00:01Black girl's hair is magic because it's all so different and so beautiful and so fluffy.
00:11It's so lovely to my hands. It's lovely to my eyes.
00:14Since 1990, I was either wearing a weave or braids.
00:19I took one night and cut all my extensions out.
00:24And I told my story and I made the first cut and decided to reveal what I really looked like.
00:32Even my mother didn't remember what my hair did.
00:34We spent so many years and so much time and so much energy putting it away before it hurt somebody.
00:40And it was a really wonderful revelation of none of us know what this is.
00:45Now we can go and figure it out.
00:47Because in her culture, in her growing up, you didn't do that.
00:51You put it away.
00:52There was a hot comb that lived on the back of the stove.
00:55That was its permanent place.
00:57She just has a problem with the word nappy.
01:01It's the other N-word.
01:02I looked the same way since 1990.
01:05I knew that I needed a change, but I didn't know what to change to.
01:08So what is there to do but watch YouTube videos?
01:12Hours of videos of these young girls going,
01:15Hi, my name is Shamisha.
01:17This is my hair.
01:18This is what it looks like when I come out the shower.
01:20I just came to fall in love with these girls and came to fall in love with their journey
01:26and came to fall in love with how much they were in love with themselves.
01:30And I thought if they can do it, I can certainly try.
01:35What do you think is magic about black girl hair?
01:39It's ability to morph and adapt.
01:44And that's what we've had to do every damn day.
01:46I remember, you know, two of the girls in the crew being like, we've got to do something with your
01:53hair.
01:54You know, and you're just like, don't they know I'm in this struggle every day?
02:00I think that they were fixing it from a good place.
02:02It was like, you know what, Amanda don't really hang out with a lot of black folks up until this
02:06point.
02:06Let's set her right.
02:07Let's bring her into the culture of hair and getting your hair done.
02:11I think for them, they were, it was almost like a rite of passage.
02:16We're going to blow dry your hair into the crew.
02:18All my life, I felt like my mom and I had been wrestling with this hair.
02:22I didn't see my hair actually flat until I met some Dominicans in my 20s.
02:26And I remember seeing T.I. shortly thereafter and he said, well, I see you got your hair laid down.
02:34It was like my curls were a bad thing, even though these were sisters.
02:39So it was like the kind of curls you have ain't the right kind of curls kind of thing.
02:44And then one day, this particular dude, he was like the Denzel of our school.
02:51So he's walking by one day and my hair was like this.
02:55And he was like, I like your hair like that.
02:58Ladies and gentlemen, I've worn my hair like this since that day.
03:00My hair definitely changes with my emotions and how I'm feeling that day and with my purpose.
03:09We have to be gymnasts in this society as sisters.
03:13We have to navigate in crevices and, you know, out of sideboards and over rooftops.
03:20Like we just have to do so much of that.
03:22It may not seem like it, but our hair goes along with us on that journey.
03:26When my hair is picked out, like my whole aura is picked out.
03:31Like see this, see me.
