Erin Braxton (00:00)

And she says to me, What have you done with your hair? You look like Buckwheat.

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (00:07)

We.

Dr. Pamela Buchanan (00:08)

What kind of hair is that? You know my father's an exporter of of weave. Thanks, that's-

Erin Braxton (00:13)

With you?

Tammy Triolo (00:15)

I think as a black woman, just, I was like, we are so enslaved to hair. I don't want to be enslaved to it.

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (00:22)

Black American women just did not understand why I wasn't doing my hair. But this is how I feel comfortable. This is how I feel comfortable.

Erin Braxton (00:40)

So the clips that you just saw are all about hair. And when I started putting this episode together, it wasn't supposed to be a hair video, but what I've seen as I'm looking back on previous episodes and trying to find commonalities is there is this common thread running through multiple conversations with varying black women across various episodes at various times. And

There can be no conversation about black women for too long without this topic of their hair. And as we know, it's summertime, it's hot outside, hair is a big topic. Are you going to get your braids done for the summer? Are you going to still be wearing your your weave or your wig? Are you gonna go natural for the summer? Are you gonna twist your hair up and leave it be? Conversation is is on because that's what we do and we're

We as black women are always changing up our hair. But what I wanted to examine more in the first of our summer rewind series is how we allow the influence of others to control how we present to the world. Who feels like they have a right to say certain things to you about your hair? Who has the audacity? It seems like everyone does. And

When I look back at the episodes, I I saw some commonalities and I wanted to highlight them and leave it open for discussion. So today we're gonna revisit conversations that I've had you with you guys, myself personally. Tammy Triolo, friend of the show, who's been on talking about how she chooses to free herself to being enslaved to her hair. We're gonna revisit conversation with Ashanti, the Impunishable Woman, and even reach back and

Watch a snippet of my conversation with Dr. Pamela Buchanan, who shares microaggressions that she's experienced around her decision to wear weaves and wigs. So before we get into it, my name is Aaron Braxton. Welcome to the Coffee No Cream podcast. I'm your host here on Coffee No Cream. We are unapologetically dedicated to black women and we share what I like to call Coffee No Cream moments, those things that happen to us black women in business and in life.

Just because we are black women. Before we jump into the rewind, I want to ask you guys to please like, please share, please subscribe if you haven't already. If you haven't already, why not? So many of you watch, not all of you subscribe, so please subscribe to the video. It will help the channel so much. Also, we do have a Facebook group. The link is below. And finally, we have about

Almost two thousand free educational resources, free courses to help you level up your game out here. coffee no cream dot com forward slash free. They're from higher educational institutions all over the country and even the world. And yeah, I think that's it. So let's just get right into the rewind. We're gonna start off with my buckwheat story. I'll see you over there.

One of my friends said to me recently, What did you do to your hair? Now, this person met me when I had a little Halleberry pixie cut. It was even shorter than Haliberry. Back in the day, when I was in my 20s, I was rocking that whole look. I was a different Erin. Let me just be clear. I was a a professional. I was working in corporate. So I was always dressed. I was.

I was into superficial me back then. I I just always looked totally pulled together. Not that I don't look pulled together now, but I work from home. I don't have to to be that, right? I'm just a different version of myself. So

Always commenting on, my god, I loved your hair, then I loved your hair. That's like a low key I think dig. I think it's rude to keep saying that, right?

then they said, what did you do to your hair? It makes it look like you have good hair, and I know you don't have good hair. Just like what? So and we play and jest, but it's just like really, really, did you really say that? When you know, this is a black person who has a non black wife. Yeah, I take it some kind of way.

It's a dig. Love this person, right? Do I want to get rid of him as a friend? I do not. But I just know how he is. So I know that we're probably not gonna have certain conversations around the standard of beauty, right? Do I think this person genu genuinely loves me? Yeah. But does he say fucked up shit? Yeah. Hey, I had a friend once tell me.

When I was all excited, I was newly natural. years ago, and I said, my gosh, and I had a twist out and I had like this twist out is really hard for me to master. Like I just can't get it. but I had it and it was looking like defined and good. And he looks at me and he says, Well, your edges look a little nappy. I'm sorry, what? Right?

Text dress We cool. But I know how he is. He likes to date Asian women, Latin women. He dates black women too.

But I know how he is, right? He'll deny it. But he said that shit. I used to have this aunt. I said used to because she passed away a couple years ago. And this is an aunt that looked like Lena Horn. And you know what I'm saying. She was 90-something when she passed away. She was of that generation where everybody put her on a pedestal.

Because she was fair with that hair that you just could brush down. And she knew it because she would say little things. And I remember I enjoyed her. Like I enjoyed her very much. The once every other year that I saw her. In fact, when I moved back to St. Louis, I never went to see her one time because I couldn't take it.

One time I was visiting, I was in town to see my cousin.

She comes in in one of her I don't know, Saint John suits with her little Faragamo shoes and you know and at this point she's gotta be ninety at this point, I don't know. And she says to me, I had just gone natural, and she says to me, What have you done with your hair? You look like Buck.

I was just like, be nice. I walked over and hugged her. Sat there, talked to her and my cousin probably for a couple hours. I was out. It's like I don't have to be around this woman. I enjoyed her, but she

Was a bitch if I'm being honest. This getting getting used to this and just you know, that's a whole nother conversation as well because, you know, people say, your hair yeah, it's cool now. This kind of hair wasn't cool when we were kids. Okay. So it's just like just really learning to love ourselves and own it and stuff like that. And I feel like I remember I'll I'll probably cut this out, but maybe I won't.

Tammy Triolo (08:37)

Yeah.

Erin Braxton (09:01)

My old and I talk about him a lot, but my old boss, when I went gray, this was after I quit working for him, he couldn't dye his hair because he was deathly allergic to hair dye. And one time he called me and I was like, This is Aaron, you know, on the phone and I was like, He said something and I'm like, Where have you been? I haven't seen you all day. Black man, pretty fair complexed with freckles. And he's like, You won't be seeing me.

And I was like, what happened? What are you talking about? He had tried to dye his hair and his whole face swelled up like mask. Like mask. I'm talking about the cartilage on his ears. He could not. So he was one of those people like, if you can dye your hair, why wouldn't you dye your hair? And I used to dye my hair, right? Because, you know, but you can't get a comb through. This is too much, right? So, when I went gray, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna make it hot. And he's like, It's not hot. It's not hot.

I was like, Well, I'm gonna make it hot, I'm gonna make it hot and he just said, No more dick for you And I s like, Mm, okay, okay. And it was not like it was like a challenge

Tammy Triolo (10:10)

You know, a man saying that when they are literally paying street walkers who had a bath in 10 days is laughable. like that is the easiest thing in the world to get. Yes. It's easier than fresh water. Like, like what are you talking about?

Erin Braxton (10:31)

Do you know I have twenty year olds yelling at me across the street about the hair? So please stop. And and and he's like, I didn't now he'll say I didn't say I was like, Yes, you did. Okay, I was wrong. I was wrong. I was like, Okay, you were wrong, you know. So, you know, just learning to love ourselves how we are. How we are. I clearly have I mean, my hair doesn't I mean I have products in my hair, but you know, just learning to look at myself

Tammy Triolo (10:58)

You look beautiful. Thank you. look fine. Learning to look at myself. to change nothing.

Erin Braxton (11:04)

and I have no intention. I'm I'm good. You know, but I'm just saying, you know, we're talking about getting glammed and people telling you what you need to do to be on the internet. This is what you need to do. I had to learn and I tell people this who wanna go gray 'cause they see me and they wanna go gray. Yeah. And I'm like, Well, you're gonna have to go through the it's like growing your hair out. You're gonna have to go through like the ugly stage or whatever. But you just have to learn to get used or

When you go natural, you're gonna have to learn to get used to looking at yourself.

Tammy Triolo (11:35)

Listen, I got a few more pounds to get off me. I normally, like, when I'm not wearing wigs, I just shave my head bald.

Erin Braxton (11:44)

Really?

That would be very striking.

Tammy Triolo (11:47)

I love the way I look with a bald head. And it's funny because my friends would be like, well, you can pull it off because you got like a cute shape head. And I'm like, yeah, but I didn't know I had a cute shape head when I was shaving it. I had no idea what was underneath my hair. Right? And I was just like, I think as a black woman, I just, I was like, we are so enslaved to hair. I don't want to be enslaved to it.

I just don't want to be enslaved to it, so I just shaved it. I just went completely and utterly.

Erin Braxton (12:18)

Wow.

Tammy Triolo (12:19)

Not a thing, no nothing, bald, like to the scalp. I like myself bald when I'm a little bit thinner. I understand that. It's really striking then a fatter face, but yeah, like it's hair. It's a wig, it's take it off. And I will come on camera, sometimes not done, if I had something to say, I just, and before I wouldn't have done that, I'd be like, okay, you just never know who's gonna see you, blah, blah.

Like I, my greatest fear though, honestly, I gotta be honest with you. My greatest fear is the time that I get on TikTok in a bonnet or not. And I say the most profound shit and it ends up on Good Morning America. You know what mean? Because they don't care. Like if you say something and they go, listen to this. And all of sudden there's me with a book.

I would Yeah, if I'm over the bonnet, I'm just I'm just talking to my people I never really try to say anything that I know has the possibility to really kind of shift and change and if I do I'll get up and I record it but I'll put a picture over it or I'll do a video on top of it out. Yeah Yeah, if I feel like I need to get it out, but yeah that that's always in my fear like you just never know which video is going to do anything and so

I would hate that they grab that video when I'm just like... That's what keeps me showing up online just a little bit different.

Dr. Pamela Buchanan (13:44)

call

them micro and macro aggressions really. So the micro aggressions are, is that, what kind of hair is that? You know my father is an exporter of a weave. I've had it, Dr. Gollick, my father exports and I was like, well you know, and that's the micro, right? Okay, and the macro is the blatant inward.

Erin Braxton (13:56)

You?

Yeah, of course.

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (14:09)

So I don't do makeup, I don't do fashion. I am not very aesthetic to look at, right? I just show up, I don't wear makeup, my hair's natural. It's a very different environment. And I don't think I would have been able to have grown the community this organically, but this rapidly if I was doing it from the UK for Not at all. And black American women have been, from the beginning, key.

you know, parts of the community. because I didn't even have personal social media. So when I first I was literally sitting here when I first logged in and made an account on TikTok. And so I was already on the US algorithm. It wasn't even on the UK one. Right. And so it was black American women initially. And then it's something that women from South Africa, Brazil, West Africa, all over the world started to join the community. And so I do believe that it was the right.

is the right place for this season of My Life

Erin Braxton (15:08)

Yeah, I'm not a big glam girl. Like, you know, I like a greasy lip, you know, I don't do the lashes, I'm I I I'm natural, you know what I'm saying, hair and everything like that. So I get it. And I I just think people appreciate the authenticity, like, you know, 'cause you're just so real and when you come on it's just like god dang, you know? But

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (15:30)

I'm

not done up at all and the thing is I think I said this on a live the other day like the amount of wig companies in my DMs that at this point they don't have the wig for free because they're like are you sure you don't want to put a wig on?

Erin Braxton (15:40)

are you serious?

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (15:48)

So that's really interesting and the amount of women I will say this I do think that black American women obviously look after themselves and invest in their appearance etc and so I do get another black American woman saying you know why do you show up online without any makeup on you know it was quite

There was a period of time where black American women just did not understand why I didn't wear makeup, why I didn't wear shapewear, why I wasn't doing my hair. But I think people have gotten used to me now. But this is how I feel comfortable. This is how I feel comfortable. yeah, this is how I feel comfortable. I can't be any other way. And actually, I probably wouldn't turn the camera on. If I had to go and put makeup on and do my hair, I would not show up online at all.

Erin Braxton (16:35)

I say that

I say that too. I mean my makeup routine is I I I do a one of those crayon eye you can't even see, it's like a natural crayon eyeshadow, some mascara, some eyeliner and a lip gloss. Like I am so basic and people be like one of my friends, she's she's a model, not no shit, she's a model. And she's just like you could be more sexy, you know, and I'm just like, Yeah, that's not it's not

Not me and like to see me in real life when I have my fro out, I'm five nine and a half, I'm not a little woman, you know. So all that to me, it with all that glam, it's fun, you know, for a photo shoot or something like that, but I just don't do it. I would never come in here. Like everything is set up, I just sit down and hit record. I just can't I can't put on eyelashes. I can't do all that. You know the

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (17:34)

I have to say with time because I've had to really work on my relationship with my body and my appearance quite frequently. And being online has been quite challenging from that perspective because you get all the comments, right? And the bigger the community, the further your reach. And so there'll always be periods of time I see an influx in my DMs and my comments about the way I look.

But what I will say is one thing I probably have an intrinsic knowing about is that to the point around sexiness and beauty, that is within me. That's not something that's on the outside, right? It's an essence, it's an energy. And now that I'm 37, I can acknowledge, especially because I've decided, you know, I've left the old religion where you can't really say these kinds of things, because obviously you're not trying to be sexy in that way. But I know I'm sexy.

Erin Braxton (18:24)

Yeah.

Ashanti | Unpunishable Woman (18:25)

But it's not because of the outside and usually when people are in my presence, and this is gender irrelevant, they feel that essence and energy. I don't have to put makeup on or wear a wig or straighten my hair in order to wield that energy. actually quite a lot of the time I know that if I did, I could, if I wanted to, right, I could play that game but...

it's not really me and I really do enjoy the fact that if people see me in real life on a Tuesday morning, a Saturday, I look exactly the same. It's not happening. I'm gonna say, my goodness, you look so different on a Tuesday morning. No, I look exactly the same.

Erin Braxton (18:58)

Yes.

So those are the snippets. Those are the things that I found in common when it comes to hair. Not so much about the hair conversation, but more about who feels like they can say these things to you. Who feels like they have the right to have influence or say so over how it is you choose to wear your hair? As you've seen. I've had it come from all directions. But

I want to hear from you guys. I want you to tell me what is your buckwheat story. You know, this isn't one of those videos where we're gonna wrap it up into a nice little bow. I wanna evoke conversation. I want to hear from you guys because I feel like, you know, hair is such a t sensitive topic, and hair says so much about you, how you choose to wear your hair.

or don't wear your hair says so much about you as black women, how you choose to invest time or not invest time. It's just a big conversation and everybody has so much to say about it. But the main thing I want to make sure of is are you presenting yourself and and and doing you when it comes to how you want to wear your hair? Or are you going through extra stress and

time and money and energy because of how you feel like you're going to be received. That's the real question. So tell me your buckwheat story. I want to hear it if you have one. That's it. So thank you guys for joining me today and I'll see you in the next video.