00:00Now when you say braid, do you mean like cornrow?
00:03Do you mean like literally take three strands and you know put it together?
00:06Because I can do that!
00:07I cannot braid hair.
00:09I cannot braid.
00:10Bitch, can I braid?
00:11I can braid.
00:12Like I am, like I am the family braider.
00:16I will say that even with twist outs though, like that is, for me, something that I'm trying
00:23to master.
00:24I can two strand twist, I can flat twist, I can loose twist.
00:29I can flat.
00:30I just can't cornrow.
00:31You can revoke my black girl card.
00:32I can't cornrow.
00:33I can't braid.
00:34I just can't.
00:34I'm very good at cornrows.
00:36That's my specialty.
00:38I can braid.
00:40I was that girl at the sink just like screaming my head off.
00:44Every summer my mom would be like it's time for braids and I'd sit between her legs and
00:49then she'd put on Lion King and she would braid me for hours and hours, what felt like.
00:54I have such a love-hate relationship with those memories of getting my hair braided because
01:00my butt would get tired and I'd be sore and like I didn't want to sit there for hours.
01:05I was all so tender headed so you yank me this way, you yank me this way, my head down,
01:09I can't see what's on the TV because you got to have my head going this way.
01:12I think that I've just inherited the trait of not knowing how to braid from my mom.
01:18My mother didn't know how to do my hair.
01:21My grandma didn't know how to do my hair.
01:23It was always a thing.
01:24I used to walk out the house and it would be all over my head.
01:27I would have afro, puff, all of that.
01:30Between like the ages of like 3 and 12, my mom would keep my, my mother would keep my hair
01:40and just four braids braided to the top.
01:43Just one, two, three, four.
01:45That was the thing.
01:46My auntie had a bucket of beads and I would just sit through them and I want this bead, I
01:50want this bead.
01:51And then I would run outside and my hair would flow behind me and shh, shh, shh, shh.
01:55The process was definitely strenuous but like the final result couldn't tell me nothing.
02:01I mean the confidence level was on 10.
02:04Like it was, it was on one when I had my hair braided.
02:08I got a little pep in my step because I got my straight back.
02:12Braiding and black motherhood go hand in hand which is exactly why before I have any kind of babies of
02:17my own,
02:18I am going to learn how to braid.
02:19I need to have my child in between my legs braiding their hair. I have to.
02:22I don't feel like you have to know how to braid in order to be a black mother.
02:26Come on now.
02:27Braiding I do believe is a huge part of black motherhood.
02:30I don't think that it's synonymous anymore.
02:33I think at a time it probably was because we probably didn't have a choice.
02:38You know, we didn't have that much money, didn't have that many resources.
02:41You had to do your baby's hair.
02:43We have the means now, which is a great thing, to send our children to beauticians and send them to
02:50places where other folks can braid their hair.
02:54And it's creating a different experience for the black woman in motherhood.
02:58There is something like an art form to it.
03:01And I do think it's a part of our culture.
03:03If I knew how to do hair in general, let's just keep it a stack.
03:06Do you know how much money I would save?
03:08I want to cornrow for my own purposes.
03:10Like, I wear wigs now, so I have to literally pay someone to cornrow my hair, which just seems a
03:16little bit wasteful more than anything.
03:18I always question, like, why do I know how to do this and why is it so hard for me?
03:23You know, because people make it look so easy.
03:25I wish that there was a braiding class or, like, someone who had enough patience to sit and, like, just
03:31walk me through that shit.
03:32When people ask me how did I learn how to braid, I legit do not know.
03:36I think I was self-taught.
03:38One of my first memories of me braiding another human being's hair, I was seven and my sister was five
03:46years old.
03:47I would part her hair, you know, that blue magic grease.
03:49I put some blue magic grease on it and I just started braiding it and I'd give her a little
03:54single.
03:54Like, I'm actually on a quick timetable because I'm about to be an auntie any year now.
04:00Girl, if you can't braid, you can still be fly.
04:03Hello?
04:04Go get you one of them heads, right?
04:06If you want to learn how to braid and you're instructing, like, I can't, I don't know how to do
04:10my hand.
04:11Like, practice on yourself.
04:13Watch the YouTube tutorials.
04:14Whatever you have to do, we have to learn.
