Nancy's Workshop

September 25, 2019 6:36 PM

One Sunday a month, Nancy Falaise closes the doors of her Montreal salon to lead a workshop for young girls of color struggling to love their natural hair.
posted by DarlingBri (9 comments total)

Beautiful young women realizing by example how great they are. This is heartwarming. I wish it would spread everywhere.
posted by blob at 7:45 PM on September 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm reminded that I once watched Mondays At Racine, about a salon that closes one day a month to work with women undergoing cancer treatment.

I wonder how many other salons (or maybe even barbershops?) do this kind of thing. And how many more could be encouraged to do it.

I've been going to the same barber for over a decade at this point. Maybe I'll toss out a thing in conversation and see where it goes.
posted by hippybear at 7:45 PM on September 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is lovely.

One important thing: Everyone in this video is Black. You could say "Black and mixed-race girls" and also be correct, but this topic is explicitly about Blackness.

When we mean Black, it's important to say Black, because saying "of colour" when we mean Black contributes to Black erasure.

posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:42 PM on September 25, 2019 [14 favorites]

That was so amazing. Nancy is a force and the girls were all so genuine. I couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 11:07 PM on September 25, 2019

I love this.
posted by pracowity at 11:16 PM on September 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

This brought to mind Janai Norman's #Free the Curls movement for TV. Norman and Kenneth Moton are the hosts of ABC's World News Now, the overnight news broadcast and they're great. They regularly cut through the bullshit framing of so many news broadcasts and just say when the government or whoever are being racist among other pleasures. They make the news seem like it actually comes from the real world, a nice change from most stations. (Though it being ABC you do have to accept a constant stream of Disney product "news" as a cost for the better stuff.)
posted by gusottertrout at 11:48 PM on September 25, 2019

This was beautiful and made me cry. (I think because the Quebec I grew up in was so white and now what I value most is not living in a mono culture and the thought that Quebec might be growing out of that is moving. Also Nancy's way of say one phrase in English one in French is so familiar (and for now so far away from me) that it hurts).

Thanks!
posted by From Bklyn at 3:16 AM on September 26, 2019 [4 favorites]

I enjoy watching Natural Hair Journey videos (and that, there, should tell you right off that these are videos for and by black people because white people do not have or typically know about natural hair journeys) on YouTube because the women (and typically they are all women) in the videos are so happy and seem so... freed. It's beautiful. So are they.
posted by which_chick at 3:44 AM on September 26, 2019 [5 favorites]

One important thing: Everyone in this video is Black. You could say "Black and mixed-race girls" and also be correct, but this topic is explicitly about Blackness.

My apologies. This was a cut and paste of the video's text description.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:59 AM on September 26, 2019 [1 favorite]