Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Ep156 The African Hair Braiding Salon: Examining This Messy Nexus of The Diaspora
The Besties return this week after taking a much needed “peace pause”. They return to unpack a viral video of a salon arrest and the deeper tensions it exposes between Black Americans and African immigrants. Angella and Leslie weigh boycott power, clear asks, and practical ways to raise standards without giving up on each other.
Owner of African Braiding Salon and Two Employees ARRESTED!!
TabithaSpeaksPolitics
https://youtu.be/xZFKSc6akDY?si=3Hn9lXxQ-HTmMQb0
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Hey Anch. Hey Les. How's it going? I'm here. This is like the couch edition. I'm sitting on the couch. I got my my leg up. Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00:Can you have on your coat your your little jacket?
SPEAKER_02:You're always cold. I am. And this is my special fleece because in one of the pockets there's a special thing.
SPEAKER_01:Oh boy.
SPEAKER_02:What is it? And it fell out earlier. But this is the jacket that I used to use to walk my girl Simba. So I keep one of her foot booty covers in that pocket that I used to cover up for the rain and the snow for her feet. So what did that remind me of?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. That reminded me of when. First of all, Simba had all the outfits. Oh, she had the socks, all the things. She had fleece. One day I was over there and Omari It was raining, and you told Omari to walk Simba. And you were like, put on her raincoat. She has a raincoat. Put on her raincoat. And Omari said, I'll put on her raincoat in the rain when she asks me to. I was like, perfect answer. Perfect answer. Anyway. Let's get started, Leslie.
SPEAKER_02:So welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_00:I'm Angela, and that's Leslie, my best friend of almost 50 years. We are two free thinking 60 60-something-year-old black women. And we've decided to have more joy and boldness in our lives in this next chapter of our lives. We invite you to join us. We invite you to continue your joy journey, begin your joy journey, all the things. We just want you to um make the decision to bring more joy and boldness in. So today, we first want to say um we are, I don't want to apologize for making this decision, but as producer, I decided that we were not going to have a new episode last week. Um it was uh not an easy decision, but I really felt like we explained to you guys what's been going on. Um, Leslie was definitely willing to make it happen. And I just thought that we could also be an example of um doing the hard things where it would preserve our peace and our um our sense of responsibility. I was I felt like it was okay to push against this idea of of excellence and always being in, yeah, we're doing this, but life has been really, really challenging for you especially. And I thought, Les, we can do this. We created this this um platform uh and it's Thanksgiving. We got to decide. It's Thanksgiving playing.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. But when you said, let's not put out another put out next week's episode, let's skip a week given that we had so many things pulling us in other directions. I was like, wait a minute, what? This was the very first time. I was not feeling it, and I told you. You're like, what do you think? Well, let me tell you. Since you asked. Since you asked. Yeah, because you know, it's like we're used to doing hard things, and we're used to, especially, you know, me and my profession, I'm used to putting down personal things and stepping up when needed. And I've always looked at this podcast. And over three years, we've not missed a week, you know, we've been putting out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And um, but I certainly understood what you meant, and it was a um, it was a hard decision at first. It's like, what do you mean? What about our public? They're gonna miss us. Wait a minute. What about our people? But you know, we're all human beings, and we needed to take a week off, and I know you guys don't mind.
SPEAKER_00:So, anyway, we are back, and today uh we decided to talk about something that I saw on um on uh YouTube and I sent it to Les because you know, I feel like with with the holidays, I traveled um for the holidays, and so kind of the the ramp up of traveling and so on, and while I was away, I was on social media for like 0.0001% of the time. And so when I saw this um this uh from Tabitha Speaks Politics, I figured Leslie knew about it. And so I was I wanted to hear what she had to say. She was like, What is this? I don't know. So anyway, the the episode is called Owner of African Braiding Salon and Two Employees Arrested, and it's from uh Tabitha Speaks Politics. And so, first of all, what the hell?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. What the listen to this? And I'm like, there was so much said in this video that I was just so unaware of, and I'm like, am I that far out of the loop of things, you know? So you can give a little bit of a uh synopsis.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So what this what this episode of Tabitha Speaks Politics um brought to our attention is that there was, and this is according to this, right? I did not do any independent research on this, but I did um look at a few other things, and it it seems to align that these African hairbraiders, um, this woman, this black American woman, made arrangements, she had text messages that um showed that she made arrangements to pay$200 to get her hair done a certain way. And um when the hairbraider decided to use human hair, which typically is more expensive, as most of you probably know, than synthetic hair, decided to use human hair to do her hair, to add the curls, whatever. And when she was done, she said it was 250 and not 200. And the woman said, No, you said this, I have blah, blah, blah. Anyway, a fight ensued, and hair grabbing was going on, the doors were locked, so the um the patron couldn't leave, and it was a viral, viral video. We we came to find out. But one of the things that Tablet Speaks Politics mentioned is that there had been this boycott of African hair braiding salons. A call for a boycott.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm like, wait a minute, what are you talking about? So I had no idea. Apparently, there has been some history, and I say apparently, some history of mistreatment by the African women hair braider, their salons toward black American women who patronized them. A couple of things I had to say about so Anne said, so what do you think about this list? First of all, for those of you who know my last name, I am very well connected to the West African um community in that my in-laws are West African. And first of all, I they are really my former in-laws because my his hi uh my spouse and former spouse and I are no longer together, but to me, when you have loved ones, you hold them close and you don't release them. So they're still my in-laws because they're wonderful loving people. But so I am in tune and in touch with that c side of my family, and I gotta say, I have always felt nothing but love and support from them. And I haven't even heard of any, you know, concerted efforts to um castigate or talk about or anything. I'm not familiar with any um formalized problem that the w West African women, especially these entrepreneurs, have with uh black American uh patrons. The other thing is that when I've done um when you've ha ha showed me some of the videos and some of the things that are out in the ether about this history of mistreatment, I saw five videos or I saw there are ten videos showing that. That may be so and that may be their personal experiences. But there are thousands of salons, and this is a well-known business, certainly in the northeast where I am. I don't know if it's in other parts of the country, but certainly in the tri-state in New York, New Jersey area. I mean, there are so many of these shops because the demand is there, and I have just not heard of any effort or any problem that there have been between the two communities. I really haven't.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm gonna say two things. One is um you you're making a distinction between West Africans and non-West Africans. It's it's it's it's your your experience had been with West Africans. Right, right, yeah. This issue is is an African versus African American. Sure, sure. Um, the other thing I wanted to say is that the it seems that since July there has been um uh talk online about boycotting African hair braiding salons for the month of August. Have you guys heard heard about that? Not a I I heard nothing about it. So when this came up, it was like we told y'all to boycott, look at how they treat us, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's my experience. And I I'm gonna take this somewhere, but not not right now. In other words, stay tuned. Stay tuned. Hopefully, I'll remember. Um, so there is definitely uh there's definitely uh um antagonism, feelings of of um of um hierarchy, um uh bad blood between different parts of the diaspora um versus um black Americans, right? And this to me is an offshoot of that. It is um, I'll generally say, and you guys know I'm from Jamaica, so some of this comes from my own experience being in a Jamaican, in Jamaican communities or West Indian communities, and how um what some of the of the conversations are around black Americans. I'm not gonna and I'm the black American and you're the black American, and you've been my best friend for 50 years, so it's kind of but I'm not going to not say that this doesn't exist, right? It does exist, it does exist because guess what? The racism and the classism and the um um that gets exported too. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:That gets exported to when people are incorporated into a larger community and when there is a push to assimilate with that community, all of the ideas come with it. Yep. And I understand that for sure. I mean, America teaches the world, yeah, you know, about racism and absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And the the idea, and this is one of the themes in Caribbean communities around um uh black Americans, is look at all the opportunities that they get and they haven't made more of it. Does that sound familiar? Um, it's it is it is um uh that they're lazy. Does that sound familiar? It is that they don't care about education. Does that sound familiar? All of these themes that come from a um white supremacist way of seeing black people in America has been exported. And in African and Caribbean communities, I can't speak about um Brazil or generally South America, except Ghana, but you know, Ghana is West Indian as far as we're concerned, um, that how it is in other parts of the world, but I can tell you for a fact, in the Caribbean, in um across Africa, I believe that there is this sense that black Americans are less than in the hierarchy of black people. And so this idea about how people are being treated in these spaces in these African hair salons, I don't think it's a one-off. I I mean this is an extreme. By the way, those three women who are involved, the the the the shop the shop owner, I think, and two of her employees, they are now facing kidnapping charges because they locked the woman in and refused to let her go. That is a felony. So for$50, they now have this potential of being in prison for years. In America. How is that in America? How is that for making some good decisions about how you spend your time, energy, uh how you make decisions in this place that you now call home?
SPEAKER_02:But see, here's what I'm thinking also. I'm wondering if this is merely poor judgment by these shop stewards or entrepreneurs, this shop owner and her employees, versus what a lot of the internet is calling a pattern of behavior from these um African hairbraiders toward black American women. Right. Is it just that these people were behaving poorly and were awful, you know, over$50, they their lives and and livelihoods are likely to change forever.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm gonna call a thing a thing, first of all. They assaulted this woman, they were pulling her hair. This is not behaving poorly. This is assault. I know you weren't making that point, but I'm just saying this was an assault. They put their hands on her assaulted their customer. This was for sure. Um, okay. Uh I think in the in the soup of this way of thinking about black Americans, it is not shocking to me. I don't go to African hair braiding. I haven't for decades. It is it is not surprising to me at all that this is a pattern. It would not be surprising because I know how um overall how um Africans and um some Africans, some people from the Caribbean um consider black Americans, right? I I know like the older generations, I know some people still feel that way, still feel that way. And so I am not surprised at all that this is a pervasive thing. Wow. Um, and it's it's hard for me to move that into a boycotting thing because you know you and I both we strongly believe in boycotting uh and and being careful about how we spend our money. Um we we haven't seen Walmart or Target in a very long time or Amazon in a very long time because we're we're supporting those boycotts.
SPEAKER_01:Um so but I don't think I'm mad at letting them feel it for 30 days.
SPEAKER_00:Um asserting given as someone from the Caribbean, given that someone from the Caribbean who's lived in America for since 1970, right? Um I'm not mad at black Americans making a point in this way to say we need each other and you need to respect us. I'm not mad at that message.
SPEAKER_02:I absolutely agree with you. It reminds me of um back in the day, and it could have been as long ago as the 80s, when there was this movement against um Asian shop owners, um fruit and vegetable shop owners in Brooklyn persistently mistreating their black customers, yeah, disrespect and what whatever. And I've experienced that personally, so that I am aware of. Yeah. So there was a movement, pretty large movement, to just not shop there and boycott the Korean or Asian markets or whatever. Um I recall that. What I wonder though, if if they say to use, let's say, a 30 day boycott to show, let's say, how valuable. Our dollars are or that you would need us or we need more respect. I'm not really sure if thirty days would would do it. The other thing is that if this is a mindset that comes from the larger community in which they're enmeshed, they witchcase which they I'm talking about in terms of the African shop owners, um these immigrants that come here and set up their businesses, then I think I'm sure it's gonna take more than thirty days to undo some of that ideology that they've um developed. Right, right. You know, and and I've also been listening to some to um just um radio programs speaking about these boycotts um that they're devel um against some of the larger corporations, um Walmart or um Amazon or War um or Target. And the thing is, they compare it very often to the Selma bus boycotts years ago. Right? And was it in Selma? Um yeah. The bus boycotts and how successful that was. But what we might be losing track of is what is the ask. When do we know that the boycott has been effective, that our um requests or our demands have been achieved, you know? So is it a matter of we want you to respect us when we patronize you? Of course that would be a demand, and that's that's um reasonable. But again, I haven't heard anything about a call for boycott. That's one, and two, I don't patronize those places because I don't need to. But so you know, so what is the ask? And then that seems to me that it would need to be measurable.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So for more on that, all you have to do is to um do a search on Pastor Jamal Bryant. He's really leading the charge on this boycott. He talks about it all the time, he talks about how effective it is, and if if you want to kind of do any research, I would start with him.
SPEAKER_02:I mean because Pastor Jamal Bryant, and you're referring to the boycott against the larger corporations, against um Target. Okay, yep, yeah. In particular, I don't think that's been very effective, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know. And so he is tracking it. He is so uh um I'm answering that that is being monitored. Um there so he he would be a good person if you're gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I was talking about what is the ask toward these individuals um air braiding. Oh, I see. Yeah, no, I understand what the ask is in terms of those corporations that decide not to give our money to.
SPEAKER_00:Well, if if you're saying we're boycotting you because you're not showing respect, then I think the ask is show us show respect. Or uh or honor honor what you say, which is a part of showing respect, right? Know that we're we are paying you cash money oftentimes. There should be a a reciprocal um um uh service that matches what what we're paying for. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:You know, so what you say next more about basic. It's just basic, right? You don't want to give your money to people who don't respect you or treat you as we as you would want to be treated.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. So what you said before about the 30 days and whether that would be effective, I don't know. It definitely won't change this this um this uh uh in ingrained way, ingrained way of thinking about black Americans. However, I think that it does wherever there is is is unity, I think that it could make a s a statement. It does 30 days doesn't change the whole idea of this, but 30 days could make someone say, especially let's say just this community, let's say where I am now in in North Carolina, there they're definitely um African hair braiding places. Let's say that the people who used to come to your store stop coming to your store, right? You're gonna feel it in 30 days. You're definitely gonna feel it in 30 days. You are going to feel it in 30 days.
SPEAKER_02:You know, the other thing is that with these shops, their patrons don't patronize them every 30 days because it's more, you know, you might lose one customer, one regular customer here or there. I don't, I don't, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, but but that is true. However, at any given time you go into a shop like that, there may be five people getting.
SPEAKER_02:And it's cracked. It is crowded, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. There they just open one in DC. That is 24 hours a day. It's 24 hours a day. They just opened this big salon, so it's not just one person, yeah. Yeah it's it's all the people who are going on vacation, kids going back to school. Yeah, and so five people and it it would empty out a shop for a month if people were really adhering to the boycott. They would feel it. Yeah, they would feel it. And the idea of being recorded, being, you know, and people saying, don't go to that store or that thing. Sure, sure. Um, it could have a real, a real impact on them.
SPEAKER_02:Do you remember? I think perhaps some community um organizations um meeting, community meetups or having, you know me. I'm a uh I love the idea of people getting together to talk and discuss things and hear things out. You know, those kind of things I think could might might be helpful, you know. Bringing the the the Amer black American um community together with some of those shop owners to air their grievances and things like that. You know. You know, here's the thing. I'm sitting here thinking, and obviously I there's videos and I believe the stories and all, but it's hard for me to understand what disrespect in that setting even looks like. I can tell you. I mean, like like, yeah, tell me what that could look like.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:You make your appointment, you come in and get your hair braided, always too tight, and then you pay your money, and like where's the at what point would they be disrespect? Could sure.
SPEAKER_00:Um, it could be disrespect and you say you want your hair done one way, you ask them whether they can do it, and then they don't deliver. Right? You you show a picture, you say, I want you to match this. That's a whole nother thing online is this is what I asked for, this is what I got. Uh-huh. Um it could be you're tenderheaded, but they're really rough pulling your hair and all with you, right? So it's I would never survive it. I would never survive it. You would never survive. It could be that, especially for a child, you're doing it's like um your your niece, Dr. Um Achama, she has um stress tension-free hair braiding now as a part of the service that she offers in her um uh uh dermatology and um and um I'll put the link. Please put the link to that. Yeah. Well, she has tension-free hair. In African hair braiding, we're talking very generally now. It's the same idea that back in the day you would get shoes, and if they were too tight, you wear them anyway, because those are the shoes that you have. You want you buy clothes too big so that it'll last, right?
SPEAKER_02:And you grow into that, right?
SPEAKER_00:So it's you get your hair done, it's costs a certain amount of money. So the idea is to make it last longer. It has to be a good thing. So the first week, you're getting traction alopecia. You're looking exactly looking snatched, but seriously, Les, you're getting traction alopecia from your hair being pulled too tight. Yeah. Right? Um, so that's four that I've listed. Okay, okay. Waiting, waiting, you make the appointment and you have to wait an hour or two before being seen.
SPEAKER_02:I see.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Things like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, poor business practices, exactly. And then the sequela of having your um hair. Yeah, I understand, cold.
SPEAKER_00:And you you you do all this, the these services usually take hours.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna get a family power in a moment. Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You commit all this time to be there, you expect it's hard to recover from some of these things being done wrong. For sure. Right? And it's expensive. And it's expensive, you get to. And I think, you know, in terms of it being expenses, expensive, I think that for the hours that they spend, these the prices that I'm familiar with are definitely aligned with the um the hours that are spent, and typically, you know, the quality of the the braiding. Some of the braids look like they were done by machines to me. They're just, you know, they're they're really good at their craft. So, but again, it's there are two sides to this. You want to be treated a certain way. One of the things, by the way, as we're talking about going abroad and so on, customer service and expectations around that is a very American thing. Americans, um, people in America get used to being treated a certain way. That is not commonplace uh um in the places that I've been to. And I know that the level of customer service that we're used to here, you're not gonna get that in other parts of the world, right? But as Americans, we're used to being treated a certain way, right? Yes. Um, so some of that, maybe some of that is kind of lost in translation, you know. But here you have choices, you have, you know, it's not just this one person in the community that knows how to do it. You can get three African hairbreading places, you know, on a block or whatever, depending on where you are. But we do, and this comes up in the Exodus Summit community too, because this idea of how service people, when they say they're gonna come at 10 o'clock and they don't, they may not even show up, you have to get used to it because culturally things are very different. You know what I mean? We're used to it. And if you don't, it's like, oh, you're being disrespectful and so on. But in fact, that's not how things work in in other cultures. So it's it's it's that's interesting. It's complex. I like that I do like that um that there are levers that people can use to get the respect that they think that they deserve. Because even if there are cultural differences, maybe the store down the block have learned and are willing to kind of make these adjustments if they want your.
SPEAKER_02:And nobody should be assaulted. I mean, you know what I mean. What? They're certainly waste candle pulling her hair out and overfitting. Can you believe it?
SPEAKER_00:$50. Just how about just not have her come back? How about the how about that? Anyway, I don't I don't know. Anyway, we just thought we'd talk about that today. Yeah, it's a wow, it's a little complex.
SPEAKER_02:I gotta there you go. Anyway, okay, Ann. Thanks for the insight, though. The other perspective. Because sometimes it's a little difficult for me to just see the other side of things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder what their other side was. You know, I would would love to say to hear because there's always two sides. Yeah, I'd love to hear their side of the story.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Their side, meaning the the the shop owners, you know, like why they felt compelled to behave in this way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Bad date. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. I don't know. We can we can check that out. Anyway, okay. All right, babe.
SPEAKER_02:This has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
unknown:Brooklyn
