- Something that I've been sort of playing around
with lately is this idea of privilege
and I feel like we talk about privilege
a lot in a certain context,
but I find myself often trying to reconcile
and acknowledge the privileges I have in life,
and one of those privileges that I didn't really think about
that I have slowly began to realize that I have is that
I have the privilege of my hair and how I wear my hair.
(smooth music)
Hey everyone, it's me, Hallease,
endeavoring to persevere as always.
If you're new here,
I make videos about my chaotic good life.
Subscribe, follow, social media, blah, blah, blah.
This sort of came up when I was
doing that Q&A video for y'all,
sort of a massive Q&A about my locs
and I had reached out to y'all on Instagram
and here on YouTube in the community tab
to just send me your questions about my locs,
and so many of y'all had questions around acceptance.
A lot of you work in different fields where, you know,
you the only one repping us. (laughs)
I'ma be honest, I'ma be real.
You know, you're the only one repping us,
and whether you like it or not,
you have to represent an entire demographic of people,
and you have to be approachably black, whatever that is.
And it was hard for me to answer
those questions because that's not my life.
As I move through the world
my hair and how it looks
and if it's socially accepted
isn't something that I think about
like at all because I don't have to.
You know, I've always worked in a creative industry,
and so I think, and I said this in the video before,
that you get a little bit of leeway as a creative
to do things, especially in the film industry.
You know, you can have tattoos,
you can have piercings, you can have locs.
You know, I recognize that that's not everybody's life.
Unfortunately when you're thinking about a hairstyle
you have to think about how it may
or may not affect your career.
I want us to get to a point where that's not the case,
and I think I feel like we're getting there.
I feel like it's possible.
You know, I think about my parents' generation
where so much of what they distilled in my generation
was this idea of like assimilating,
this idea of just trying to fit in
as much as humanly possible,
and there was a very distinct moment in my life
when I realized that that just wasn't what I could do,
that to me trying to assimilate just wasn't an option
because I'm me, I look different, you know?
And there's nothing I can do about that.
I might as well embrace those differences fully
and not necessarily try to cater to a certain
standard of beauty that I can never achieve.
Once I hit that moment in my life,
it just kind of changed how I dressed,
how I addressed people and how I wear my hair.
I think I could see myself changing my hair
if I ever got into sort of narrative acting,
because again, I do think locs are a very bold statement.
I think having locs,
whether I want to acknowledge it or not,
having locs does sort of acknowledge
that hey, I'm not gonna try to cater
to a western European beauty standard.
No shade to y'all with the wigs and weaves,
because y'all be killing it. (laughs)
I love a good wig just as much as the next woman.
I love seeing it on y'all,
but for me it's just, it's not my ministry.
It never has been,
and it's not because I don't think it's beautiful
but I think I just don't care enough to try. (laughs)
My locs and the reason,
one of the main reasons I wear my locs this way
is in shaving my head I realized that I enjoyed,
I wanted long hair, but I didn't want
to have to work a lot (laughs) for long hair,
and locs are a way to do that for me.
So I don't know, I really wanted to get on
and just have this sort of discussion with y'all
in the comments about this concept,
this idea of just what is it about locs
that are inherently maybe a privilege or just different.
Black Hair Compass, Joyce,
she did a video on her channel recently
kind of talking about how, I think she's a family friend,
of hers doesn't want, well she wants to get locs,
but she's scared professionally to do it,
and so instead she just wears braids,
and in her video she talks about how is that
any different from having locs, you know?
Like what is it about having your hair braided,
which braids are gorgeous obviously,
but having like microbraids,
how is that any different from just having sisterlocs,
you know, aesthetically anyway at least.
Like what is it about dreadlocks themselves
that make them scary for Black people to transition to?
My experience isn't the rest
of the United States' experience,
especially my Black experience is unique to me,
and in mine I have found, you know,
a certain amount of freedom in how I wear my hair
and I don't think about how my hair
is maybe hindering me from getting work
or making me unapproachable to the gatekeepers that be
that unfortunately don't look like me usually.
I guess I'm just curious to like
continue this conversation around just these insecurities
and these sort of unspoken rules that we as Black people
have to sort of navigate and work through,
and how can we slowly begin to not have to do that,
like what does that look like in practice?
But I'm curious to know what y'all think
and I'm curious to just like
continue the conversation below.
So let me know in the comments below
how you feel about this concept.
Is having locs a privilege?
If you're new here, like, share,
subscribe, and other such things,
and if you've made it this far in the video
obviously there's something that you're jiving with,
so consider, again, subscribing.
Finally if you want to see more content from me consistently
consider joining my Patreon production crew
there at patreon.com/hallease.
You get early access to videos
and also private weekly vlogs
that are just for Patreon producers
sort of giving them background
on everything I'm going through,
and you can ask me specific questions
and I'll make whole videos around that
in those weekly vlogs.
If Patreon is not your bag, you know,
money's tight, so on and so forth,
I totally get that, join the mailing list.
I put out a newsletter like once a quarter.
Not stressful, not spamming you, fam.
YouTube thinks you'll like this video.
Hit it up, and then also more loc videos are here.
I'm Hallease, I'll see you when I see you.