Ep 290 | “Wash Day” with Tomesha Faxio

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You are listening to the Be the Bridge Podcast with Latasha Morrison.

Latasha Morrison[intro] How are you guys doing today? It’s exciting!

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Each week, Be the Bridge Podcast tackles subjects related to race and culture with the goal of bringing understanding.

Latasha Morrison[intro] …but I’m gonna do it in the spirit of love.

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We believe understanding can move us toward racial healing, racial equity, and racial unity. Latasha Morrison is the founder of Be the Bridge, which is an organization responding to racial brokenness and systemic injustice in our world. This podcast is an extension of our vision to make sure people are no longer conditioned by a racialized society but grounded in truth. If you have not hit the subscribe button, please do so now. Without further ado, let’s begin today’s podcast. Oh, and stick around for some important information at the end.

Latasha Morrison
Be the Bridge community, we have a treat for you. I have someone that you, maybe you’ve heard of her or maybe you’ve seen her at some of the Be the Bidge events. But I have Tomesha Faxio. She is a self-taught documentary photographer and she’s dedicated to portraying and centering the Black experience. She specializes in portraits of Black women and women of color. Tomesha strives to tell authentic stories that both inform and inspire. And her photography has been featured across the media outlets. Before becoming a photographer, Tomesha was a lawyer working as a legal counsel for Spanx. She is a graduate of the Spelman College, and Vanderbilt University, a JD in law and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Atlanta, Georgia. Let’s welcome Tomesha.

Tomesha Faxio
Thank you so much.

Latasha Morrison
I’m so glad to have you here. And I mentioned that you know, she tells authentic stories. So if you’ve seen a lot of the Be the Bridge photography, guess what? Tomesha did it. All of my headshots, all of my headshots.

Tomesha Faxio
Oh, yeah, we go way back.

Latasha Morrison
Tomesha did it, we did it. And then there was one. The last one that we put up. We had people vote on which look they liked. And I had like on an orange jacket. Yeah, guys, if you saw that post, Tomesha created that. Okay. So it’s great to have you on. I know you’ve been talking about this for a while. And I think it’s so creative that I think it’s something that our audience would definitely enjoy. But Tomesha wrote a book, and it’s like a what do we call these, photography books?

Tomesha Faxio
So people will call them coffee table books. I call it a photography book. A documentary photography book.

Latasha Morrison
Yes. Listen it’s definitely going on my table. It’s so beautiful. You have to get this. We have a lot of women of color that follow us. But we have a lot of white women and white men who have transracial children where this is also their story. And they can learn from this, it’s called Wash Day. And it is beautiful. It is beautiful. And you have got to get this book. When it came, I remember you talking about it. But I was like, “Ok how is this gonna….” I didn’t know. And then when it came I was like brilliant. Just brilliant. I mean, how does it feel to have this? Now you are someone, okay, so originally, let me go back you guys. When I met Tomesha, a friend of us, we have a mutual friend, Amina. Amina Brown, she actually, when I moved back, I was looking, I needed to get some headshots and we were having an event and I needed a photographer and she’s like, she sent me like two or three people. And she said, “this person is really good at events and you know, all these different things”. And so I connected with you then, you were still at Spanx and doing photography on the weekend. Yes, yeah. Yeah. We actually, we actually went to the Spanx headquarters, and actually did the filming at that point. You did the filming

Tomesha Faxio
And the Buckhead shots.

Latasha Morrison
Yeah, yeah, and so, what has happened?

Tomesha Faxio
Man, what a journey. When I think back to those days this feels so full circle. Because it was a hobby. At the time when I took your pictures. It was a hobby. It was something that I started doing, I became interested in it because I was dabbling in different creative things. I, at some point in my career as a lawyer started to become kind of, you know, it wasn’t feeling like the thing. And I started dabbling in all sorts of creative things. I even took some art direction classes, copywriting classes, just to kind of figure out what this itch was. One day, I was at a friend’s house for their daughter’s birthday party. And I was like, you know, I feel like photography might be my next little, little thing I might try. That day, both of them it was a husband and wife, they went disappeared for a second. I didn’t know where they went, then they reappeared with a camera. And I just thought that they were showing me a camera to give me an idea of what I should buy. No, they were like, you know, “do you want this camera?” And I was like, “oh, yeah, this looks like a good model, it’s a Canon. I’ve heard those are good”. And they were like, “no, no, no. Do you want this camera?” I’m like, “No, I cannot accept this. No, no, no, no, no”. They were like”, No, we, we believe in you. Like, please take this, we’re not using it, like, just take it”. I’ll just say that started it all. It took away any excuse, I had to wait until I could get a camera, took away any other reason for me not to get started. I immediately started taking pictures, and started putting the work out there, which is a very vulnerable thing to do, especially for someone who came from a law background and everything just needs to be so perfect. I was just putting it out there. People began to respond to it. And it was clear that there was something there. So that’s kind of what started it all.

Latasha Morrison
Wow. So what what was the thing that took you into law originally, that took you into law?

Tomesha Faxio
So I was a psychology major in college. Um, I enjoyed that. But I decided that I did not want to pursue a PhD. It just didn’t interest me. And just to be perfectly honest, other friends of mine, we’re going to law school.

Latasha Morrison
Tell the truth, just tell the truth. Tell the truth and say that

Tomesha Faxio
I was not one of those people who grew up watching Claire Huxtable was like, I want to be her. I wanted to be her. It didn’t occur to me. Being a lawyer was never something that I even thought to do. But it was an option that other people were pursuing. This sounds crazy, but it is. And I knew that I wanted to pursue higher education, and I just wasn’t sure. So it was like, let’s just give law school a try.

Latasha Morrison
So she went to Vanderbilt, went to law school, passed the bar. And was working for Spanx.

Tomesha Faxio
Yeah. And actually funny enough, I ended up working for one of the top firms in Atlanta when I first came out.

Latasha Morrison
Oh, wow. You just stumbled in there, just stumbled upon?

Tomesha Faxio
And, you know, I, you know, I will say that I liked school. I love learning. And so I enjoyed law school. I mean, as much as one can enjoy law school. It’s hard. Okay, so I enjoyed the process of learning. As I was, you know, engaged in the process of learning, I did develop a passion for it and developed, you know, a desire to do it. But along the way, when something is just not it for you, it’s going to start to, the cracks are going to start to show. So for me, I just started feeling really, just unsatisfied. Just wondering if there was more in me and around that time when I started having those questions, there were just other creative, like desires. It just started to sprout out and I mean, I, I tried clothing design, multimedia artwork, calligraphy, I was just doing all sorts of things to try to find out. What is the thing? You know,

Latasha Morrison
I love it. But there’s so much to learn from that. Like when, you know, there’s no peace about what you’re doing, like you were just trying to see and what was going to, like, what was going to speak to you, you know. I know when I first met you, and you found out, you know what I was doing at that time, you know, we were both like, I think this was in 2018; I think it was around 2018. I mean, because I moved back to Atlanta in 2017. And I was looking, so that was around 2018 when we first did the first set, and then I think we did another set in 2019. But, it’s incredible, this this journey that you’ve been on and you know, we’re in the space of racial healing, you know. Has the racialized society that we live in, played a role in, even in your career transition?

Tomesha Faxio
I’m so sorry I was laughing. Listen, yeah. How do I say this? Yes, there have been so many moments, I have to say it. There have been so many moments along the way where I could not help but wonder, well, some of it, I didn’t have to wonder, some of it I just knew how race was playing a role in the development of my career. The types of mentors that I had in certain spaces. There were instances where, well, there was one instance in particular, I will not say where I was working at the time, where basically, I was training my replacement, a white woman, and I didn’t know it. And the way that everything unfolded was very clear that…Oh, my gosh, I don’t know how to say…

Latasha Morrison
She’s trying to be careful. She’s like, I am on the Be the Bridge podcast. I don’t really know how to say it.

Tomesha Faxio
How do I say this? Okay, I will say this, I will say this, there were there were definite disparities between how I and another Black associate were treated at this firm, the types of work we were given, the types of assignments that were provided to us versus some other people who didn’t look like us. I’ll just say that. And then there are those little moments along the way that you just kind of look back and go, “Wow, that wasn’t great”. And then, many, many, many times, I can say that I was undervalued, for sure. I at one job in particular, I had brought a lot of work in-house that had been outsourced previously had, I believe, saved the company tons of money had done really great work, but was not advancing the way that it seemed others were advancing around me. My reviews were always stellar. Yeah, so I think that definitely played a role in my desire to look beyond that. And I think everything, works together, everything happens for a reason. And I think that was one of those initial pushes for me to say, is this it?

Latasha Morrison
I mean, you know, you know, I just wrote another book, Brown Faces, White Spaces. And the reason why I wrote the book is because of stories like yourself, having these conversations with so many people of color and their experiences in various spaces. Like, it’s unbelievable. And I and I just, it’s incredible. And I think I heard you even tell me some of this, you know, some years ago, but yeah, and some people, you know, decide to stay and some people decide to leave, and to get out because it’s not, you know, for them it’s not worth it. But look what God has done for you. Now, stumbling into photography and getting her book published by a major publisher. And it’s in all stores, where you buy books, is incredible, but it speaks to your talent, it speaks to who you are, it speaks to your resilience. It really says so much about you to take those lemons and make lemonade and we do that so often. You know, do you consider your, you know, you were in legal, you were in justice, do you consider your photography, work an extension, and then continuation of that justice work?

Tomesha Faxio
For sure, I don’t even know that I would have put it together like that. But it really does make sense. I mean, as a Black woman, and having had experiences not just in my professional space, but then just growing up, you know, the conversation regarding hair is just something that’s always there for us. I remember when I was first starting out as an attorney, and I wasn’t wearing my hair natural back then. But I just remember just that unspoken idea that your hair had to be straight, to work in these spaces to work as an attorney. It was always considered at that time when I when I was in my early 20s just unprofessional to even consider wearing your hair in any other way. And so that’s something that definitely played around in the back of my mind as I was developing this series. I even think back to this particular instance and this is when I was working at a company again, I won’t say which company it was. I remember I was helping to hire other attorneys to work as outside counsel. I called on three male attorneys, Black male attorneys who I knew had all come from the same big firm background I had come from. They all had great training. They were excellent attorneys. Okay, so I called them in for a meeting and this company, there was mostly white people working the owners were white. When they walked in, these three Black men in suits, they’re attorneys, several of my white co-workers said to me, “Oh, wow, they look so intimidating. Oh, my gosh, they look so scary.” These three lawyers. “Gosh, I’m just so intimidated by them. And they just walked in. And I was just so scared.” And I’m like, “what, why, though?” I know why.

Latasha Morrison
Just pause right there. Pause right there. I want you to pause. And those of you who are listening, I want you to let that sit just for a moment. What she just said. Because some of you are probably like grabbing your pearls or your chest and saying, “Wow”. But I’m listening to this. And this is an everyday thing. There’s nothing…those types of interactions are very common. But what I would say when that happens, like you said, “Why”. And I mean, because I think there’s things that we’re dealing with in our society now, especially with the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion is because you don’t want to compete. You’re intimidated. There’s a fear, and jealousy, you know, animosity. And so we really got to get underneath and get to the root of that, where, you know, like, it’s easy to puff yourself up, when you like, stomp someone else down, you know, and I think we got to call a thing, a thing, we really have to call a thing a thing that just because there’s a brown face in a space, that they’re unqualified, or they’re not as educated, or they’re there because of merit. And when you could turn the mirror back on yourself and say, “Well, how did you get here?” You’re no smarter than anyone else. You know, you had access. Yeah! You know, we know that we’re in those spaces, we had to work harder. We have to be smarter. You know, and, you know, just, you know, I’m not gonna go on a rabbit trail here, but that hit something because this is like story after story after story you hear, but go ahead back.

Tomesha Faxio
I agree with everything that you’ve said: those types of microaggressions were so common so that even when you asked previously, I couldn’t…my mind was so overwhelmed with what can I share about this, it’s just, it was so common. I recall a time where there was you know, a Black associate at a firm I worked at and he had an accent. And it was made to be this huge big deal, but he has his accent we can hardly understand him. However, there was a white male partner who also worked at our firm who had a very heavy accent and was difficult to understand as well. But there was not the same conversation around this other, you know, just things like that, kind of what we were experiencing and then those are things that it’s difficult to call those things out. Because it’s like wait, what are you, you know, like well, you know, but when you really piece you know, pick it apart, I mean, it’s difficult to see it for something other than what it is. You call a thing a thing like you said it’s just it’s difficult to see it as anything other than…

Latasha Morrison
When we call it out a lot of times when we call it out, that’s our invitation to leave in most cases. Because sometimes it’s received; they’ll smile and say “Oh, thank you thank you”, but then you get on a list and you know you on that list, you know, because you spoke truth you know you’re on that list. And I’m just saying, this is not even political, this is like is some well meaning conservative folk and well meaning liberal folk, like you know let me tell you it has no partisanship framework you know when we’re talking about this. But you know when you’re doing this now, you know I think you chose to create a photography book around wash day. Passing on the legacy, the rituals and the love of natural hair. And I want to know why you chose wash day. I am in that journey. For so long, I’ve worn my hair straight and had some of the same experiences. You know, as far as I didn’t have braids until I was an adult, you know, like, never had braids until I was an adult. And I’m in the process of transitioning now. That’s why y’all see me with braids. I’m transitioning and so why Wash Day?

Tomesha Faxio
So when I originally decided to start what I would call a personal project, okay. I’ll back up a little bit, I noticed that in my photography, as I was practicing and learning, that I was always drawn to one: documentary style photography, I loved telling stories. And then I was also drawn to hair for some reason. So even if I was shooting someone with straight hair, or I would always kind of tell them like shake your hair around, just kind of mess it up a little bit, I just want to see it just doing its thing you know. And so that was something that was always in the back of my mind. And then coupling that, those two things, the love of documentary storytelling and the love of hair, with my own experiences as a Black woman coming out of a place where, you know, as many of us unfortunately grew up believing a lot of untruths, about our hair, a lot of negative anti-Black attitudes with regard to our hair. I knew that I wanted to do something that would showcase the inherent beauty of our hair texture, kind of working against all those narratives that exist about good hair, bad hair, bad hair being the hair that’s closest to African textures, and kinkier textures and texturism and things like that. I wanted to create artwork, art, something beautiful, that just proved, if you will, how beautiful our hair is. And I mean, this is something that I had to learn over the course of, you know, what, 28 years, you know, I went natural when I was 28. I was an adult, almost 30 years old. Before I had ever experienced my natural hair texture. And that was around the time where the, I would call it the second wave of the natural hair movement. You know, was coming in that was like maybe the late 2000s. And a lot of Black women at that time were reevaluating relaxers, reevaluating some of the ideas that we had around our hair, and going natural, deciding to do that. So that’s around the time where I decided to do it. And so for me, I was trying to figure out a way to show that like, how do we show these textures? How do we showcase this work? There is a lot of great photography out there that showcases our hair styled and all these beautiful intricate ways and things like that and, and portraiture around afros and things like that. But I hadn’t seen anything like this. So I was really doing a lot of exploration, looking at a lot of imagery. And I came across this image, as I was trying to figure out what this series would look like. I came across this image that I think probably every Black person probably has somewhere in a photo album of a mom sitting on a couch and her daughter is sitting between her knees and she’s doing her hair. I was like, “Wait, there’s something here. There’s something here”. I still didn’t know quite what it was. But I knew there was something generational in that photo, there was something very heritage-like in that photo, or something here. So about a week later, I was having wash day with my two daughters. And I was looking at them. I was looking at their hair out. I was thinking about the process that we were about to embark upon, because wash day can be a day. For us. It’s sometimes one or two days.

Latasha Morrison
Because you have two daughters and then sometimes yourself. You know, so you’re including yourself.

Tomesha Faxio
When I have hair

Latasha Morrison
Her hair is very short now. You can’t see it, she has her hair really low.

Tomesha Faxio
So two of them. And that process for two children is a lot. So when I was looking at them and just taking in you know, what we were about to do, thinking about what I was trying to figure out with regard to this natural hair series that I wanted to create. Everything clicked in that moment, I immediately went and got my camera and started taking like test shots of my daughters. And it was hard because you know, as me I’m trying to take pictures. I’m trying to take pictures with one hand and then like, you know, run my fingers through their hair with another, and I got some decent shots and they just, it solidified for me…it was just everything I wanted. It was documentary photography, it was storytelling. It was generational, it was showcasing our hair in its natural state and showing the inherent beauty of it without gel, without twist outs. There’s nothing wrong with those things. I’m not saying that. But our hair is beautiful. It was created beautiful. But we really have not had a lot of time with the idea that it is inherently beautiful. This is a new idea to be honest, for a lot of us. Many of us did not grow up with that, we grew up believing it was inherently bad, and required alteration in order to be good. So that’s how I, you know, kind of developed the idea for Wash Day.

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Latasha Morrison
It’s incredible. And there’s so many stories, and each of these pictures hold a story. And we were just joking before as we were doing the podcast, I was like, wash day has changed. I just remember hating it. Because, you know, you would be bent over across in the sink, you would get a towel. I see, you know, sometimes it depends on how small your child is. You can lay them on the counter. You know, but I don’t remember that. I don’t remember maybe when I was small, but and I was always afraid of water to go in my face and all of that. I remember that a little bit. But I know once, I was one of those kids, I was young when I got a relaxer and, which people are not doing that as much as they used to back in the day. But I would have to go, I would actually, my mom would take me to the salon. So I would I had the whole salon experience at a young age. But wash day has changed. They have all kinds of gadgets now. I mean, it’s not just a little rolled up towel to keep your neck warm or whatever I mean, it’s like in a spa experience! Now you guys they have these foam things where you lay down where they’re comfortable and these capes and all this stuff. I’m like they didn’t get it like we got it.

Tomesha Faxio
No, and you know that is actually a theme that I do touch on in the book, this rejection of the beauty is pain mindset that a lot of us grew up with. It was like, well, it’s gonna it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be painful. And sometimes it still is like, if you look through the book, you will see children crying. You will see the tears, those exist. But you have, you know, these moms who are trying to avoid hurting their kids, you know, they’re trying to avoid this uncomfortable interaction and trying to undo some of the trauma that they experienced. Getting their hair done, you know, they’re trying to really rewrite that for their kids. And I loved that and definitely talked about it. There’s one mom in particular who, it was like, so the child has what I think is called a shampoo buddy. So it is like the most, it’s almost like a it’s a contraption that I honestly can’t just do it justice, but it’s got like, you know, a little neck groove. So, you know, her daughter could lay her neck in comfortably. And then she had her iPad on her, you know, right in front of her. And she had a bowl with her crackers.

Tomesha Faxio
It was just so sweet and so awesome. And so different from what I ever knew. And like you, I think, I think I got my first relaxer at age. Oh, boy, three. Before I was old enough to know the difference. I never knew anything about my natural hair. Because it was just so early that I got a relaxer, and my grandmother was a hairdresser. So she had a salon in her house. So when I would go home, you know, for the summer or go to grandma’s house in the summertime, I would always wake up to the smell of curling irons and hair grease. And that is just something that’s imprinted in my mind. And so I would, you know, my grandmother would do my hair. My mom because she learned from my grandmother, she would do my relaxers at home. So I didn’t even really do the salon growing up. It was always at home even though I wasn’t, my mom wasn’t doing my natural hair. I grew up with her doing my hair.

Latasha Morrison
Yeah, I was just thinking there’s so many stylists now who do both. But some that specifically specialize in natural hair. I know my stepsister Deanna is one. You know, here in Atlanta, then a friend of ours, her name is Nicole. She’s in Montgomery. She specializes in natural hair, really. But she has a unique process that she uses as far as like, you know, as far as the oils and different things that you put on your hair. I mean, it’s just like, all these different things now that we didn’t have. And so like, for me, making that decision, I was just like, you know, I tried it before, some years ago, it only lasted six months. Because I didn’t do some of the protective styles, you know. And so this time, I decided to do the protective styles, because I don’t really know how to do my hair that well, because I did have chemical hair for so long. And then yeah, coming out of that and college, like I had that all throughout. So I’ve never learned how to really work curling irons or do the things. I don’t even know how to braid. I don’t even know how to braid like to corn row braid.

Tomesha Faxio
No, listen, no shame. This is reality.

Latasha Morrison
But I was just determined, you know that, hey, I wasn’t gonna take a relaxer into my 50s. And you know, and it just for me, and I like what our friend Amina says, she said, “You can’t tell a Back girl how to Black girl”. I think she actually is coming out with a book too. Yes. But she said that because this, you know, because some people choose natural. Or some people choose weave, or some people choose braids. We are so dynamic and vast, in our creativity and what we can do with our hair, that it’s just that we just need to cheer each other on like, and however we do it. I think just even showing this, this wash day is just showing a part of the process and the hair and the beauty of the texture and the diversity of hair is shown and it’s just relaxing. Even when I’m looking through the book. It’s like very relaxing. What story, and I even see the little boys in here because they’re wearing the hair a little bit longer. You know, maybe there wearing locs or whatever and there’s there’s care that you have to do that. I saw one where you had it was I think a mom or a daughter and then another daughter was doing, each of them were doing each other’s hair. Yeah. And it kind of reminds me of this like famous picture. This other one was like the grandmother’s doing the mom’s hair and the mom is doing the daughter’s hair like this. You’re seeing these generations. You know there’s something sacred about hair and that’s why we, this is why we are very vocal about our hair and very vocal about not being discriminated against and the injustice around hair. Because there’s something sacred historically, you know about hair, especially as many African tribes, you know. Hair tells stories.

Tomesha Faxio
Tell the story. Identity, and marital status.

Latasha Morrison
Tell me a little bit about the picture. And then tell me a little bit about, like, historically, what hair means to us.

Tomesha Faxio
So with that particular family, and I remember when I was talking to the mom, Tanya, about just what their wash day looks like, and their process, because this is a conversation I would have with each family prior to. And she told me that, you know, there are times when they’ll do each other’s hair, you know, sometimes her oldest daughter will. And they all have locs, for those who can’t see the image, but they all have locs. And so she said that sometimes her older daughter would help out and do her hair while she does the youngest daughter’s hair, or she’ll do the older daughter’s hair and she’ll help out with the younger. So because she’s got, you know, three children, there’s also a son who is featured in those images as well. And so when she told me that, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to capture that, that is exactly what this book is, this generational transfer of knowledge”. And, you know, like you were talking about before, many of us grew up with our hair straightened, and we didn’t learn how to care for our natural hair. Many of us never learned that and had to learn on our own in our adulthood. That is a lot of us. And so a lot of what this book is about is these moms who came through that process, who learned as adults, many of them how to care for their natural hair, they’ve accumulated quite a bit of knowledge and skills and techniques and things that we lost. Yeah, right, we lost. And so now they’re passing that on, like an heirloom to their children. Like, here’s something for you something that’s a part of our culture, our culture that we lost, we didn’t have this, maybe growing up many of us. And so that’s what that picture represents. For me, it is just one of my favorite photos. Yeah. From the book is so, it’s so beautiful. But yeah, I also wanted to go back to this other thing about judgment with regard to our hair, in both directions, one judgment of natural hair being unprofessional, or ugly, or whatever. And then also judgment for those who choose not to wear their hair natural, right? Yeah. Problem! And the goal of this book, and I actually write this in the introduction, the goal of this book is freedom, not bondage. The goal here is not to tell anyone that oh, if you if you straighten your hair, if you do these things, then you aren’t Black enough. No, I actually go into detail about that. And that is not what I want to to do with this book at all. I want us to be free. Freedom is what I’m hoping for comes from this book, freedom to choose. If you wear your hair straight, do it in freedom, not because you feel like you have to in order to be beautiful, not because you feel like if I don’t do this, I won’t be accepted or my hair is bad if I don’t straighten it. No, your hair is good. But if you choose to straighten it, and if you choose to do the relaxer, then that’s a choice that you can make freely. Right. That’s what I’m hoping for. So I just had to touch on that. That’s one thing that I do not want anyone to take away from this that I’m judging your choices.

Latasha Morrison
Yes, choices. Oh, love it. I love it.

Tomesha Faxio
And again, we are what, maybe 15 years removed from the natural hair movement or whatever, what I call like the second iteration. We had the Black is Beautiful movement, you know, and yeah, it’s not that long ago.

Latasha Morrison
It’s not, it’s not.

Tomesha Faxio
And I came across a lot of Black women in 2020, who are going natural for the very first time. And a lot of them because they felt free enough to do so, because they weren’t going into the office. They weren’t going into those Eurocentric spaces where they felt like they had to wear their hair a certain way. They felt like they had more time to learn how to care for their hair. Because we don’t live in a culture that’s built around us or our practices or our you know, our hair is considered unmanageable and difficult and time consuming because it’s compared to straight hair. So yes, compared to straight hair, it takes longer to do ours and so it’s written off as “other”. And so it does take an investment of time to learn how to do it and so a lot of Black women found that time in 2020 when they were home, and then I’ve had women tell me that, you know, after George Floyd and all the things that were going on in the in the summer of reckoning.

Latasha Morrison
yeah, half! The summer where we tried

Tomesha Faxio
I honestly…listen, I’m gonna tell you. Let me move on. Okay. Well, it was like this part that I was adamant about putting in the book about that. And my editor was like, “Listen, I get you, I hear you. But I think we’re getting off task”.

Tomesha Faxio
She was like, let’s just let’s just keep it right, you know, and I was like, “You’re right, you’re right”. But anyway, there were a lot of Black women who during that time, felt empowered, and felt this kind of embrace of Blackness and felt like that was the time for them to do it. Like it’s the time so, we’re really not that far away. And there’s definitely a lot of us who still haven’t made that transition, whether they want to, you know, if they want to make it, maybe still don’t feel comfortable enough to do it. So this is a continuous journey that many of us are on, I have women featured in this book, who are natural, but are struggling still to accept their texture. Right? This is still an ongoing process for us.

Latasha Morrison
Yeah, I think I’m gonna be in that process, because I don’t even know I don’t even remember. I was so young. That yeah, I don’t even remember, my stepsister, she tells me she’s like, you have a nice curl pattern, you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine. And my hairstylist, you know, she decided to do it at around the same time she wears her hair really short. She was like, “You know what, I’m gonna grow mine. I’m growing my relaxer out too”. So we’re on this journey together. But she’s, I mean, she’s already, I was actually going to get my braids out to kind of see where I am. I haven’t even done the big cut yet or anything like that. So I’m going to do that. So you guys, you can expect to see something different from Latasha Morrison. But one of the things I saw is the creativity in this book and how people wash hair and the different processes for different things. Because I didn’t realize that locs there is a different process, like I hear about the soaking in vinegar and then also baking soda. I didn’t know that was a thing. I saw the picture of them put baking soda, and I’m like, and then child is up under the chair. Y’all gotta see this book.

Latasha Morrison
That those pictures are epic, and just in a backbend.

Latasha Morrison
It’s amazing, I’m telling you we are some creative people.

Tomesha Faxio
Yeah, we are. And I didn’t know either. I didn’t know about any of that before witnessing. So I’m walking into these people’s homes, just learning as I go, you know. And that was one of the beauty…one of the beautiful things about this process. I learned a lot. I learned things from these moms that I was able to bring back to my household and utilize with my own children. And I believe that that speaks to just how community-centered Black hair is. One, there is bonding that happened between me and those families. There’s bonding that happens between mother and child, on wash day and when hair’s being done. And then there’s learning that happens when we get together and talk about them. Because I have learned so many techniques that have made my wash day with my own children so much better, so much easier for myself and for the kids.

Latasha Morrison
And they are blessed because they have all kinds of little gadgets now with the you know, I remember when I would get beads, it would be someone putting the beads on. Now they have like a tool that gets all the beads on at one time. They don’t know how advanced they have it. We were on the struggle bus with the hair! And just the products now when you go into the store, and especially living in Atlanta, we’re spoiled, so I’m sorry for those of you who are listening, that you live in places where the Black hair products are not as, what you would say, you don’t have as many choices, options, you know, in your part of the country, but there is online. You can order you know. But I mean we just have so many options now that we didn’t have growing up and, and just even the men that also know how to do the hair too. And, you know, when I go get my hair braided, I’m seeing men and they’re getting twists and all this stuff like, and sometimes the men are here just as long as we are like this. This is like definitely a shared experience sometimes you know within the family, especially if all the family have locs or if they wear twists, and long hair and stuff like that. So, I am so proud of you. I want to know, you know, I think your book is also a creative way to support the Crown Act. And this is a way to push back against discrimination. Is this part of the impact you wanted the book to have? And now, I’m going to share a little bit of information for those who are listening who haven’t heard of the Crown Act and why it exists. You know, it’s just another way to kind of like, dispel some of the, the mystery or the lack of understanding that people have about Black hair.

Tomesha Faxio
Yes, I thought a lot about how to incorporate, well, I didn’t really have to think about it. As I was writing these stories, there were several of them where I could have talked about the Crown Act. But in order to keep from being repetitive. I chose one particular story where there was a woman who experienced some commentary from a co worker, right, with regard to her natural hairstyle. And that was a perfect segue to talk about the importance of the Crown Act, honestly. I find it highly unfortunate that we need…

Latasha Morrison
When I was looking at it and reading it before this thing, I was like the fact that we even need this. This is sad. This is what living in a racialized society does like you know. Exactly. And as I say, it’s the sin of those decisions.

Tomesha Faxio
Yeah, that’s a perfect way to put it. And it does help us process the reality of it, because it can feel daunting to think about the fact that we even need this. So to get past that, I love the work that’s being done there. I mean, obviously still work to be done. But my hope for this book was to, you know, not only showcase the beauty of our hair, but then just kind of instill a sense of pride in us, in our people, in our understanding of who we are and what what beauty we have naturally. And hopefully be something that people can share and artwork that can be put out there to just remind people of the beauty of our hair, the acceptance that our hair should have in this country. And not only just the texture of the hair, but the hairstyles, that’s kind of the bigger piece because I know that’s where things get a little shaky. For some people, it’s like, yeah, your hair is natural, but you should wear it like this, or it should be worn this way. But there are some hairstyles that are culturally representative of who we are. And we should be able to wear those styles. If our hair had been accepted from the beginning, I just don’t think these are conversations we would need to be having.

Latasha Morrison
You have to understand why it wasn’t accepted from the beginning. Exactly. And what is it being compared to. You gotta I mean really interrogate the why under these things. So when you have thoughts and opinions to come in your mind, say “Why, Why am I thinking this way? Why am I so concerned about this other person’s hair that’s on their body? And why can’t I just drink my water and mind my business?”

Tomesha Faxio
I will say that was one of the things that when I first started writing the essays for this book, they were going to be these very short little, I don’t know, little tastes. But as I began to write, it was like, the stories and the experiences of these women were calling out to me for more. Like there’s so much history. There’s so much context. Like you said the why behind. You know why someone wanted their hair texture to be looser or why we thought we needed to wear our hair straight. This goes back to enslavement, like this is not something that sparked up in the 60s. You know, this goes way back and it’s just been passed on from generation to generation. I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was younger, her dad would, you know, her dad, not her mom, but her dad would press out her and her siblings hair, but didn’t press out one of the sisters hair because her hair was “good”, it was good hair, so she didn’t need to get hers pressed. And this is generational, you know, passed on from generation to generation from the earliest days.

Latasha Morrison
So, just yeah, just like an Indigenous community, like, hair has a meaning. And it connects, you know, a lot of times, even to their tribe, their faith, you know, there’s so much and a lot of times and when they were in the boarding schools where they were taken from their family and to have their culture stripped away from them, one of the things that was done was their hair was cut. And you know, because of that history, it seems like we would just leave this alone, like, you know, kids shouldn’t be getting suspended or in-school suspension, put off sporting teams because of their hair. Like how ridiculous when we think about even having this conversation. It’s like, how ridiculous is that. And for those of you who don’t know, the Crown Act was was created in 2019 by Dove and the Crown Coalition, in partnership with state Senator Holly J. Mitchell of California, to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists and knots in the workplace and in public schools. And, and there’s a lot of research and study on this. So this isn’t just something you know, people have been fired over hairstyles, people have not been hired over hairstyles. Kids have been dehumanized and, and punished and expelled from school, because of hair. And this is happening to you know, Brown and Black kids. And I’m gonna say specifically, Black kids. But this is not happening to everyone. And so this is why this is important. So you can read up on that, the CrownAct.com. I am so happy to have you here Tomesha. And, you know, like, you know, this focus is this book right here focuses on the rituals. And you guys, look how thick it is. If you’re listening, you have to go and check out the YouTube for the full view. But this is, look how beautiful the book is and how thick it is. There’s some nice pictures in here and look at this beautiful picture on the back. Look at that face right there. And just how wash day, I mean, just the name of it now, like we’re taking the stigma out of that. And it’s the production more now than something that we dread. You know, it’s wash day.

Latasha Morrison
That’s what I’m trying to, you know, one of the hopes with this book is it just kind of restores that joy that I believe we had before we were put here and reclaiming our time, reclaiming self-care. That’s one of the hopes for this.

Latasha Morrison
I love it, reclaiming our time. And then the restoration of Black joy. I love that. I love that. And that’s, and this is something that I think even this conversation in the midst of the heaviness we have going on in our society. This is like what Lauren will call a joy-bob, from our team. She says this like a joy-bob, you know, where it resonates. And it brings a smile to your face. And your book brings a smile to your face. So if you have children, you know if you like books, get this book and go through it with your kids. And I love it because it’s showing us, it’s showing us in a beautiful way. So thank you for taking all these beautiful pictures and I’m so excited. Let me just tell you how good Tomesha is. We had our Student Leadership Institute several years ago and she went with us, we went down we took a group of students down to Montgomery, Alabama. We did some of the Civil Rights tour here in the Atlanta metropolitan area and her pictures were so good that the museum that hosted us saw the pictures and were like, “Can we can we buy some of those pictures? Can we get those pictures?” But, it was just, you know, her just doing her thing. As you know she is gifted for this and there’s so much because you know, photography, the arts, it tells a story, you know, it tells our story, you know, there’s so many things that have been captured now on film and photography, that speak to our joy, our pain, our resilience, our legacy. And, and I think this book right here speaks to a part of our history, you know, and so, so keep writing, and keep taking pictures. And it’s not just a picture book, guys. There’s essays throughout. And she talks about the process and just different things that’s in here. It’s not just instructional it talks about the hair journey and so many different things. History, history, there’s a lot of history in here. I mean, guys, you know, she’s a lawyer by trade. So you know, she’s gonna be on point. So. So yeah, so it’s been great having you here. As we exit out, give me one word, one word, and give me something, let me know something that is bringing you hope in this moment right now.

Tomesha Faxio
Oh, you hit me with a curve.

Latasha Morrison
I just slid that in, you know,

Tomesha Faxio
Is this one word?

Latasha Morrison
You know, you could get more than one word, you can get more than one word.

Tomesha Faxio
I will make it brief though. The children who were captured in this book, seeing themselves and being able to see their responses to that has given me a level of gratitude that I can’t even express in words well. Because I know they have something that we did not have. We did not have our hair represented in this way. And that gives me hope for what they’ll then teach their kids. I believe it’ll just get better from here.

Latasha Morrison
So good. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this side of the Be the Bridge podcast, you may have seen her behind the camera at our events, but now she’s other side of this. So thank you so much. And thank you for all that you’re doing for the community. So you guys, thank you for listening to the Be the Bridge podcast.

Narrator
Go to the donors table if you’d like to hear the unedited version of this podcast. Thanks for listening to the Be the Bridge podcast. To find out more about to Be the Bridge organization and/or to become a bridge builder in your community, go to BeTheBridge.com Again, that’s BeTheBridge.com. If you enjoyed this podcast, remember to rate and review it on this platform and share it with as many people as you possibly can. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Todays show was edited, recorded and produced by Trayvon Potts at integrated entertainment studios in metro Atlanta, Georgia. The host and executive producer is Latasha Morrison. Lauren C Brown is the Senior Producer and transcribed by Sarah Connatser. Please join us next time this has been a Be The Bridge production