 Hi everyone, my name is Kiana Davis and I am your presenter today. I'm going to talk to you today about my project called Unyielding Roots and I'm going to tell some hair stories. So once again, my name is Kiana Davis. I'm an author here at Two of My Books, Digging for Roots and From These Roots Up. I'm a narrative poet, storyteller, so they're both about my experience growing up. The first book Digging for Roots is about my experience growing up in Richmond, California and not really learning about my culture, not really learning about Black culture or Black history and the impact it had on me. It all started with the Black doll and how this particular doll was nowhere to be found. My second book From These Roots Up is about cultural problems I saw in my community and institutional practices of racism and how it impacted myself, my community, and my family. Once again, I'm also a teacher. I work with Edmonton Technical College and I help adults and young people are in their high school diploma and their GEDs. Let's get started. So how my project came about? Last year I was given a grant from Fuller Culture. I applied for a couple reasons. One, in 2008 I went natural and what that means is that I stopped chemically processing my hair and allowed my hair to grow in this natural state. And what I learned about my hair was that it was very unyielding and it did not compromise who it was. It didn't care about assimilating or being flexible. It wanted to just grow out of my head the way it grew out of my head. And so it taught me it's teaching me still a lot about myself and being who I am and being proud of my culture and my heritage. I applied for the grant secondly because in 2013 up until today I've been seeing story after story of young girls and young boys as well of hair trauma. Their education has been interrupted because of their natural hair or their natural hair styles. So the first story I noticed was a 12-year-old girl in 2013, a violinist Vanessa Van Dyke and she faced expulsion because she came to school with her afro her hair in an afro and the school couldn't handle it. The second young girl I saw around that time was Tiana Parker who was just seven at the time. She had worn her hair and dreadlocks the year before but after summer the school put together some policies and when she returned they said that she could not attend the school if she had her hair and dreads. And I remember watching the coverage of both young girls and they both were very deflated and Tiana who was seven cried visible on the news and it was heartbreaking. And I wish that was it but there's just been story after story of young girls and women and boys that have had an interruption to their education or employment because of their hair. And so my project is called I'm Reading It's a Poetry Project, Hair Story Project. I'm looking for stories that convey what the impact of the media, institutional practices and just the view of how our hair is seen and how it's reflected and how we look at ourselves. In my workshop I'm going to talk about different hair stories. I'm going to go I found some really interesting stories about hair in different cultures so I'm going to explore some of those stories and then I'm going to end it with African-American hair discrimination. All right let's get started. Now here's a picture of my hair pretty artistic looking but this is one of my hair story homes it's called DNA beautiful kinky coily texture curly full thick fluffy natural my hair is not a fad it's a part of me my lineage my DNA. All right so some objectives I have after this workshop I'm hoping that you will understand what hair symbolizes in different cultures around the world. Also I'm hoping that you've written some poetry or reflective writing on hair hair discrimination or just your own personal hair stories. I did put hair discrimination in there but it could be about anything really and then you're going to see this little sign that says it's the right time. I am pretty silly so you might see my humor reflected throughout the workshop but when you see that symbol I'm going to ask you to do some things. One I'm going to ask you to reflect on the question and then I'm going to ask you to think about your story or someone else's story all dealing with hair and identity and I'm going to hope after this workshop you'll learn the history of black hair discrimination black women have faced in America the history of hair discrimination black women have faced so that's something those are some things I'm hoping you're going to get out of the workshop and also triggers so my job is not to trigger make anyone feel bad about the information I'm presenting you know these things happened centuries ago these policies were in place before we were born but they're still happening so I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad if it's happening to you you might feel bad you might feel triggered if you have never heard of this before and maybe the dominant group is doing or the privileged group is doing that looks like you I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad what I would love for you to do is have an open heart I would like you to have an open mind now I'm not an expert in this matter I'm a narrative poet I'm a teacher and there are a lot of hair stories out there culturally I have just picked a few but there's a plethora of books out there there's a plethora of articles please feel free to keep this conversation going don't stop with me okay so have an open mind please be open to writing and sharing is always caring is one of my favorite models so what is poetry or why am I asking you to write poetry so poetry is just the genre of writing that I love and I'm a poet and I write poetry books but really you can write just reflection pieces you can write whatever comes to mind it doesn't have to be a poem but Lucille Clifton said it best I think poetry is a matter of life not just a matter of language I started writing poetry early on it saved my life I would say because it allowed me to write about what was going on around me and I was able to see a lot of different perspectives after I wrote so poetry is important for me now I'm not going to just ask you to write poetry without a little bit of education on poetry so let's get started there yeah poetic devices cool things you can do to bring your poetry to life one of my favorite poetic devices is personification now normally in my workshop I asked all the participants to say personification on three so I count up like one two three and everyone has to say personification but I won't do that today but personification is a writer using personification to give human characteristics or human qualities to something that doesn't live that's non-human it's one of my favorite poetic devices it's an effective way to add interest to your writing and can truly bring your writing bring your description to life so TS Eliot amazing writer wrote April is the coolest month awesome April has now emotions and so that's how he brought it to life so I really like that example and as y'all can guess I love personifications a next poetic device are pretty popular and they can be used in poetry out of poetry but similes we use them all the time a simile compares two things using the words like her eyes the late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean I love that so I'm going to read it one more time the late afternoon sky bloom in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean very great imagery okay we've got the simile next we have metaphors metaphors are also really popular poetry in and out of poetry you can in and out of poetry you can write them people use them all the time metaphors are direct comparisons between two things that unlike similes do not use the words like her as so examples fill your paper with the grievance of your heart Williams was and then we have one more from big boys from outcast I'm cooler than a polar bear's toenails all right two cool examples of metaphors now if you're thinking I've never written poetry before how can I write poetry in such a short amount of time no problem one of the poetry poetic styles I also like will be a list poem list poems are just that they can be a list of inventory of items people places ideas list poems are often involved repetition list poems can also rhyme but they don't have to run now here's an example of a list poem that I wrote from this picture brown girl long wavy thick hair dreaming eyes standing against stone I wonder if she is happy I wonder if her smile is real I wonder if she is free to love who she is so list poems are really great ways to just get your information your ideas out without having the fear of writing a poem another really great poetic style that I like is free verse poems free verse poems rhyme they don't have to run they don't have to have rhyme scheme they don't have to follow the regular rules of poetry or rhyme so some poets really like to rhyme I'm not a rhyming poet but if you are rhyme away but free verse allows you not to have to worry about what are the rules with writing just wait a great way to self-express all right so you might be thinking how am I supposed to write a poem I have no idea what I'm doing or I haven't written a poem or I'm not sure exactly what's going through your head but I know sometimes when I teach this workshop I like to talk about detailed notice if I give you a topic you might feel like what you might get stuck and so these are great tools to use who what when where how and why there are great ways to just help you unpack a thought and break down a concept so detailed builders all right look at that there's a sign it's the right time showing up already I'm going to show this video but right before I do I want you to just pay attention to the young girls are the poets' hair confidence and I want you to think about hair or steam and confidence and where it comes from for you where did you learn how to love your hair or embrace your hair okay we see her hair is steam so I want you to take a time take the time to think about where your hair the steam comes from hair confidence it could come from your mom it could come from your family it could come from any various places so normally I give writers our participants two minutes I think through this question and so after I always like participants also share with a partner maybe someone they haven't talked to before don't know and go over and maybe turn to them and share what they've written but that's probably scaring people right there let's just go ahead and write and then think about the question reflect on it I'm going to be quiet for a few seconds but this would be a great place to pause the video if you need more time hair in every culture has symbolism so what we're going to do next is we're going to talk about some different hair stories so I went through and just looked up some stories about hair and with hair symbolized for different cultures and here's some stories I found many ancient cultures believe there is power in uncut hair long hair in Native American culture long hair has symbolic significance tying them to Mother Earth Mother Earth is known as sweet grasses many Native Americans believe their hair is physical the physical a physical manifestation of growth of spirit and some say it allows extra sensory perception connections to all things Native Americans did not trim or cut their hair except during times of mourning which is symbolic of the loss of a loved one so I found this information and the link the website is in the last slide of the presentation but I'm not sure if this is for all Native American tribes but this is really an amazing hair story I thought that how they saw hair as a symbolic representation of Mother Earth and even named the sweet grasses that's amazing and then to cut their hair you know if you saw a Native American with their hair cut it symbolizes a loss of a loved one amazing so this is a Native American hair story another hair story that I found was South American hair braiding Peru throughout Peru you will see Native women of all ages wearing long braids long braided hair represents much more than just a hairstyle the braids signify the marital status of the Peruvian women two braids revealed that a woman in the tribe is married while one are mini braids means that she is single so just think about that this is a really great story if you saw a woman with two braids that as you know she's married when many coaches have rings for that right and this is our hair and if the mini braids are one braid she is single so I thought this was an amazing hair story as well so religious head covering it says guide on there but disregard that but here are just some different things I found about women who cover their hair Muslim women cover their heads and a part of their face according to the Islamic principles of hair dressing modestly some of the garments cover their hair ears throat although the face is exposed so I did present this and a woman in a Muslim woman told me that it also covers their glory like their beauty but they don't want everyone to see their beauty which is similar to the orthodox women I thought because the orthodox women once married should not show her hair only to her husband in private it's considered sacred bond between a husband and wife for many is important way that a married woman says to the world that she's not available many women ultra orthodox communities shave their heads as well okay so this is where the hair is so precious that they don't even show only their loved ones or their husband what their hair looks like so this I thought was an amazing hair story all right so there is a village in China that has the world's longest hair villages in China so that I thought this was awesome on the secret keeping one hair long and shiny in a way from gray hair is to wash hair with water used to clean rice so I know a natural hair movement that recently like last year I heard a lot of the women of color were talking about washing their hair with rice water and this is where it originated from so this is what we learned um they do not cut their hair from birth when we reached the age of 18 we get our first haircut as a part of coming of age ceremony which signifies the girl is now an adult and can marry the hair cut off at the ceremony is not allowed to be thrown away but preserved after marriage in childbirth this section of their hair leave and mourn in the form of a hairpin so to speak as a distinction between married and unmarried women so this is the article I found and the link is in the last slide of my presentation but this is really I thought an amazing hair story because one they don't cut their hair until they're 18 and then they take their hair and turn it into a hairpin amazing so here's a picture of the women in this village and look how long their hair is no gray hair in sight and they take a lot of time with their hair so the hair is very significant all right it's the right time so think about your hair and how you wear it or how you want it or maybe how you wanted to wear your hair but you cut it um what does your hair say about you you know what does it represent what does it say something about your community or where you come from are you just able to wear your hair just the way you want so it's the right time I'm going to be quiet for a few seconds but this will be a great time to pause the video if you're listening to this in the group find a new partner to share with if you'd like to after I don't ask people I don't force people to share but sharing is sometimes caring so think about that so here's the question again what does your hair say about you another really interesting hair story I found with Polynesians the spiritual aspect of their custom is fascinating with a strong belief in mana which is a strong spiritual force energy form of energy which we all possess Polynesians believe that our hair contains mana which links to our bodies so it is culturally very rare to have reasons to cut their hair an ancient tradition is believed that even the disposal here must be considered a considered matter for even a passing bird that managed to catch a strand of their hair and uses it to build a nest can have consequences a headache for that person so this was definitely something I heard about when I was growing up my mother would do my hair comb my hair and then she would burn the hair because she said bird finds your hair you're going to get a headache they're going to put in the nest so I thought this was really interesting felt like a superstition of sorts so the Polynesian hair story all right here's another hair story hindu women that I learned about this story their hair symbolism and practice from a documentary called good hair by Chris walk where he went to the temple and he saw the sacrifice that many of them were making um to their gods so hindu women grow their hair long to please their gods every year millions of people travel to two temples in southern India hoping for an answer to their prayers but every miracle requires a sacrifice and many programs sacrifice their hair so in the documentary once again called good hair you see women going there even babies having their hair cut off and they sacrifice their hair they have a ceremony but what I don't think the women know or what's not known to custom is that that hair is then taken and processed and turned into rigs and weeds so the hair is still used throughout the world so their hair in southern India could end up in New York so um hair stories hindu women uh oh we got another one yay it's the right time so let's think about your culture and what your hair symbolizes is there a practice that you share in your culture um around hair maybe not cutting it or maybe dying it or maybe there's no culture but think about it in my culture hair symbolizes so I'm going to be quiet for a few seconds this would be a great time to write think about your hair and what it symbolizes in your culture all right thank you now we're going to get into african culture and hair um the history of hair in africa hair played a significant role in culture of ancient african civilization as a symbolized as one of a family's background social status spirituality tribe community and marital status hair is also a social activity as it is today so we still do that so they want to go to hair salons and we sit around and gather and talk about life all right so that was the same thing that happened in africa right here so look at these amazing elaborate hairstyles so as we look at these african hairstyles I want you to take note to how long the hairstyles have been um originated like how long they've been in play I guess we can say and then I'm going to talk to you about how a lot of times actually women of color are still wearing many of these hairstyles that originated in africa maybe 300 years ago and these are some of the same styles that young girls and women are either being having their education interrupted because it'll fit the norm or maybe being fired or reprimanded at their job because they're wearing these hairstyles all right so the first one we have is um amazon amazonza it was traditionally worn by Rwanda men and unmarried women until only about 100 years ago the style indicated social status and signaled the age for marriage so I'm not sure if you recognize the actress on the right but this is Lupeeta and she's a famous actress and I believe she was in the Black Panther all right our second hair story goes to the Bantu Nuts um here's another famous face Rihanna Bantu means people and is a blanket term used to describe the 300 to 600 year ethnic groups within southern africa Bantu Nuts are also known as Zulu Nuts because Zulu people um a Bantu ethnic group were the first to wear the styles so this hairstyle is actually still um happening I know a lot of natural hair women on youtube I've seen them wear these hairstyles I haven't worn my hair like this so my sister has and my best friend have so this is amazing that this hairstyle is still around all right here's another famous face Erika Baju she's a famous singer and she's wearing threaded hair uh faux locks hair threading has always been an integral part of african beauty especially in west africa it is both fashionable and protective and has been worn for ages so this locks date back as far as to 2500 dc so that's how long they've been worn that was pretty long and they're beautiful a lot of women today are wearing faux locks um and these are also this is another style that young girls and um young boys are being uh recommended for there was a young man I believe last year who was playing um he was a wrestler and he could not continue wrestling until his hair was cut so the I think a referee or a coach had to cut his hair in order for him to fly because of his dreadlocks all right another famous face you might recognize Kim Kardashian now she's wearing fulani braids fulani's are primarily muslim traditionally pastoral ethnic group in africa that scattered throughout west africa and parts of east africa fulani bride hair is especially colorful and deliberately adorned now these braids can be traced 30 000 years back that's amazing and so young girls still today like young black girls and women are wearing these hairstyles and look how old they are um and then we have Kim Kardashian is a famous celebrity who's wearing them so amazing all right we've got another question so what do you think about your hair and the connection your hair may have does it have connections to your community does it have a connection to how you feel about yourself yourself self-esteem what is your hair connection to or maybe your hair doesn't necessarily have a connection but maybe your grandmother's hair or maybe there's a hair story um that you like to share so this is where I take a few minutes two minutes and pause the workshop so I'm gonna just be quiet for a few minutes but of course pause my hair connects me too all right thank you so now we're going to look at america and slavery and black hair so this law I thought was pretty interesting for a hair story to share uh the teigan law was banning the black hair in general so black women in louisiana um were african and creole so there were some mixed women there and what they were doing was they were wearing their hair with like flowers and shells and just different things maybe leaves and their hair was so elaborate they were seen as very attractive women and the law had to come in place in about 18 no 1786 in louisiana because they wanted to stop women from looking so attractive because it was threatening to the white women and a lot of the men were very attractive to the um the slaves I guess you would say the women that were slaves there and so what they said is they could not show their hair so they had to cover their heads to stop the attraction that was happening um however black women did not despair instead they abided by the rule and turned it into fashion the women used unique colors jewels ribbons and wrapping styles which accentuated their gorgeousness even more out of this bore various hair ties seen today on women of color using unique materials patterns and flair the law ended in the 1800s the black women continued um rocking their head wraps so this was a um a law that was going to stop black women from showing their hair at all and they took the law we'll go back to the picture look how beautifully adorn this hair about this so she her hair is covered and then she put the stylish hat on there which is beautiful all right there's a teigen law hair story now here's another interesting hair story maps of maps to freedom so this hairstyle is called cornrows all right so during Atlantic slave trade many slaves were forced to shave their heads to be more sanitary and also to move um around from cultures and identity and also move them away from their cultural identity i also learned that a lot of times the slave um the mistress of the house the woman of the house would shave a woman's hair if she thought she was too attractive um but not all enslaved Africans um will not keep their hair cut many would braid their hairs tightly in cornrows to maintain a neat and tidy appearance enslaved Africans also use cornrows to transfer and create maps to leave plantations in home of their um captors this act of hair as a tool for resistance is said to have been evident across South America as well so look how tightly they've woven their hair together and they use these hairstyles for maps for freedom amazing hair story let's see um history of cornrows depictions of women with cornrows have been found in stone age paintings in the Sahara and have been dated back 3000 um bc they're also native american paintings as far back as 1000 years showing cornrows as a hairstyle this tradition of female styling in cornrows has remained popular throughout africa and particularly in horns of africa and west now the cornrows are also worn in america and this is another style that if you were um to certain schools or work that would be being unprofessional and you could possibly maybe um be reprimanded at your job or you could be expelled at your school all right so now we have the black hair movement um tracy ellis raw says i love my hair because it's a reflection of my soul it's dense it's kinky it's soft it's texture it's difficult it's easy and fun that's why i love my hair society says beauty is but my definition of beauty so when i was putting together this workshop i said let me put in magazines let me see what's beautiful what's the standard for beauty so in this particular magazine this picture you do see some different women of different colors right you do see different hair textures and right but predominantly is the european eurocentric right is the form of beauty but i want you to say i want you to think about what society says beauty is but what's your own personal definition and so it's the right time to write so i'm going to give a pause and you can take one minute or two minutes as long as you need as a group and think about what um your definition of beauty is now for these particular questions wherever these questions take you that's where i'm looking to write about maybe you'll write about society says beauty is and write a list poem on that are just a reflective piece on that or maybe you'll say my definition of beauty is and it's really only up to you what you decide to write and it's the right time so i'm going to be quiet and give you a chance to write all right thank you so 60s and 70s was known we're known was known as the black hair movement i'm not sure if you recognize this woman in the picture it's angela davis she's very famous american a political activist academic and um arthur um this piece was i've got this information from ebony magazine um it breaks down the movement at the time the afro was a black beauty personified without white um validation and they did not care about critics so this is a time where black people women and men just wearing their own hair and they turned it into an afro i'm in the 60s after decades of subjecting ourselves to european beauty standards we decided to take back our hair the new found self-acceptance was wildly known as the black is beautiful movement was sprang from the black power movement so there's a famous song by james brown i'm black and i'm proud and that meant i'm in that particular time frame is to embrace their hair and the texture and how it grew now in the so this is 60s and 70s there is another movement in the 80s and 90s i didn't really cover because i wanted to go here and then i'm going to talk about the natural hair movement so um the natural hair movement is a movement which encourages women and men of african descent to keep their natural afro texture hair it originated in the united states during the 60s with the most recent iteration during the 2000s so 2000 uh that era is when like 2008 when i decided to go natural and that's also when chris brought put out his um documentary called good hair he talked about what is good hair he also talked about how um black women were chemically processing their hair and he broke down some concepts and things that i think stopped a lot of us from using relaxers or perms which had a lot of chemicals that could cause fibroids and cancer and so this is where the hair movements the natural hair movement started and with the natural hair movement i begin to notice this trend happened and so this picture was in pr i think about two years ago and this image i think just summarizes the whole issue and why i decided to do a new news project so the title the caption for the article is the black hair violates the dress code so we just learned about hair stories from different cultures we talked about african hair culture hair stories and so you have these two young girls of color that are getting ready to go to class and you have this instructor right here i don't know what if you know body language that doesn't look welcoming right so we have these braids maybe these are phalani braids which are said to have been 3000 years old 30 000 years old right you have afro textured hair here i like the little stars around the girls oh right but you see that this is not welcoming and it's all because of their hair and so when black hair violates the dress code and that is one of the issues i want to talk to young girls about is how how does that impact them how does that make them feel about their hair um this is a poem i wrote um for a young girl i believe this happened in her early 2020 it's like a few months ago when school started her name is audrey audrey she's in uh she was just in few alip here she's a fifth grade and what she decided to do was wear her hair chest like this she decided to go to school with her hair out naturally out which could resemble afro or just a big you know big puff of hair what some people call it and when she got to school her classmates as well as other students were telling her that they didn't like her hair they even went as far to say her hair was ugly and that she looked ugly with that hair and she went home distraught and she told her mother her mother said well what happened what's going on and she told her what everyone said so the mother not only went to the school and complained but she also went to the news and that's how i heard about it so this poem is for audrey and all the audrey's that are out there this is my hair these are my roots thick coily and unwavering my hair grows unyieldy under the weight of policies and labels of not being enough but it will not bend or change who it is it will fight to remain everything it is told not to be unapologetically free all right so these are some stories that i found oh my um when i was doing my research and just some of the stories that i that were really just unnerving to me because this is how our hair grows out of our head so look at the hair texture and so the schools have put policies in place that stop young girls from wearing their own hair and some questions i have why i'm working on my masters right now in education i found nothing that says that when a young person comes to school with their hair in his natural state they can't learn um so this young girl here is from south africa um so just think about she's from south africa but she attended a private school and all the girls were restricted to for wearing natural hair they were only allowed they were told to press their hair out of where their hair is straight um here we have Vanessa van Dyke who i was talking about in the beginning of the video and here is um her afro and here's her mom and she's being bullied for her puffy hair by classmates at her faith christian academy and she risked expulsion in her school she continued to wear her hair that way now this young girl is 12 years old she also plays a violin but that's not enough because this is how she wants to wear her hair and somehow that's a problem um this video this picture here is a young girl who says my principal wanted to embarrass me like my natural hair was ugly so that's the messaging that happens when school officials say you can't wear your hair in a certain style and even demon hairstyles is a fact when we just learned that a lot of these hairstyles are hundreds of years old um so that's disheartening here a couple more several more stories so this is a young girl here um a third grader from texas who wore her hair in a faux hawk and she was pulled out of class um the young girl who's crying here in the right corner was sent home from school because of her extensions um i put i was in an interview at billview college a few months ago and one of the things i talked about in my interview is that a lot of times these hairstyles braids can be expensive i'm not sure how much she paid for her hair but a lot of times it could be maybe a hundred dollars a hundred and fifty dollars maybe even just fifty dollars but it is a way for us to braid our hair and to protect it it's a protective style so we call it and we use we braid our hair to protect our hair from just damaging the heat and overcoming our process in it as a way to give our hair a break and also be very stylish as well so as you can see from her crying that she felt pretty devastating when her school said um she couldn't wear her hair like that so it becomes this question of either you want to come to school here or you have you have to choose you have to choose your hair or you have to choose your education and is that right now one of the little girls that also caught my attention in early 2000s was little tiana here at the bottom she was sent home from school because of her fattish dreadlocks tianna's braids um the entire school last year wore her hair of tire school last year and didn't have any problems so we in the um worked in the presentation i just talked about what we had erica badoo and we had the locks those locks were not a fad they've actually been around for years um and so it's very disheartening to see that um they the school called fattish um one of the questions i want to talk to younger people about her even adults how beauty standards affect the self-esteem of girls of color um beyonce said um with her album eliminate i like my baby hair with baby hair and afro's so she likes her daughter her baby's hair with baby hair and afro's when she was allowing her daughter fiance to wear her hair in a natural state people were condemning it they were saying why don't you brush your daughter's hair why don't you do this a lot of it was internalized oppression from um the black community and just like in an uproar that she allowed her daughter to wear her hair naturally um so there's also a lot of internalization within the black community about hair and what it symbolizes for each each of us we all have a hair story we all have um something that we've learned maybe from society about our hair um some things that are happening around hair is the crown act which ensures protection against discrimination and hairstyles by extending sanctuary protection um to hair texture and protective styles and fair employment and housing and state education codes so the hair act started just a few years ago and um they passed a law in several jurisdictions including new jersey new york virginia um mcgummery county maryland Cincinnati colorado california washington state um and similar statewide legislations also have been introduced in alabama georgia and florida so as you can see there are laws that now have to be in place to protect um black women and boys and and girls and men because of their hair the natural texture of hair um there was seen a lot of discrimination and so this is a really great um come about the hair the crown act all right that is the end of my presentation so what i love for get a right is a letter to a poet i love to hear what you thought about the workshop if there are any other cultures i should use or talk about um and then uh any thoughts just about the hair discrimination itself i know a lot of people haven't really learned about hair discrimination or maybe you don't know um what's been going on in the community but this is definitely i'd love to hear what you think about the workshop what you thought about the presentation please let me know i'm gonna pause it for a few seconds this will give you time to pause and to um reflect and write me a note and let me know what you thought all right thank you for writing um let's see i am kiana davis once again arthur poet and teacher and storyteller my project is called unyielding roots and so my website is www.unyieldingroots.com i'm looking for hair stories um poetry format to add to my book of anthology that i'm putting together i mentioned earlier that i got a grant from for culture and one of my goals is to put together a book of poetry uh hair stories for um black women girls and teens i'm hoping that the project will bring light to the struggles black women girls and teens face because of their hair i also would love to take the book to different schools and um employment agencies or companies and talk to them about their policies around here um if you're interested in reading more of my poetry my site is politicalwakening.com and you can check out my site um and read some of my culture there um at the beginning of the workshop i mentioned or in the middle i talked about um hair interview i did at billview college and the interview is on their website and i just go into length about the process of being natural um that is not that is the crazy part of it is you just think of hair when you think of hair it seems like a simple matter but as we went through the workshop we see that hair is symbolic of so many things for so many cultures it could be a woman's glory right um it could be just a status symbol for community not just for women that's primarily what i'm talking about in my workshop but also for men uh and what it really holds and so for women of color my if you know my belief is that our hair is pretty different from a lot of different cultures our hair is thicker it's coily or it's kinky um also termed um been deemed nappy and with those things we don't have we can't we can't really hide you know if i wanted to um keep my hair straight i have to chemically process it and chemically process your hair you have to use chemicals that could cause cancer or fibroids it's amazing you know just the things that you go through just to be part of society so i go into length i'm just talking about even washing our hair because it's pretty thick right every one of us has different hair texture but it's pretty thick and it is a process and um you know is it okay for us to wear our natural hair or should we straighten our hair to be like everyone else and those are some of the ideas that i talk about in my interview i love for you to listen to it and check it out please send me your thoughts my email address is on the slides and i believe on the left side here are some of the links that i've gotten um from the articles that i found so if you know of any other hair stories i love to add more hair stories to my workshop um i know there's some other stories about Native American males who had their hair cut um so i love to add more stories to my workshop so if you have any please send them to me and i just want to thank you i want to thank you for um listening to me today i want to also thank you for writing um at the end of my workshop i like to open it up or open mic um if you didn't if you weren't able to pair and share when you listen to the workshop this would be a great time i would open it up for everyone to share their poems share their thoughts or any other poetry or writing that you have personally about hair or about the steam or identity well thank you again and my name is Gianna Davis oh sorry guys