So tell everybody who you
are your name which is stand for an an what
you do. OK, my name is denisha Kendrick,
I work as an educator in higher education.
Specifically, I really just stand for
just being who you are an for myself.
Just being a woman, a black woman,
a young person. And just, you know,
being a person who just is very curious
about life in so many different things.
You and your
colleague actually did a presentation to
many others in your field. Why did you do
that presentation and why did you
think it was important to do to do
that presentation to tell us what it
was about? So me and my colleague,
we did a presentation over black
hair and we thought that this would
be very important within a realm
of higher education just because
of how much it isn't talked about.
And so our presentation was called me,
not even the ends.
Conversation centered around black hair
and within that presentation we talked
about the history of black hair from
before we were brought here to America.
When we got to America from
slavery to current day and not
only do we talk about the history,
but we talked about black hair and how
it is viewed within higher education.
How was viewed within Texas and how
was viewed within the United States?
What did your counterparts learn?
What was
the feedback that you got from that
conversation?
They felt validated to say?
You know what? I'm not alone in this,
not alone as a student,
not alone as a employee,
but that this is happening across
the nation and not just, you know,
in siloed areas and other terms
of feedback we received was
for those who don't have black
hair was just just eye opening.
I think it was good for people
to see that because they don't
know they didn't know that you
know certain things that were
said where microaggressions
or that nonverbal languages.
Or microaggressions,
so it was really just a mixture of
feedback of validation an I would
say just by opening or you know,
just being I open to a lot of things
that goes on behind the scenes tell me
about a situation where you
just didn't want to explain you.
Like you know what not today.
Tell me about one of those situations
absolutely so I have had people reach
out and touch my hair many times
and in that sense I just walked away
because I did not want to explain.
So for instance, at one at one
place that I worked,
I want someone
just come up and say, Oh my goodness,
how long did this take?
What all did you have to do
and just run their fingers
through my hair? And at
that point I was just pretty over it.
So I just walked away.
I kind of did a little giggle,
which I probably shouldn't have done,
but I just did a little giggle
and I just walked away completely.
They didn't really think anything
of it 'cause there were other people
around kind of talking again,
having their own conversations,
but I just walked away and.
Houses like I can't deal with this right now.
Later that day, I think I went,
went, and found someone that I
could talk to who understands
having black hair and having those
microaggressions and just kind of
having that validation of hey,
because you walked away.
That is fine
if you can talk about what your hair
means to you in its natural state.
What does that mean for you to be able
to rock your Afro whenever you want to?
And curls and straight or whatever
you want to do? What does that
mean to you being
able to wear my hair in so many different
ways means to me freedom.
I have the freedom to be the deal
Nishan wanna be on a Saturday though?
Michelle want to be on Monday,
you know I had the freedom to say OK if I
want to wear my hair straight I can do that.
Or if I want to have the freedom to
say I want to wear it in curls and
weird in my natural state I can do
that and I think there's something
freeing about being able to do
what you want to do with your hair.
You know when I think about work,
our time is not really our own right,
but we at least have our hair which
is our own an I think that is just
bringing to have that autonomy.
And especially coming from the
history that we have behind it,
that we can just do what we
want with their hair.
And even though people may say otherwise,
we have other people around us to support us.
So what
do you think from a standpoint of
the fact that we need the Crown Act,
a law so that we can exist
as our natural selves?
What does that mean to you?
The fact that we're still here having
this conversation? Honestly, I
would say it's a shame and I wish there
were deeper words that I could say.
To articulate that, but being that it
is now 2021 in there still people who
are afraid of the way that we wear
hairstyle inserted spaces the way
our hair naturally grows out of our
head, that's it.
Issue, you know people want
to wear their hair with dreads
that should not be an issue.
If they want to wear their hair ball,
that shouldn't be an
issue. Data shows that if people
can show up to work in their
authentic selves, they'll be
more creative. They'll get
their job done is still.
Amazes me at how people really
want to police our hair.