operating. And then she kind of brightens up when it's like, okay, it's not a threat. Nobody's coming to pull my pigtails or anything like that. So, but I just want to say that I'm aware that's not discrimination.
However, it does cause one to be self-conscious. Thank you for joining me for today's episode where we discuss the Crown Act. Now, if you go to congress.gov, you'll see that the Crown Act, it hasn't become a law yet, hasn't gone to the president, hasn't passed the House, hasn't passed the Senate. It has only been introduced.
So my ask for you is to go straight to your five calls app or whatever way you get in contact with your elected officials and let them know that you are in favor of the Crown Act and you would like them to vote accordingly. And let's see if we can try to stop the discrimination around natural and protective hairstyles. Do me a favor, look me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube at heveve. That's at atyadtte or just look for the hashtag tweet trends and let me know that you have done your due diligence.
You've reached out to your elected officials and you have asked them to support the Crown Act. Please, and thank you.