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After hearing that her younger sister was being bullied about her natural hair, D.C.-based documentary filmmakerSt.
St. Clair Detrick-Jules
Clair Detrick-Julessnapped into Big Sister mode.
Her classmates had been bullying her about hernatural hair.
And she would say yes.
St. Clair Detrick-Jules
When she started getting bullied she was four years old.
She was so ashamed of her beautiful Afro.
My first response was just anger.
I didn’t think it was going to be too big.
But then as the project evolved, I decided that I really wanted to go the book route.
So many people said, “I would love to share my story.”
The responses that I got were confirmation of how powerful and loving the Black sisterhood is.
I interviewed almost everybody I photographed in person.
For the most part, it was very open-ended.
I would just say, “Can you talk to me about yournatural hair journey?”
The phrase “good hair” came up fairly often.
Their families and their communities would even deny their Black ancestry or deny that they themselves were Black.
That’spresent in Latin Americaand obviously in the U.S. as well.
In Latin America, that’s not necessarily the case.
I can’t remember what they called me, but they gave me another term that was not Black.
For a lot of the Afro-Latinas in my book, their hair helped them honor their African heritage.
There was a lot of wisdom from this older generation.
I’m thinking particularly about these two girls, Ruth and Kaelyn, who I photographed and interviewed together.
She was four years old at the time.
That was really eye-opening for me.
That was the first time since kindergarten that I thought there could be beauty within mebecauseI’m Black.
As one of the women in the book says, self-love is an active process.
It wasn’t until I started makingMy Beautiful Black Hairthat I got to the next level of self-love.
I really truly love my hair.
I don’t just tolerate it anymore.
I see it as a connection to my ancestors, to my blackness, to my roots.
My relationship with my hair is so much more profound now.
We constantly have to be working onself-love, especially as Black women.
In some ways I feel like I’ve been cut off from my Black roots.
This book was a really cool reminder that I’m always connected to my Black heritage through my curls.
