Black Londoners Dissect Stigmas and Stereotypes of Natural Hair in "HAIR FREEDOM"

Is your hair strange? Is your hair professional? Why natural and not straight? These are some of the questions explored in HAIR FREEDOM, a short documentary by Zindzi Rocque Drayton on the natural hair movement, Black beauty, and the term "natural hair."

HAIR FREEDOM was filmed, produced, and edited by Drayton, who is based in South West London, as part of BBC Raw.

"Raw is a BBC Pilot Project, an incubator for socially and racially diverse young people who want to develop into filmmakers for the BBC," as described on their channel.
"I remember there was one Black doctor with a really, really big afro and she was just sporting that everywhere. No one was saying anything. Not for one second did I think it was unprofessional. It had no affect on her ability to do her job," said one interviewee when asked if natural hair is professional.

Watch the entire film below!




Joneka Percentie is a junior studying Communications, Africana Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. When she is not working as an editorial assistant with For Harriet, she enjoys blogging for SPARK, singing, dancing, tweeting @jpercentie, eating, and sleeping. E-mail her at joneka.percentie@forharriet.com

bbc raw documentaries hair freedom natural hair zindzi drayton