December 31, 2024 • 62 mins
In this episode of Across Generations, host Tiffany Cross dives into a candid discussion on evolving beauty standards with esteemed guests Harriet Cole, a lifestyle expert and author, and Jasmine Carthon, a trailblazing plus-size model and community advocate. Together, they explore the historical and cultural shifts in how beauty is perceived, the impact of legislation like the Crown Act, and the challenges faced by Black women in industries shaped by Eurocentric ideals. From personal anecdotes about self-acceptance to an honest examination of representation in media, this episode celebrates individuality and the journey toward redefining beauty on one's terms.
RATE, REVIEW, AND FOLLOW ON APPLE PODCAST
🎥 Watch Across Generations on YOUTUBE:
Follow us on social media:
📱INSTAGRAM: Tiffany D Cross
🐦TWITTER/X: Tiffany D Cross
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to a Cross Generations where the voices of black
women unite.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm your host, Tiffany Cross.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Tiffany Cross, we gather a season elder myself as the
middle generation, and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations.
Prepared to engage or hear perspectives that no one else
is happy.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You know how we do. We create magic magic.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Across Generations. I'm
your host, Tiffany Cross. So today we are talking about
beauty standards. Now, as you all know, I've worked in television,
and working in television, people see you before they hear you.
So my entire life, from childhood through write this very moment,
I have cared a great deal about how I look.
(00:56):
Even now, when I look at myself on camera, I think, oh,
maybe my phase issuits, or my hair is out of
place or not as full as it used to be.
I'm wearing hair clips now, my tummy is protruding sometimes.
And as far back as I can remember, I put
so much effort into my appearance, and embarrassingly, when I.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Was a little girl, I wanted a Jerry girl.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I know some of.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Y'all did too, and of course my mother said, hell no,
thank god, but I did. Used to sneak and put
that little aggravator in my hair. I wanted my hair
curly and greasy, apparently, so I would wet my hair.
And I know y'all remember pink lotion. I used to
put pink lotion in my hair sometimes, so anyway, I
know some of you are old enough to remember that.
(01:36):
But all of this stuff in my hair wasn't healthy
for me. And I don't know what I was thinking.
I'm sure I look crazy, but I remember looking at
women like Jane Kennedy and Vanity. You guys remember Vanity
from the Prince era in Sicily Tyson and Felicia Rashad
and Debbie Allen and Jacke. These were the faces of
beauty and the only makeup line. I knew that cater
(01:58):
It's black women back than was fashion fear. I even
still remember the commercials. But beauty changed over the years,
and by the time I got to high school, I
remember seeing beautiful women like Robin Gibvens and Halle Berry
and Beverly Johnson and Naomi Campbell and Tyrad Banks and
Rachel from Caribbean rhythms. Who happens to be one of
my best friends today. Hi, Rachel, So I can say
(02:20):
I ever looked to white women to set the standard
of beauty for me, but in the ways that the
industry has always set them for the standard of beauty
for us, I feel like we kind of rebuffed that.
Today we celebrate literally every body type, every complexion, every ethnicity,
every style, hair texture, and this is very much thanks
to the Crown Act passing the House of Representatives in
(02:41):
twenty twenty two, which prohibits the discrimination based on hairstyle
and hair texture. So we celebrate it all now, but
some still find it so difficult to celebrate ourselves. We're
still craving everything that are natural beauty, so it still
bags the question how far have we come? And how
much farther will we go? So excited to have joining
(03:01):
me in this conversation. Harriet Cole. She is a celebrated
lifestyle expert, a best selling author and founder of dream Leapers.
Now with decades of experience in media and style, Harriet
has been a guiding voice in redefining beauty standards and
empowering individuals to embrace their true selves.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Her work has influenced.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
How we see beauty, culture and identity, making her the
perfect guest to discuss the evolving standards of beauty in America,
especially for Black women. And now on our younger side,
we have Jasmine Carthon. She is did I say your name? Carthon?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Thank you? We have a Jasmine Carthon, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And she's a model, a community organizer from Compton, California,
and she's best known as one of the first plus
sized models to win Project Runway and a Sports Illustrated
swimsuit finalist. Now she uses her platform to highlight the
power in both individuality and community. As one of the
founders of Models for Change, Jasmine worked to amplify voices
(03:59):
in She toasted events dedicated to building community and advocated
for the fair treatment of Black, Indigenous, and people.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Of color who are creatives.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Her mission is to inspire action against inequality and work
with those committed to making a positive impact. These are
two women after my own heart. I'm in good company.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Thank you, ladies, thank you. I'm feel excited. I have
to tell you.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Before we got started, Harriet thank you, because she was like, oh,
one of your hair clips is showing.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So we had to fix it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
My natural hair is about like right to my shoulders
and so on camera, like the hair can look thin
and as you get older, like hair thins. So I
wear these hair clips to make it look full. And
my hairstyles who was putting it in so well, once
we cut them, they're gonna be sure and your hair
come out grown?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Why don't you wear it long? So I'm wearing my
long hair today. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
We love.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We can do anything, yeah, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I also wear like I stopped relaxing my hair when
I was probably around twenty five or so. I wear
my hair natural, like you know I do because I
don't want people to think like, oh, you know, I
have to relax my hair. I have to wear it straight,
and I'm trying to wear it long and like going
after these Europeans.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
You know what. Also, products have changed so much.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
I remember when I was growing up, there were relaxers,
they were super, there was regular. Everybody got super because
they wanted it to be so straight and it burned
your hair off off. But now there's so many products
that no matter what your hair texture, you don't have
to ever relax it and you can still wear it
straight or every other way you want to wear it,
so that.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Possible way.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, what do you think is the biggest change you've
seen in your decades in the industry. You've seen a
lot of changes. What's fashionable, what's not. What's the biggest
change between when you first started and now?
Speaker 5 (05:42):
There are more options that are acceptable and even as
we mentioned in your open the Crown Act that was
twenty twenty two. Yeah, so there are more options, but still,
especially in the corporate world, there's an expectation that you
conform to whatever the standard.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Is for that job. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
The difference even there is that there are thousands and
thousands of jobs. So if you don't want to look
the way that this corporation looks, you can work someplace else.
You also can go in and say no, I'm going
to be myself, which is a great thing. It works sometimes,
but the Crown Net happened because it doesn't work a
lot of the time. But the difference, I think is
(06:21):
that there's such a breadth of opportunity and many companies
welcome us as we are. That's a nice thing to
even be able to say out, yeah, you know, they
ultr rise all the way up to the top. I
think it still gets more and more conservative the higher
up you go, but there is more openness to who
(06:42):
we are, how we look. It's still fascination with our hair.
People you don't want to touch our hair, you don't
want them to do it, but yeah, you.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Know it is fascinating. We can do everything with our hair.
Most people can't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's true. We can wear it hou whatever, totally.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
Like even me, like I recently went natural. I've been
wearing wigs my entire career, and my hair looks beautiful
and healthy, thank you. I did a little flex rock
set this morning. Y. Yeah, but you know, it took
some time to get to the point where, like, I
want to show up in a way that's not just palatable.
(07:19):
And when I first came into the industry, I had big,
curly hair that was a wig, and that probably gave
me a closer proximity to whiteness than yeah, than what
the industry wanted.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
For me, or I thought the industry wanted from me.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
So me deciding to go natural literally this year, was
like me taking back my power and saying that I
don't need to rely on a security blanket or a
security wig.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Rather, which is what I felt like it was.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
And I can show up the way that I feel
most comfortable, where I feel most beautiful, where I felt
like most natural. And that's not saying that if you
wear a wig, clippings, curly, kinky black women, we can
show up in whatever way that we want as long.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
So what has happened though, what has happened this year
being natural in terms of the work you've gotten?
Speaker 6 (08:07):
Well, I did book my first gig with my natural
curls and it wasn't it wasn't stretched. It was literally
just like a wash and go, and I was really
proud of myself and I felt empowered on set. I
felt like, you know, I'm not just showing up for myself,
I'm showing up for the other black girls who have
worn weaves and wigs their whole life and realize that,
(08:27):
you know, maybe I want to show something different, show
like what how I feel beautiful when I wake up
in the morning. And I think mostly the biggest difference
that I found was how I felt about myself and
how that allowed me to show up on set.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And did you have a hairstylist who knew how to
do your natural?
Speaker 6 (08:44):
That's yeah, that was and you know what with wearing
the wigs on set. A lot of times I used
it as not used it like it was protection.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
For my hair.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I'm like me wearing a wig mint they couldn't burn
my natural hair out that actually did have like I don't.
I couldn't count how many times, but like I wore
my natural hair and they wanted to like just braid
it and blow dried it and gave me so much
breakage that I had a big chalk and it was
frustrating because like you, I stopped wearing I stopped doing perms,
(09:18):
like I want to say in twenty twenty ten, twenty eleven,
and I just the reason why I stopped wearing perms
is because I had leave out and I went to
perm my edges and I literally washed my hair out
and I didn't have anything to cover my tracks. So
it was just like, you know, I can't keep doing
this to my hair. And then big hair came out,
(09:39):
and I'm scaring all these negative things about putting these
chemicals in her hair and what it can do to us.
So I just didn't want it anymore and I just
so in that I went to weaves and went to
wigs and went to wigs at like was close to
my natural hair but not not close enough?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, like or not.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Even it didn't matter whether or not was close enough
to my natural hair, is that it wasn't my natural hair.
And I felt like in order to fit into this industry.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I had to add to me.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
And what I'm realizing now is that I don't need to,
like and if I want to put my wig on,
I can, like, yeah, like, I do it everyone.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Both our grandmother's yeah, and all the sisters, the deaconesses
in the church. Yes, fantastic about wigs T Yeah, I
still yeah, yeah, it's good too. You know Grandma used
to be able to put that thing on and boom
she was fly.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah hat so it was an accessory. Yes, yeah, I
think there was this model. I can't remember her name,
but she was well, there have been several models to
do this, but this model was like facetiming and like
in ig live and just showing her experience during fashion
week and how nobody knew how to do her makeup.
Nobody knew how to do her hair. And that's how
I learned how to do makeup. I have a makeup
(10:57):
artist do my makeup. I didn't wake up looking like this.
But I have someone who does it. But I had
to learn how because in television you would walk into
the studio and you could see the face of fright
when they knew that, and they start asavy right, and
they woul start asking, well, what's your color? Like I
don't know because I ain't the makeup artist, you know,
Like you tell me what my color is. But how
dehumanizing it was to show up and do your job
(11:19):
and there literally aren't people there who know what they're
They don't know how to do your hair, they don't
know how to do your makeup and so and look,
I want to be clear too, it is not about
the ethnicity of the artists. It is about the artist's
ability to be able to do people of other ethnicity.
Because I didn't have some black women do me dirty
on this makeup, you know. And I've had non black
(11:41):
women beat this face, you know, and it does pop it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So I think that makes a big difference as we
But what's.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Crazy is when you ask the question what's different, the
fact that that is still happening.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
It's crazy.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
I mean, Emon talks about that when she started her
cosmetics Lang, which was more than thirty years ago about
that she's started it because as a model, there wasn't
make up her color. Yeah, it was fashion fair. There
was Flory Roberts, but rare. Yeah, these was that on set.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
And so she.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Started her own line. This is more than thirty years ago.
Now there's every color, how many how many makeup lines
are in support and alt with thirty colors of Nancy.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yes, Nincy really ran point on that.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Yes, yeah, exposed the industry showing that like they don't
cater to dark skins, three shaves or shades for dark
skin when or black people, not black people, brown people
of color right in general like South Asian. You know,
you know it's not enough shades because even sitting here,
we're three different shade black women. So, and to your
(12:49):
point about showing up on set and not having anyone
to do your hair, do your makeup. I've walked in
New York Fashion Weeks so many times and almost every
time they run from me like they like, like you
see the hairstylists like get uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
They start playing with things, yes, on.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Their on their in their makeup kid knowing saying well
you do not have my shade in there. Yeah, it was,
So it got to the point where I always kept
my makeup on me and moor to the bathroom and think,
then I'm you literally usually doing my own hair. I
come ready most of the time. That's why I've always
I've always known how to do my own hair. So
(13:27):
it's just and it just sucks, because how do you
call yourself an artist or a professional in an industry
but you can't do all hair textures? Yeah, you can't
do all skin tones. It just it just doesn't It's insulting.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I do want to shout out Sergio Hudson because he
just gets us. He knows us with his fashion, but
also in his makeup room and his I get to
sneak backstage during his show fashion Week to say hi
and take a picture, and like, people there know what
they're doing. They know how to do our makeup, they
know how to do our hair. So we love you
Sergio for all they.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Also I want to shout out Honifa.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yes, I love if.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
I walked in Honefa show that she did in DC,
and I have never felt so protected, so honored as
a model. I walked in and I smelled sprits and
and it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Was a bunch of black women.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
It felt like us.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It's like us.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Yeah, It's smelt like when you walk into the salon
with your mom and you're sitting there and you're waiting
for her to get her hair done, hear all the
conversations and stuff that I felt so comfortable.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well, it was so like divinely black.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Shout out to Anifa.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
When we were I had a photo shoot to do
and Honefa her team reached out and offered to dress
me for the photo shoot. So yeah, I took it
as a compliment, but I didn't know she was like,
this girl needs some help, so let me help her.
But I was honored that she even too great.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, take it as she saw.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
You both opportunity each other to like push black women
forward and make sure amazing.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
She's amazing. Yeah, I love her, I love I love
their entire teams.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Just made me feel good.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
Yeah, And that's what you need because at the end
of the day, just like when you show up on set,
we need to be able to do our job right.
I don't want to come into a space where everyone
is expected to do their part and I have to.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Do my job in your job, in your job, Yeah,
because you don't. It's not fair hair.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So one thing in the way that we've been very
celebratory of how beauty standards have changed. But there are
some things that I do notice that maybe as I'm
getting older, because I'm sure that there was a generation
who looked at me when I was younger, like what
are these girls doing. I'm sure you look at younger
women and you've, you know, seen the changes through time.
(15:44):
The lashes now I'm wearing. I am ware of that
I do, but I will say I only wear lashes
when I'm on air, Like I don't like the caterpillar
lashes that are like this, and I see like these
young girls wearing them I wear I'm on air, and
I noticed you don't have any, and you look beautiful.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I do feel like maybe I can just well
on camera.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Like the makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The camera eats up to make yeah, so I look,
but I don't.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I had to. I got like made up like two
weeks straight, and I had lashes and full makeup on,
and I remember when it all came off, and I
just felt like, I don't like how I.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Look, you know, because you grew accustomed to that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yes, So I'm intentional now I don't wear this kind
of makeup unless I am on camera doing something. But
I do see young girls with like all the things,
like the lashes, the different contour, or sometimes it's don't
make up, just walking around like this.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Well because sometimes they are fixed so they.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Like you can't even see me out your eyes with
those lashes.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I just wonder are we going too far one?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Like, how do we bring it back home to like
just loving ourselves.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
There's extremes in every industry, you know. So some people
are going to wear no lashes, some people are gonna
wear natural ash, and some people want to be extravagant,
and that's their prerogative. You said something about contouring, though,
which it's something that I struggle with a little bit
sitting in the makeup chair because I'll sit down and
(17:19):
the makeup artists will be excited and he'll be like
or they'll be like, we're gonna snatch that nose and
we're gonna oh yeah. I like, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
I don't want to widen out my my features. I
love my cheekbones, I love lits, I love I love
all of the things that my favorite parts of me
are the things that come from black people that are
you know, indigenous too black.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I don't know if indigenous would be the word.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
But y.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Our DNA.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And the other issue is that we have these features
naturally and then when you put them on another person,
it's like they.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They're the ones who at the shine for it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I can say the Kardashian family an entire living all
black features that they get surgically manufactured. And we're walking
around here with all this natural beauty, full lips wide
and I was like, Beyonce, are Jackson's.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Five nostrils hips ass everything.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Way before the kardashi Yeah, this is the trend that's
gone on through the generations. I mean, think about self tanning,
so you can get the color that we are already,
but then our color is hated. So this, this trend
of self hatred is insane. I want to tell you
when I was young, I was a model, and I
(18:36):
remember sitting in a makeup artist chair when I was
in college and the makeup art this was this was
the time of and they called themselves at the time
of the Queen. You know, so this this queen was
doing my makeup and got to the contour.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
So eighties makeup you know, it was very severe.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Yeah, put this major contour on my nose and say, girl,
if I have to spend this much time contouring your nose.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
You need to get a nose job.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Wow, you see my nose. And I was just so
grateful for my mother, who's like, that person's crazy. You're
not getting a nose job. Your nose is beautiful. But
this was from a black queen. It comes from within
the culture. It comes outside of the culture because beauty
standards still are based on European staff.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And even as we mentioned the designers who support us,
there are plenty more people who don't even see us,
and what they understand is something that doesn't look like us,
you know, And that part, I think requires us to
connect to our culture, to connect to the grannies, to
connect to the church, to connect to whatever those cultural
(19:47):
foundational points are that remind us that we're beautiful, the
remind us that we count, because if we don't do that,
it is so easy, especially in your industry as a model,
and I wanted to ask you so as a curvy model, yes,
because now we live in this.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
World of inclusivity.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You know, when I was at Essence, I ran fashion
at Essence many years ago, and Susan Taylor told us
we had to have models who were from size six
to size twenty six, and I was like, for real,
And we had to learn how to dress women that
size when there were no samples, there weren't there was nothing.
We had to get it made. We had to get
it made. Now it's understood that you have to be inclusive.
(20:28):
Yet I want to know what is it like when
you when you are part of a job when maybe
you're the only curvy girl on you know, in the
dressing room, when you are when you know their size
two four six and you how are you treated? How
do you feel? Do you feel honored?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
You know what all of the above was happening.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I think it depends on the client.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
I think having all of these others or having you know,
a bigger sum of other sizes. When over sixty seven
percent of the email population in the United States is
oversized fourteen, I think over sized sixteen actually, right, So
it feels performative a lot of times to be tokenized
in that way. Yeah, and to feel like I'm just
(21:15):
checking off a box. They if they get me, they
get curve or plus size. They get black, they may
get natural hair. When we can have all of these
things in different people. But it's like they're like, let's
check one box at one time and then have all
the rest of the skinny white models. The fashion industry
is based off of the opinions of within the white
(21:37):
and the wealthy, so it's.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Like that then the white and the wealthy is it is?
Speaker 6 (21:43):
And unfortunately, like you were saying about beauty standards, that's
what we based our things off of. You were saying
earlier about the notes. Obviously, how many women back at
that time, black women back at that time went and
got their nose snatched. And it's like, I wish you
didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
If I didn't have my mother, I probably would have.
I wanted to rise in that industry, and she's like, girl.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
And I'm happy she told you not to. But also
I also don't want to make it seem like anyone
doing something because they want to do it is a problem.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But I have to look at the root of the issue.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
If you are doing it because the world is telling
you that who you are isn't beautiful, and that's you know,
to I know, when off topic a little bit, but
to my hair. When I realized that the reason why
I'm continuously putting this wig on is because I feel
like me a la carte isn't enough, I had to
snatch it off. Yes, I had to, Like I had
(22:37):
to prove to myself that my beauty comes from me,
my culture, you know, the women behind me who have
like told me how beautiful I am. And when I
look in the mirror and I see I always say
that I need to not see myself the way the
world sees me, and not even see myself the way
I see me. Sometimes I need to see myself the
way God sees me. Yeah, you know that's that's.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Like the main thing.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
But that's but so when I show up in these spaces,
like I have to be so secure in myself to
know that even though I may be in here in
a tokenized way, when I show up, a little black
girl is going to turn on the TV or flick
through a magazine and see someone who represents her. And
then on top of that, it's my duty as maybe
(23:26):
the only to leave the door open for the size
twenty six that comes in, for the for the girl
with short natural hair to come in, or just anybody
who's part of a marginalized group that understands what it's
like to not have their beauty represent it.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
So that's that's always.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
That's like your Viola Davis moment. Remember that, do you
remember the scene what was your show called took off
that that is like the most that is like the
most classic scene in television for black women. And she
revealed she took she had taken off her makeup, so
(24:03):
it was just her, your beautiful self. And then she
took off that wig and you saw her with the
with no hair.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Two.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I love her, so I need to read her books.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So it's there, it is.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
It is proof that from wherever you come, you can
go wherever you want, and that she was brave enough
to fully tell her story, which you know, people, people,
what that's you because what happens, I think is anybody
who's on stage, whatever the stage is, so all of us.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
This is a stage where.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Whatever stages we're on, people see folks on stage and
think you're perfect, you're rich, You've got something I don't have,
and therefore I can look up to you because you're
on stage. Viola took herself off the stage and said, no,
this is I've had a life, yeah, with all kinds
of challenges that you could never imagine. And look at
(25:04):
what my life is now. This is my whole life.
It's not like this, this is over. It's just my
whole life.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
What I love though about that book, and I think
it relates to the conversation around beauty standards is the
journey home to ourselves and how we go out here
in the world and the world tries to define us,
and it's you know, when you know who you are
that somebody can't take that, this industry can't take it
away from you. I also thought it was interesting when
you were oh no, that was you, Harry, when you
(25:32):
were saying about how it's comes from within the culture
and outside the culture. So I don't know if you guys, ever,
highly recommend Tanahasee Coast's latest book, The Message, and he
talks about going to Africa, and this is a really
interesting thing and I'm still processing it.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I don't quite know how to feel about it. But essentially,
the women.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In Africa, like black women here, black people here in
America center so much in the globe where we go,
the world follows. We are fourteen percent of people here
in this country.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But we drive.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Culture and conversations world and so we have been our
self love how we view ourselves. We have been penetrated
by white folks and whiteness, and so as we navigate
this space of beauty standards and what we consider to
be beautiful from everything from like you know, hair weed, blonde,
hair weed, last is all of it. When you go
(26:27):
to Africa, there are some women who see as we
drive fashion, they are adopting that culture too, And so
he writes about it, and it's like, it's interesting because
we going back to the motherland to celebrate who we are,
and they have the benefit of not living along their oppressors,
not living alongside their colonizers, not living alongside I would say,
(26:50):
some homicidal mania that helped create this country here, and
yet they have been colonized.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
In some way.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
I was about to say, the mentality is still that
skin whitening things is so big. And so I live
in Harlem and basically what it's called little Synagogue, and
when I listen to some of the folks talk about
what their women are doing back home, so many people
are destroying their skin by whitening it. They're not white
(27:20):
over there, but that comes from over that comes from
the States too, that this why are we even here
because somebody stole us from there. So if you go
back and look at our history, you understand how convoluted
it is, how hard it is to fully embrace our beauty.
I still talk to women today who are dark brown skin,
(27:46):
darker than any of us, who have issues. They still
feel like they are looked at, not seen, that they
don't feel beautiful, and I'm looking at them, going your skin,
it's so gorgeous talking about Yeah, but there are many
many women, professionals, people at the top of their career.
(28:08):
If you take off the mess and hear how they
feel about how they look, we still see many exquisitely
dark skinned people who don't feel exquisite.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I think a part of that, though, is I don't
know what it's going to take to change it. But
I know in the hip hop genre, which of course
drives fashion to you know, like all these industries intersect
and you hear, I don't want to lay it because
it's not I'm not blaming or bashing black men.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Brothers. I love y'all.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Also, don't take this the wrong way, but a lot
of black men rappers will rap about, you know, women
who don't look like us, you know, or women who
are fair skinned. You know, I got a red bone
right right, and so well, even if it is like
(29:01):
if some rap videos feature darker skinned women, it's a
lot of European features, Like you might be dark skin,
but you have race ambiguous hair, or thin nose or
thinner lips, like it's something about you that makes you
more palatable. And I just wonder, like, well, what your
mama look like, with your sisters look like, what your
cousins look like. Do you look at them and not
see their beauty? So I don't know what it's going
(29:22):
to take. It's not male rappers faults, but somebody has
to be a part of making that change. And we
have to declare ourselves beautiful, you know, despite all those
things too.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I think it's all by design as well.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
I think, you know, the powers that be are running
the music industry or running fashion, running the way that
unfortunately like depicting the way that we see ourselves. And
if this is happening in the States with US Black
Americans and our culture is being pushed to not push
(29:57):
but you know.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Swallowed up by swallowed up but.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
By you know, African culture or different African cultures, it's
only right that they start bleaching their skin because we
don't see the beauty in our skin here, or because
they told us that our skin isn't beautiful. So if
they're following everything that we do, it's gonna take I'm
not gonna say that it's gonna take just African American
people believing in themselves and seeing our own beauty to
(30:23):
change the minds over there. But if we are always
on the forefront, then it is our responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So while we know that the media is the one.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Who are the ones who are telling us that we
aren't beautiful and that black men don't value us and
that they want a long hair, thick redbone like how
Ween says, or we have to stand up against that.
But also I see a change in it. You see
a lot more artists who are pushing dark skinned women
with dark with black features, full features in the natural hair,
(30:58):
in their videos and their music. You're hearing more artists
like talk about like how they're proud of their blackness.
So I think, while yes, like that those artists do
exist who like who have their own internalized anti blackness,
we can also highlight the ones who are proud of
black women.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah, that's who celebrate black people, like.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Lucky Lucky Day.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
It's a video a while ago, I want to say,
pre twenty twenty, where like I just remember turning it
on in this beautiful, dark skinned black woman had this
like afro and she was just beautiful and sexy and confident,
and she had this black man who's just as dark
and just as beautiful and just as confident. And the
(31:50):
black love that they like created first. So you know,
it just resonated with me. Yeah, and I feel like
it'll teach people that beauty is not a one note thing,
especially when it comes to black women, Like we're all beautiful,
like in general.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Like I feel like we are chasing the filtered highlight
reel of people's lives and we think, oh, well, this
is what you look like. You know. I when I
post pictures, I will say I go on ig with
nothing on, you know, because I do want people to
see me. But sometimes when I post pictures, that Paris
filter just makes it look.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
A little slaughter.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yes, it's a little shinewaty, But like I certainly
you know, don't look like that in real life. And
I have to constantly when I wake up in the
morning with nothing, with none of this, like I spend
some time with myself to look in the mirror, s
like this makes sure you like itself.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
We like ourselves, saying okay, then let's go and we
love ourselves.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I have to be intentional about it. I didn't grow
up with social media, and so I look at these
young girls who that's all they have every sec it's
awful for them. When you were in the industry, there
was no social media.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Social media is I mean I started at the magazine
in the eighties, has meant so much in that And
I really attribute this to Susan Taylor. Her she traveled
all over the country all the time to be with
the reader and she would come back to our editorial
(33:22):
meetings and tell us who she met and what she
looked like and what she talked about. And so we
got to meet people through her vision and understand that
this is who we serve. And it was the every
black woman who is excellent, who is living her potential
(33:43):
or who wants to. And I think that's our job
now to each of us who can see you know
when when when I walk down the street and let's
see a sister who looks good. I compliment her all
the time, and sometimes they're like, you're talking to me,
but yes, I am.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
As black women, that's literally.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
There's like video circulating on TikTok where like a little
white girl or somebody who's non black gets complimented by
a Black woman, and it's something about like the power
behind our voices in general, Like it just makes you
feel good when another black woman tells me I look good,
Like I know I ain't.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Telling you that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I know she's telling it.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And by the way, I'm glad you said that because
I say it to all people.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
It's not just the black women.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
I say I look for the beauty in people and
call it out because it makes you feel good that
someone is acknowledging the greatness in you. You asked something
earlier that I wanted to double back to this eyelash thing,
especially with our young people. So as a mature woman,
when I see it, I'm like, oh MG, I don't
want to see that. It's too much. But then I
(34:50):
have a daughter's about to turn twenty one. She's not
so much doing the lashes, but what she was doing
is like the dramatic eyeliner, you know, like the cat
with different colors, you know, not now, a few years ago, right,
And I think we need to give them some grace.
They're having fun. Young people experiment, they're having fun. A
(35:14):
lash is nothing. You can take it off. It's not
the end of the world. I think we even though
I don't necessarily like some of the choices.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
That people make.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I just have fun.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Girl.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Now, when you go to a job interview, take that off? Also,
do they have to because it depends upon the job.
I understand that, But.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Does a lash take away their intellectual capacity?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Like, here's where I'm old school. Here's here's where I'm
old school.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
And you know, a big part of my work is
teaching people how to present themselves.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
So I'm old school. I admit it.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
And I think that if whatever you are wearing takes
away from a person's ability to see you, to hear,
your intelligence, for your power to come through. If it
is a distraction, leave it at home. Why bring a
distraction with you? I just don't think it's a smart
(36:14):
thing to do. It is not to say that you
should come as a cookie cutter of anything. I don't
mean that, but like if you have on purple lipstick
and all I can see are your lips and I
can't I can't even hear what you're saying because I'm
mesmerized by your mouth saying with the lashes that are touching. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you know, Or a skirt that is so
(36:37):
short that all I can't help but want to look
up your skirt, you know, Or something that's so low
that all, even if you don't mean to, your eye
goes to cleavage. I think that's a distraction. So I
think we should be strategic and how we present ourselves
so that whatever our goal is, we figure out how
(36:58):
to reach our goal strategically.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, I understand this strategic part.
Speaker 6 (37:04):
Especially, I feel like, while I while I do get that,
I think that people are going to have to choose
what strategy is best for them if they feel like
this thing is so a part of their identity and
they want to show up. Whether because I feel like
people said that black hair was distracting. We can't wear
(37:25):
our corn rows, we can't wear afros because it's distracting.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I used to I used to work.
Speaker 6 (37:29):
For TSA for a long time, and I used to
wear my hair big and curly, and they said it
would distract from the uniform.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
But this is just me.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
And even if it wasn't their hair on my head,
it's their hair that's on my head and.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I can't do that now.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So I'm with you.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So those type of things is like, it's like, yes,
you can fight, like you said, we can fight with
the company that doesn't want us to wear our natural hair,
or we can go somewhere.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Where it's not.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
It is a difference. Yeah, it is a difference. I
do believe that it is a difference.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Because that's your natural that's.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
How your hair goes. If you are making the choice
to wear these caterpillar.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Legs on, but that could be hair pillar, that can
be hair styled, that can be but that.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Matters too to me.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like so I would say, if somebody comes in my
office and they want to a lot of people, I
think now because of the way journalism has gone, when
people say they want to be a journalist, I don't
even know if they know what that means, because I
think they think give you on TV talk and that
makes you a journalist.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
But if somebody comes to me, and they want to
work in a newsroom and they show up with caterpillar
lashes and they have that baby hair jail down to
here and stiletto nails. I am going to take you
less seriously. That has nothing to do with ethnicity. I
am looking for black people to hire and penetrate newsrooms.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
But that is not a serious approach to me. But
are you looking and I'm not saying you specifically, but
because you say me specifically, you are you looking for
black people who only fit a certain mold because this now,
because this is that also is like a generation thing
like their generation.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Once they're like.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Edges and the big lashes and the long nails, does
that it doesn't mean that they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And so if they came.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
In and they were tight, you know, and they're like, yep,
these are the eight papers I read every morning. And
here's some of my favorite bylines. Here's the past three
books I read. And yes, I can tell you rise
of the Global South and what's happened in European markets
grow you higher, But I would probably still say, what
is it that you're trying to do in this industry?
And I can help you I mean, look, we all
in news like you're gonna get made up. It's like,
(39:34):
you know, it doesn't matter what you look like, but
you have the extra tight.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
This This is the discussion that is ongoing, like we
shouldn't agree on this. Yeah, it's good that we are
not agreeing. There isn't one answer. The reason we have
the Crown Act is people pushed, pushed, pushed and pushed
until like, wait a minute, you know then I think
even with that, and this is me, I'm old school.
(39:58):
I admit it sometimes times, and I have natural hair.
Sometimes natural hair is so unkempt that it's like, but
what does that mean? Is it is it? Is it clean?
Has it been has it has it ever been combed?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Does it? Does it look professional? Now?
Speaker 5 (40:24):
That is a huge question. What does professional mean? That's
when we go back to what is the industry that
you're in? What are the boundaries around professionalism? I think
that we can push the envelope, but I have definitely
seen people walk into spaces like.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
What I appreciate about the new generation and I understand
what I appreciated about them is that they are pushing
these boundaries. They are breaking these glass ceilings.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Do you consider yourself the new generation.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
No, I'm a millennial. I'm in my thirties.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I feel like, yeah, we're growing up, growing up. Yeah,
but like you know, yeah really but like, but what
I appreciate. I feel like the millennials we're all about
talking things out and like you know, and which I
(41:19):
love them, which I love about us. But the gen
z they're about that action. And then's something that I
really appreciate about them. So even if what they present
as is impalatable to you, they're gonna tell you that
is not palatable. They're gonna tell you why you think
that it is impalatable, and they're gonna take themselves elsewhere,
and then they're gonna go and talk about you on
(41:41):
social media. Well there's that, which is councel culture, which
we need to do away with anyway, I think, I think,
which I mean, we could take this with a grain
of salt. I love the title of Nick Cannon's podcast
and not to do it's called counsel culture that it
can cancel counsel counsel because I think, because because I
(42:05):
always think of where I am today, at the age
that I am, and where I was ten years ago,
two different people and I think that there's a lot
that you can learn as you grow, and people should
be given grace to grow and learn totally, not everybody.
I mean, like, if you like your rapist murdered, Like,
of course you know that m arm people, But if
(42:28):
you have the opportunity to take a step back and
understand the people around you and understand that the way
that you think might not be the only way of thinking,
Like like I can appreciate understood.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
And I think what's happening culturally in American culture and
global culture. People do not have jobs the way they
used to. Like who has a job the same job
for their whole career?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Hardly no one.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
It's how many people move around in this economy. How
many people are forced to become entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, whatever, or
because there isn't a.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Job for them when that job.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
When that happens, you have more freedom because if you
are on your own, you can look however you want,
You can do whatever you want. You you may become
a chameleon that you know you are a particular way
for this job and that job because it works for you.
But you're you're being forced into freedom. Yes, is a
(43:26):
really interesting space to be in, and I think that
what's positive about that is kind of what you're describing. Well,
I'm going to take action. You're not going to hire me.
You're not going to hire me. I'm going to create
something exactly and I'm going to figure out how to
draw wealth towards me and whatever the opportunities may be,
exactly as I am.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
As that happens, our culture changes.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
The only caution, though, I would offer, is you ain't
the boss yet, you know, so you do kind of
have to conform a little bit without denying your ethnicity
and out without denying your natural self. But yeah, you
can't come in at twenty three trying to work with
your lashes out to here and the baby here, jail
and the outfit and it's the let on nails.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
You know, some people I have to say, and some
people can say, yes, I can, I do it right now.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
But let me think just for one second.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Yeah, when I had my first job out of college,
I didn't want that job. So a lot of people
don't want their first job. You know, you think you're
the smartest. You you want to make more money than
whatever they're paying you. And it was a conservative job.
It was a job, and I remember that I wore
a pair of dangly earrings and the office manager came
(44:39):
over to me and she said, Harry, she I know
she agonized over this, Harriet, those earrings are so nice.
Like she gave me a complimise. I said thank you,
and she said for the club. Now she had thought
about how can I get her to hear me? Yeah,
because it was not appropriate where I was working. Now
it doesn't matter at all, But it's the lettone nails.
(45:00):
I have seen so many women in positions where they're
administrator in the beginning and their nails are so long
they cannot type. They can't type well because the nail
is this long and they can't even touch the keyboard.
But everybody has the type just about. So are you
doing what my mother would call shooting yourself in the
(45:21):
foot if you can't do your job because of a
beauty choice? Is that a smart choice to me?
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's different.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
I mean as a as a model, like I have
long nails right now because I'm not on.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Set, thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I look.
Speaker 6 (45:37):
I just try to keep them, keep them, you know,
in natural tone, just in case I do have to
check it down but when I'm on set and I'm
selling a product, like you said, I can't distract. So
I know, if I'm selling an earring and I'm doing
something like this, my nails are going to distract from
what I'm actually selling.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
So anything, of course that's gonna.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (45:57):
People don't always think about it. The reason I mentioned
it is is people who are not conscious. I wasn't conscious,
like I didn't want that job, so I would do
things that could have gotten me fired. They were beauty
things I did and other things, and then I realized, oh,
I can't go fire. My parents would kill me, you know,
so I had to shift. People do things unconsciously when
(46:17):
they don't want to be where they.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Are, And I think that's a really interesting well.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I will say I did unconventional things. I used to
host the show at MSNBC, and I dress very different.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I remember, yes I did, or are you.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
More more color than anyone on the Tire Network?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I was like, no, thank you. I wanted to.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
I wanted I'm sure they didn't like that though.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I wanted us to fright. I wanted us to see us.
And we take pride in our parents. We take pride
in how we look and even if I were the
same thing, it was going to fill out differently on
me than it wasn't somebody else.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
And so what did they say? I was always curious
about that.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Well, I'll say one thing. This was kind of my fault.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
There was breaking news and I was in New York
and I had a wardrobe malfunction, and so I had
ordered a top to wear and it was the only
thing I had. It's like, I gotta be on set
at like eight am. You go through hair and makeup,
and this top that I had on the picture. It
looked cute because they had little cutouts like at the
underarm when I put this thing, and I looked like
(47:20):
a stripper going to I mean it was I'm in
all the way in. It was I don't remember what
the story. I think it was when the building collapsed
in Florida.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
It was bringing news.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
I'm like, this looks completely inappropriate, but I had no
choice then That's all I had. What ended up happening.
They had my lead in. I think it was ali
Vel she We Love You Alive. I think he carried
the show for me for the first thirty minutes, and
then I could.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Come on and do my show, but I can no, No,
they just didn't go with it.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, which I was completely fine with.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And nobody could actually say to me, you know, we
don't like, because then I would have had to say, well,
can you put that in an email to me and
tell me why and what specifically and what should I change?
And can we talk about a wardrobe budget for me
if I'm wearing something you don't.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Like, you know, but but they should, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
But the difference, I would say is I was not
establishing my career. I wasn't starting my career. I had
navigated newsrooms for about twenty four years at that point.
I had earned the rights to come on this set
and look how I wanted to look in service to
my community. I was not living in service to the
white corporate structure of NBC News. I was living in
service in my community. And sometimes that runs contrary to
(48:29):
what corporate.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Corporation right, absolutely right.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
It's an investment, you know, like, yeah, you have to
pay your dues in order to show up the way
that you want to show up. So for the girl
who comes in with the long nails, this may not
be the time for you, but eventually.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Earned that right, Yeah, earn that right.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
And also she may get to the point where she's
the one making the decisions and the next person who
comes in she's like, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Cool with it, just like that's what it's going to take.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Yeah, at the end of the day, and I'm gonna
say times, el Ish, I love that network, and it's
there's still there's nobody who looks like you just on
that network right now. Yeah, And when I think it's
okay for us to accept that when you fully claim
who you are, you got to find the right place
(49:16):
for where you are.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Well, Joy, I mean when Joy and Reedy some of
the whole primetime show when she put all her hair
off and now it's rock, Like I am obsessed, like girl,
this is your look beautiful. But even like her rise
in the industry, apparently black woman in this space. And
here's the part that frustrates me. We got on this
(49:38):
a little bit earlier, but you know we do sometimes
on the show on the street to talking when we
talk about like what people are saying, it becomes acceptable
when white people do it, you know, and that I
refuse to wait until white women deemed something fashionable, and
then I can say we drive it, but then the
white folks in corporate America say, oh, well, if Betty
(49:59):
does it, then it's okay for Tiffany to do it.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And it's like, I knew how important it.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Was for women to see me and build themselves reflected,
and I was not necessarily trying to make people comfortable.
And so when I look this is why I get frustrated,
because when I look at people like the Kardashians, and
it's not that I don't follow the I awn't watch
the reality.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I'm not entertained by mess notice anybody who is.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
But when I look at the billion dollar industry that
they've been able to build on their backs, literally, I
think it's unfair to women out there who have been
work like black women, like you are profiting off black culture.
You are making a living off of our struggle. You
are surgically manufactured to look like us, and bypassing us. Now,
(50:45):
that's not their fault. It's the industry's fault for summarily
ignoring us, dismissing us, discarding us, disrespecting us. And I
just get exhausted with it.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
And it isn't new.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
It is how this country has it's worked since the beginning.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
How do we change it?
Speaker 5 (51:03):
It is global, Yeah, it's global. I mean I think
the more institutions we own that we also support. The
things that we own, we can have control over the
things that others own we cannot have control over. We
can have our moments, but they're not ours. And our
(51:28):
culture has always been co opted, always been co opted.
And so while I'm not defeatest in this thinking, I'll
just say that feels realistic.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
So what do we do?
Speaker 5 (51:39):
Figure out how we can own it and present it
to the world in ways where we will support it.
That is the hast key that we support. They take it.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Right, our multi trillion dollar buying power we buy all
these products or what we create. I mean, we think
about any of these social media platform what would it
be without us? We create the dance moves, we can
the life, we create, the fashion. It just is frustrating.
It's like that we don't get credit for it.
Speaker 6 (52:06):
But what I think like one thing that I feel
like is gonna change that narrative is us understanding that
we are and always have been the blueprint of most industries. Well,
we're the blueprint of humanity in general. The world came
from black women, like we're not going to play with that.
But also it's understanding that once we understand our power,
(52:30):
understand that our influence, we can take it back into
our hands. We can have that ownership and then we
can dictate what is beneficial for the world and beneficial
for us as a people.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Do you remember the model at hu at Howard University's
homecoming and she was just there, you know, and a
talent agent was there and found her. She was very
dark skinned and had on outfit and she like developed
this whole career. This was like five years ago, and
she became a model because somebody saw her at these
see you homecomings.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
It is we are present.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yes, yes, it is a whole.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
At Clark at the Atlanta University Center, it's Clark Atlanda University, Spelman, Mouse,
Morris Brown and fashion Fridays used to be a thing,
like everybody came, you know, like you you It's just
something about our community, you know, like we want to
look good. And I don't remember. Honestly, in my life,
I don't think I've ever gotten beautiful. For a man,
(53:27):
I want them to benefit from it, but honestly, the
reaction I'm looking for is from y'all.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
You know, how about my girls, like girl.
Speaker 6 (53:36):
That's right, yes, great, they don't know, they don't know
what you really put on, right.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I peeved you from had to tell and you from
head to tell, you know, like the jacket, the foods,
the leather.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
I mean I when y'all walked in, we.
Speaker 5 (53:48):
Assessed, and that's what we been in a positive way. Yeah,
because by the way, when it's not positive, you know,
leave that at home, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yes, no no.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
And I guess that's kind of my concern with the
latches and the baby hair jail and all that because
if these.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Well, because you can't let that go.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Well it's okay if it's creativity, but if it is,
I don't look good without it. If it is, I'm chasing,
you know, this Instagram model or this reality show star.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I think that's the process too.
Speaker 6 (54:21):
Like that's especially because a lot of them are younger,
and I'm not saying that they won't get older and
still want to I have I have an aunt who
still puts a bunch of layers of mass scarron and
she looks beautiful for her and as long as she
feels good, that's all that matters.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
That's true.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
But also I used to wear super dark eyeliner at
the top and bottom. Please don't scroll back to the
put it to a phy. But I was learning. I
was just like understanding my face and then now that
like I have a better understanding. I'm on my skincare,
I'm doing everything I know that me without everything else
(54:57):
is beautiful to me.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Are we not supposed to wear dark eye line?
Speaker 5 (55:00):
Our problem?
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Because I have dark island.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
We still can't. It was the way I was doing it.
I want to make sure girls, I think.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
The point of that, which is going back to your point.
We can have fun, we can experiment. It's figuring out
how playful we can be with how we present ourselves.
And also strategic. I do think it's important to have strategy,
not necessarily in every moment, but as you're building your life,
(55:32):
what what do you want it to look like? And
how do you get there? If you think about that,
then that's going to drive your steps. And I do
think that's important and it could be anything.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Yeah, but I think they're dressed like the job you want.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
To show, just like the job you want, not like
a job you have.
Speaker 6 (55:48):
And then as as a model, a little tip to
like models out there, if you want certain clients, your
portfolio has to reflect that. So like so I know,
like I get DM spum girls who are like, oh,
I want to be a model, you know, but I
go to their page and it doesn't reflect what it
takes to be in this industry. And I'm not saying
it from a Eurocentric standpoint.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
It's just from a strategy and professional And this is
true for job by the way, you.
Speaker 6 (56:17):
Know all of these things because you got to be
a blank canvas.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
This is true for whatever you want to be and
the land of social media. Know that everything you put
out there, everything lasts forever. Even if you take it down,
it's not gone. And what is What are you putting
out there? And are you conscious of what you're putting
out there?
Speaker 4 (56:35):
It used to be.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
Don't leave a voicemail when you're angry, don't send an
email when you're angry. Don't make a so social media
post if you're not conscious, you know, don't be drunk
or high on social media.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
Don't do it.
Speaker 5 (56:50):
Don't language watch your language, watch how you look. If
you don't want your moment to see it, you probably
shouldn't be posting it.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Yeah, I know, I know you don't like that one.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
I feel you because I love my mom my, Mommy.
I love my mom.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
And she and she's great and she she I shoot
lingerie and she's like, girl, you look good, like like
my mom is not tripping my dad. He might not
like some of the stuff, but I just feel like
I'm an individual. I'm a grown ass woman. I get
to choose how I want to show up. The way
that I show up may not look like the way
(57:26):
that you think is acceptable, or you think is acceptable,
or society or whoever else. I agree with that that
someone is going to resonate in the way that I
feel about myself, in the way that I show up
for them, even if it's not, because sometimes it's not
for me. Sometimes it's like like like even coming here today,
coming here, like what we wear and how we wear
our hair is like a political sense at the end
(57:49):
of the day. So even coming here today, I'm like,
normally I put my wig on. I think, honestly, this
is probably the first like appearance that I've done without.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
Straight up I bet that you served they did serving.
Speaker 6 (58:04):
Everything you last time, I, you know, even put this
outfit on. I had a straight, kinky straight wig. Yeah,
I still looked like my hair, you know, it's a
little unclomktable.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (58:15):
When I got ready today, I was like, no, Yeah,
we're talking about blackness and not that this is the
only time that it's appropriate for me to wear my
hair in this way, but we're talking about blackness and
standing in that power and how do I feel most powerful?
Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, it's like this. I so like this lady showed up.
Speaker 6 (58:33):
It took a lot more work to show up like
this than it would have for me to just throw
my weg on and to come. But it's not always
about me. Sometimes it's about the person who needs to
see this so that they can be inspired to do
what I did, yeah, you know, or to just show
up as themselves whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
I love that message. And the caveat is you are
a grown ass woman. I think a lot of what
I'm saying is for like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old
And I think that's what you were saying because at
that point your mind isn't really done functioning or developing rather,
and so when you put something out on social media
at that age, I think it should be off limits.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
But sadly it's not.
Speaker 5 (59:08):
You know, let me just say, I'm not just talking
about the fifteen year olds. Okay you are, Yeah, why
am I saying that? Like, just as an example, there
were teachers on a cruise sharing a toast with each
other who lost their jobs as teachers because they were
drinking on social media. Now I think that's way too far.
(59:29):
It's way too far, but it happened more than once.
So I'm just saying, what does your industry say is Okay,
you decide whether you care and then you act accordingly
whatever that means.
Speaker 6 (59:42):
Or you can decide to flip it upside down and
change it from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (59:47):
But like you said, it takes investment, It takes you know,
speaking up about things. If you decide that your strategy
for making changes in the world and whatever industry or
whatever company strategy for changing it is to show.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Up loud and proud as whoever you.
Speaker 6 (01:00:04):
Are, then activist your life. Yeah, you can also go
another route and conform for a while if you want,
and then show up as who you want the industry
to be later on or whatever strategy you want. Just
make sure that what you're doing you're doing it for yourself,
You're doing it for the benefit of or I would
(01:00:24):
hope that you do it black people. I would hope
that you do it for the benefit of our community.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Oh, live and service the community. That is always and things.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Don't try don't be so focused on building the brand,
be focused on building community.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
So I think that is a good place to close
out the conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
This was so great, and I just want to say
I listen for people who might be offended at what
I was saying about lashes and everything. I think we
are such a beautiful people, so I'm not trying to
discourage you all from expressing your beauty as you like.
When I was little, I put activator on my hair
and one of the dairy curls, so that might be
the equivalent to the thing. And just let y'all know
this little clip has been sticking me. I just want
(01:01:00):
people to see it's not a son in track, but
it's literally clips that I have in my right right Okay,
that is added to my hair. I'm how to figure
out how to get it back in, but it literally
snaps in. Okay, thank you, these ladies gonna help me.
But This is not what my natural hair looks like.
I am wear makeup and lash of it because I'm hair, yes,
(01:01:22):
but when I'm going to Whole Foods, I don't look
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
You know I'm very natural.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
So anyway, I want you all to be comfortable when
you wake up in the morning and you look at
yourself with no makeup on, fresh out the shower, and
you look at yourself. I want you all to love yourselves.
And if you are raising a young girl, we want
to make sure that they love themselves poofy hair, kinky hair,
straight hair, however it looks. Because we are such a
beautiful people, and other people profit off of our beauty
(01:01:47):
and we help make this country a superpower. So it's
time for us to bring our beauty home to ourselves,
our journey home to ourselves, and celebrate who we are.
So thank you so much for tuning in to another
episode of Across Generations, and we'll be back now next
week with an all new episode. Keep tuning in, drop
me a comment let me know what you think about
this episode. I can't wait to hear from you guys.
Thanks and we'll see you next week. Across Generations is
(01:02:07):
brought to You by Willpacker and will Packer Media in
partnership with iHeart podcast I'm Your host and executive producer
Tiffany d. Cross from Idea to Launch Productions executive producer
Carla willmeris produced by Mandy B and Angel Forte, editing,
sound design and mix by Gaza Forte for original music
by Epidemic Sound Video editing by Kathin Alexander and Court
(01:02:31):
Meeting
Welcome to a Cross Generations where the voices of black
women unite.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm your host, Tiffany Cross.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Tiffany Cross, we gather a season elder myself as the
middle generation, and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations.
Prepared to engage or hear perspectives that no one else
is happy.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You know how we do. We create magic magic.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Across Generations. I'm
your host, Tiffany Cross. So today we are talking about
beauty standards. Now, as you all know, I've worked in television,
and working in television, people see you before they hear you.
So my entire life, from childhood through write this very moment,
I have cared a great deal about how I look.
(00:56):
Even now, when I look at myself on camera, I think, oh,
maybe my phase issuits, or my hair is out of
place or not as full as it used to be.
I'm wearing hair clips now, my tummy is protruding sometimes.
And as far back as I can remember, I put
so much effort into my appearance, and embarrassingly, when I.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Was a little girl, I wanted a Jerry girl.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I know some of.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Y'all did too, and of course my mother said, hell no,
thank god, but I did. Used to sneak and put
that little aggravator in my hair. I wanted my hair
curly and greasy, apparently, so I would wet my hair.
And I know y'all remember pink lotion. I used to
put pink lotion in my hair sometimes, so anyway, I
know some of you are old enough to remember that.
(01:36):
But all of this stuff in my hair wasn't healthy
for me. And I don't know what I was thinking.
I'm sure I look crazy, but I remember looking at
women like Jane Kennedy and Vanity. You guys remember Vanity
from the Prince era in Sicily Tyson and Felicia Rashad
and Debbie Allen and Jacke. These were the faces of
beauty and the only makeup line. I knew that cater
(01:58):
It's black women back than was fashion fear. I even
still remember the commercials. But beauty changed over the years,
and by the time I got to high school, I
remember seeing beautiful women like Robin Gibvens and Halle Berry
and Beverly Johnson and Naomi Campbell and Tyrad Banks and
Rachel from Caribbean rhythms. Who happens to be one of
my best friends today. Hi, Rachel, So I can say
(02:20):
I ever looked to white women to set the standard
of beauty for me, but in the ways that the
industry has always set them for the standard of beauty
for us, I feel like we kind of rebuffed that.
Today we celebrate literally every body type, every complexion, every ethnicity,
every style, hair texture, and this is very much thanks
to the Crown Act passing the House of Representatives in
(02:41):
twenty twenty two, which prohibits the discrimination based on hairstyle
and hair texture. So we celebrate it all now, but
some still find it so difficult to celebrate ourselves. We're
still craving everything that are natural beauty, so it still
bags the question how far have we come? And how
much farther will we go? So excited to have joining
(03:01):
me in this conversation. Harriet Cole. She is a celebrated
lifestyle expert, a best selling author and founder of dream Leapers.
Now with decades of experience in media and style, Harriet
has been a guiding voice in redefining beauty standards and
empowering individuals to embrace their true selves.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Her work has influenced.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
How we see beauty, culture and identity, making her the
perfect guest to discuss the evolving standards of beauty in America,
especially for Black women. And now on our younger side,
we have Jasmine Carthon. She is did I say your name? Carthon?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Thank you? We have a Jasmine Carthon, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And she's a model, a community organizer from Compton, California,
and she's best known as one of the first plus
sized models to win Project Runway and a Sports Illustrated
swimsuit finalist. Now she uses her platform to highlight the
power in both individuality and community. As one of the
founders of Models for Change, Jasmine worked to amplify voices
(03:59):
in She toasted events dedicated to building community and advocated
for the fair treatment of Black, Indigenous, and people.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Of color who are creatives.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Her mission is to inspire action against inequality and work
with those committed to making a positive impact. These are
two women after my own heart. I'm in good company.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Thank you, ladies, thank you. I'm feel excited. I have
to tell you.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Before we got started, Harriet thank you, because she was like, oh,
one of your hair clips is showing.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So we had to fix it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
My natural hair is about like right to my shoulders
and so on camera, like the hair can look thin
and as you get older, like hair thins. So I
wear these hair clips to make it look full. And
my hairstyles who was putting it in so well, once
we cut them, they're gonna be sure and your hair
come out grown?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Why don't you wear it long? So I'm wearing my
long hair today. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
We love.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We can do anything, yeah, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I also wear like I stopped relaxing my hair when
I was probably around twenty five or so. I wear
my hair natural, like you know I do because I
don't want people to think like, oh, you know, I
have to relax my hair. I have to wear it straight,
and I'm trying to wear it long and like going
after these Europeans.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
You know what. Also, products have changed so much.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
I remember when I was growing up, there were relaxers,
they were super, there was regular. Everybody got super because
they wanted it to be so straight and it burned
your hair off off. But now there's so many products
that no matter what your hair texture, you don't have
to ever relax it and you can still wear it
straight or every other way you want to wear it,
so that.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Possible way.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, what do you think is the biggest change you've
seen in your decades in the industry. You've seen a
lot of changes. What's fashionable, what's not. What's the biggest
change between when you first started and now?
Speaker 5 (05:42):
There are more options that are acceptable and even as
we mentioned in your open the Crown Act that was
twenty twenty two. Yeah, so there are more options, but still,
especially in the corporate world, there's an expectation that you
conform to whatever the standard.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Is for that job. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
The difference even there is that there are thousands and
thousands of jobs. So if you don't want to look
the way that this corporation looks, you can work someplace else.
You also can go in and say no, I'm going
to be myself, which is a great thing. It works sometimes,
but the Crown Net happened because it doesn't work a
lot of the time. But the difference, I think is
(06:21):
that there's such a breadth of opportunity and many companies
welcome us as we are. That's a nice thing to
even be able to say out, yeah, you know, they
ultr rise all the way up to the top. I
think it still gets more and more conservative the higher
up you go, but there is more openness to who
(06:42):
we are, how we look. It's still fascination with our hair.
People you don't want to touch our hair, you don't
want them to do it, but yeah, you.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Know it is fascinating. We can do everything with our hair.
Most people can't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's true. We can wear it hou whatever, totally.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
Like even me, like I recently went natural. I've been
wearing wigs my entire career, and my hair looks beautiful
and healthy, thank you. I did a little flex rock
set this morning. Y. Yeah, but you know, it took
some time to get to the point where, like, I
want to show up in a way that's not just palatable.
(07:19):
And when I first came into the industry, I had big,
curly hair that was a wig, and that probably gave
me a closer proximity to whiteness than yeah, than what
the industry wanted.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
For me, or I thought the industry wanted from me.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
So me deciding to go natural literally this year, was
like me taking back my power and saying that I
don't need to rely on a security blanket or a
security wig.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Rather, which is what I felt like it was.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
And I can show up the way that I feel
most comfortable, where I feel most beautiful, where I felt
like most natural. And that's not saying that if you
wear a wig, clippings, curly, kinky black women, we can
show up in whatever way that we want as long.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
So what has happened though, what has happened this year
being natural in terms of the work you've gotten?
Speaker 6 (08:07):
Well, I did book my first gig with my natural
curls and it wasn't it wasn't stretched. It was literally
just like a wash and go, and I was really
proud of myself and I felt empowered on set. I
felt like, you know, I'm not just showing up for myself,
I'm showing up for the other black girls who have
worn weaves and wigs their whole life and realize that,
(08:27):
you know, maybe I want to show something different, show
like what how I feel beautiful when I wake up
in the morning. And I think mostly the biggest difference
that I found was how I felt about myself and
how that allowed me to show up on set.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And did you have a hairstylist who knew how to
do your natural?
Speaker 6 (08:44):
That's yeah, that was and you know what with wearing
the wigs on set. A lot of times I used
it as not used it like it was protection.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
For my hair.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I'm like me wearing a wig mint they couldn't burn
my natural hair out that actually did have like I don't.
I couldn't count how many times, but like I wore
my natural hair and they wanted to like just braid
it and blow dried it and gave me so much
breakage that I had a big chalk and it was
frustrating because like you, I stopped wearing I stopped doing perms,
(09:18):
like I want to say in twenty twenty ten, twenty eleven,
and I just the reason why I stopped wearing perms
is because I had leave out and I went to
perm my edges and I literally washed my hair out
and I didn't have anything to cover my tracks. So
it was just like, you know, I can't keep doing
this to my hair. And then big hair came out,
(09:39):
and I'm scaring all these negative things about putting these
chemicals in her hair and what it can do to us.
So I just didn't want it anymore and I just
so in that I went to weaves and went to
wigs and went to wigs at like was close to
my natural hair but not not close enough?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, like or not.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Even it didn't matter whether or not was close enough
to my natural hair, is that it wasn't my natural hair.
And I felt like in order to fit into this industry.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I had to add to me.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
And what I'm realizing now is that I don't need to,
like and if I want to put my wig on,
I can, like, yeah, like, I do it everyone.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Both our grandmother's yeah, and all the sisters, the deaconesses
in the church. Yes, fantastic about wigs T Yeah, I
still yeah, yeah, it's good too. You know Grandma used
to be able to put that thing on and boom
she was fly.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah hat so it was an accessory. Yes, yeah, I
think there was this model. I can't remember her name,
but she was well, there have been several models to
do this, but this model was like facetiming and like
in ig live and just showing her experience during fashion
week and how nobody knew how to do her makeup.
Nobody knew how to do her hair. And that's how
I learned how to do makeup. I have a makeup
(10:57):
artist do my makeup. I didn't wake up looking like this.
But I have someone who does it. But I had
to learn how because in television you would walk into
the studio and you could see the face of fright
when they knew that, and they start asavy right, and
they woul start asking, well, what's your color? Like I
don't know because I ain't the makeup artist, you know,
Like you tell me what my color is. But how
dehumanizing it was to show up and do your job
(11:19):
and there literally aren't people there who know what they're
They don't know how to do your hair, they don't
know how to do your makeup and so and look,
I want to be clear too, it is not about
the ethnicity of the artists. It is about the artist's
ability to be able to do people of other ethnicity.
Because I didn't have some black women do me dirty
on this makeup, you know. And I've had non black
(11:41):
women beat this face, you know, and it does pop it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So I think that makes a big difference as we
But what's.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
Crazy is when you ask the question what's different, the
fact that that is still happening.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
It's crazy.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
I mean, Emon talks about that when she started her
cosmetics Lang, which was more than thirty years ago about
that she's started it because as a model, there wasn't
make up her color. Yeah, it was fashion fair. There
was Flory Roberts, but rare. Yeah, these was that on set.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
And so she.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Started her own line. This is more than thirty years ago.
Now there's every color, how many how many makeup lines
are in support and alt with thirty colors of Nancy.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yes, Nincy really ran point on that.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
Yes, yeah, exposed the industry showing that like they don't
cater to dark skins, three shaves or shades for dark
skin when or black people, not black people, brown people
of color right in general like South Asian. You know,
you know it's not enough shades because even sitting here,
we're three different shade black women. So, and to your
(12:49):
point about showing up on set and not having anyone
to do your hair, do your makeup. I've walked in
New York Fashion Weeks so many times and almost every
time they run from me like they like, like you
see the hairstylists like get uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
They start playing with things, yes, on.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Their on their in their makeup kid knowing saying well
you do not have my shade in there. Yeah, it was,
So it got to the point where I always kept
my makeup on me and moor to the bathroom and think,
then I'm you literally usually doing my own hair. I
come ready most of the time. That's why I've always
I've always known how to do my own hair. So
(13:27):
it's just and it just sucks, because how do you
call yourself an artist or a professional in an industry
but you can't do all hair textures? Yeah, you can't
do all skin tones. It just it just doesn't It's insulting.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I do want to shout out Sergio Hudson because he
just gets us. He knows us with his fashion, but
also in his makeup room and his I get to
sneak backstage during his show fashion Week to say hi
and take a picture, and like, people there know what
they're doing. They know how to do our makeup, they
know how to do our hair. So we love you
Sergio for all they.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Also I want to shout out Honifa.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yes, I love if.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
I walked in Honefa show that she did in DC,
and I have never felt so protected, so honored as
a model. I walked in and I smelled sprits and
and it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Was a bunch of black women.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
It felt like us.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
It's like us.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
Yeah, It's smelt like when you walk into the salon
with your mom and you're sitting there and you're waiting
for her to get her hair done, hear all the
conversations and stuff that I felt so comfortable.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well, it was so like divinely black.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Shout out to Anifa.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
When we were I had a photo shoot to do
and Honefa her team reached out and offered to dress
me for the photo shoot. So yeah, I took it
as a compliment, but I didn't know she was like,
this girl needs some help, so let me help her.
But I was honored that she even too great.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, take it as she saw.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
You both opportunity each other to like push black women
forward and make sure amazing.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
She's amazing. Yeah, I love her, I love I love
their entire teams.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Just made me feel good.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
Yeah, And that's what you need because at the end
of the day, just like when you show up on set,
we need to be able to do our job right.
I don't want to come into a space where everyone
is expected to do their part and I have to.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Do my job in your job, in your job, Yeah,
because you don't. It's not fair hair.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So one thing in the way that we've been very
celebratory of how beauty standards have changed. But there are
some things that I do notice that maybe as I'm
getting older, because I'm sure that there was a generation
who looked at me when I was younger, like what
are these girls doing. I'm sure you look at younger
women and you've, you know, seen the changes through time.
(15:44):
The lashes now I'm wearing. I am ware of that
I do, but I will say I only wear lashes
when I'm on air, Like I don't like the caterpillar
lashes that are like this, and I see like these
young girls wearing them I wear I'm on air, and
I noticed you don't have any, and you look beautiful.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I do feel like maybe I can just well
on camera.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Like the makeup.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The camera eats up to make yeah, so I look,
but I don't.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I had to. I got like made up like two
weeks straight, and I had lashes and full makeup on,
and I remember when it all came off, and I
just felt like, I don't like how I.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Look, you know, because you grew accustomed to that.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yes, So I'm intentional now I don't wear this kind
of makeup unless I am on camera doing something. But
I do see young girls with like all the things,
like the lashes, the different contour, or sometimes it's don't
make up, just walking around like this.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Well because sometimes they are fixed so they.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Like you can't even see me out your eyes with
those lashes.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I just wonder are we going too far one?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Like, how do we bring it back home to like
just loving ourselves.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
There's extremes in every industry, you know. So some people
are going to wear no lashes, some people are gonna
wear natural ash, and some people want to be extravagant,
and that's their prerogative. You said something about contouring, though,
which it's something that I struggle with a little bit
sitting in the makeup chair because I'll sit down and
(17:19):
the makeup artists will be excited and he'll be like
or they'll be like, we're gonna snatch that nose and
we're gonna oh yeah. I like, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
I don't want to widen out my my features. I
love my cheekbones, I love lits, I love I love
all of the things that my favorite parts of me
are the things that come from black people that are
you know, indigenous too black.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I don't know if indigenous would be the word.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
But y.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Our DNA.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And the other issue is that we have these features
naturally and then when you put them on another person,
it's like they.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They're the ones who at the shine for it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I can say the Kardashian family an entire living all
black features that they get surgically manufactured. And we're walking
around here with all this natural beauty, full lips wide
and I was like, Beyonce, are Jackson's.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Five nostrils hips ass everything.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
Way before the kardashi Yeah, this is the trend that's
gone on through the generations. I mean, think about self tanning,
so you can get the color that we are already,
but then our color is hated. So this, this trend
of self hatred is insane. I want to tell you
when I was young, I was a model, and I
(18:36):
remember sitting in a makeup artist chair when I was
in college and the makeup art this was this was
the time of and they called themselves at the time
of the Queen. You know, so this this queen was
doing my makeup and got to the contour.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
So eighties makeup you know, it was very severe.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Yeah, put this major contour on my nose and say, girl,
if I have to spend this much time contouring your nose.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
You need to get a nose job.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Wow, you see my nose. And I was just so
grateful for my mother, who's like, that person's crazy. You're
not getting a nose job. Your nose is beautiful. But
this was from a black queen. It comes from within
the culture. It comes outside of the culture because beauty
standards still are based on European staff.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And even as we mentioned the designers who support us,
there are plenty more people who don't even see us,
and what they understand is something that doesn't look like us,
you know, And that part, I think requires us to
connect to our culture, to connect to the grannies, to
connect to the church, to connect to whatever those cultural
(19:47):
foundational points are that remind us that we're beautiful, the
remind us that we count, because if we don't do that,
it is so easy, especially in your industry as a model,
and I wanted to ask you so as a curvy model, yes,
because now we live in this.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
World of inclusivity.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You know, when I was at Essence, I ran fashion
at Essence many years ago, and Susan Taylor told us
we had to have models who were from size six
to size twenty six, and I was like, for real,
And we had to learn how to dress women that
size when there were no samples, there weren't there was nothing.
We had to get it made. We had to get
it made. Now it's understood that you have to be inclusive.
(20:28):
Yet I want to know what is it like when
you when you are part of a job when maybe
you're the only curvy girl on you know, in the
dressing room, when you are when you know their size
two four six and you how are you treated? How
do you feel? Do you feel honored?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
You know what all of the above was happening.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I think it depends on the client.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
I think having all of these others or having you know,
a bigger sum of other sizes. When over sixty seven
percent of the email population in the United States is
oversized fourteen, I think over sized sixteen actually, right, So
it feels performative a lot of times to be tokenized
in that way. Yeah, and to feel like I'm just
(21:15):
checking off a box. They if they get me, they
get curve or plus size. They get black, they may
get natural hair. When we can have all of these
things in different people. But it's like they're like, let's
check one box at one time and then have all
the rest of the skinny white models. The fashion industry
is based off of the opinions of within the white
(21:37):
and the wealthy, so it's.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Like that then the white and the wealthy is it is?
Speaker 6 (21:43):
And unfortunately, like you were saying about beauty standards, that's
what we based our things off of. You were saying
earlier about the notes. Obviously, how many women back at
that time, black women back at that time went and
got their nose snatched. And it's like, I wish you
didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
If I didn't have my mother, I probably would have.
I wanted to rise in that industry, and she's like, girl.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
And I'm happy she told you not to. But also
I also don't want to make it seem like anyone
doing something because they want to do it is a problem.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But I have to look at the root of the issue.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
If you are doing it because the world is telling
you that who you are isn't beautiful, and that's you know,
to I know, when off topic a little bit, but
to my hair. When I realized that the reason why
I'm continuously putting this wig on is because I feel
like me a la carte isn't enough, I had to
snatch it off. Yes, I had to, Like I had
(22:37):
to prove to myself that my beauty comes from me,
my culture, you know, the women behind me who have
like told me how beautiful I am. And when I
look in the mirror and I see I always say
that I need to not see myself the way the
world sees me, and not even see myself the way
I see me. Sometimes I need to see myself the
way God sees me. Yeah, you know that's that's.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Like the main thing.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
But that's but so when I show up in these spaces,
like I have to be so secure in myself to
know that even though I may be in here in
a tokenized way, when I show up, a little black
girl is going to turn on the TV or flick
through a magazine and see someone who represents her. And
then on top of that, it's my duty as maybe
(23:26):
the only to leave the door open for the size
twenty six that comes in, for the for the girl
with short natural hair to come in, or just anybody
who's part of a marginalized group that understands what it's
like to not have their beauty represent it.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
So that's that's always.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
That's like your Viola Davis moment. Remember that, do you
remember the scene what was your show called took off
that that is like the most that is like the
most classic scene in television for black women. And she
revealed she took she had taken off her makeup, so
(24:03):
it was just her, your beautiful self. And then she
took off that wig and you saw her with the
with no hair.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Two.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I love her, so I need to read her books.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So it's there, it is.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
It is proof that from wherever you come, you can
go wherever you want, and that she was brave enough
to fully tell her story, which you know, people, people,
what that's you because what happens, I think is anybody
who's on stage, whatever the stage is, so all of us.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
This is a stage where.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Whatever stages we're on, people see folks on stage and
think you're perfect, you're rich, You've got something I don't have,
and therefore I can look up to you because you're
on stage. Viola took herself off the stage and said, no,
this is I've had a life, yeah, with all kinds
of challenges that you could never imagine. And look at
(25:04):
what my life is now. This is my whole life.
It's not like this, this is over. It's just my
whole life.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
What I love though about that book, and I think
it relates to the conversation around beauty standards is the
journey home to ourselves and how we go out here
in the world and the world tries to define us,
and it's you know, when you know who you are
that somebody can't take that, this industry can't take it
away from you. I also thought it was interesting when
you were oh no, that was you, Harry, when you
(25:32):
were saying about how it's comes from within the culture
and outside the culture. So I don't know if you guys, ever,
highly recommend Tanahasee Coast's latest book, The Message, and he
talks about going to Africa, and this is a really
interesting thing and I'm still processing it.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I don't quite know how to feel about it. But essentially,
the women.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
In Africa, like black women here, black people here in
America center so much in the globe where we go,
the world follows. We are fourteen percent of people here
in this country.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But we drive.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Culture and conversations world and so we have been our
self love how we view ourselves. We have been penetrated
by white folks and whiteness, and so as we navigate
this space of beauty standards and what we consider to
be beautiful from everything from like you know, hair weed, blonde,
hair weed, last is all of it. When you go
(26:27):
to Africa, there are some women who see as we
drive fashion, they are adopting that culture too, And so
he writes about it, and it's like, it's interesting because
we going back to the motherland to celebrate who we are,
and they have the benefit of not living along their oppressors,
not living alongside their colonizers, not living alongside I would say,
(26:50):
some homicidal mania that helped create this country here, and
yet they have been colonized.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
In some way.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
I was about to say, the mentality is still that
skin whitening things is so big. And so I live
in Harlem and basically what it's called little Synagogue, and
when I listen to some of the folks talk about
what their women are doing back home, so many people
are destroying their skin by whitening it. They're not white
(27:20):
over there, but that comes from over that comes from
the States too, that this why are we even here
because somebody stole us from there. So if you go
back and look at our history, you understand how convoluted
it is, how hard it is to fully embrace our beauty.
I still talk to women today who are dark brown skin,
(27:46):
darker than any of us, who have issues. They still
feel like they are looked at, not seen, that they
don't feel beautiful, and I'm looking at them, going your skin,
it's so gorgeous talking about Yeah, but there are many
many women, professionals, people at the top of their career.
(28:08):
If you take off the mess and hear how they
feel about how they look, we still see many exquisitely
dark skinned people who don't feel exquisite.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I think a part of that, though, is I don't
know what it's going to take to change it. But
I know in the hip hop genre, which of course
drives fashion to you know, like all these industries intersect
and you hear, I don't want to lay it because
it's not I'm not blaming or bashing black men.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Brothers. I love y'all.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Also, don't take this the wrong way, but a lot
of black men rappers will rap about, you know, women
who don't look like us, you know, or women who
are fair skinned. You know, I got a red bone
right right, and so well, even if it is like
(29:01):
if some rap videos feature darker skinned women, it's a
lot of European features, Like you might be dark skin,
but you have race ambiguous hair, or thin nose or
thinner lips, like it's something about you that makes you
more palatable. And I just wonder, like, well, what your
mama look like, with your sisters look like, what your
cousins look like. Do you look at them and not
see their beauty? So I don't know what it's going
(29:22):
to take. It's not male rappers faults, but somebody has
to be a part of making that change. And we
have to declare ourselves beautiful, you know, despite all those
things too.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I think it's all by design as well.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
I think, you know, the powers that be are running
the music industry or running fashion, running the way that
unfortunately like depicting the way that we see ourselves. And
if this is happening in the States with US Black
Americans and our culture is being pushed to not push
(29:57):
but you know.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Swallowed up by swallowed up but.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
By you know, African culture or different African cultures, it's
only right that they start bleaching their skin because we
don't see the beauty in our skin here, or because
they told us that our skin isn't beautiful. So if
they're following everything that we do, it's gonna take I'm
not gonna say that it's gonna take just African American
people believing in themselves and seeing our own beauty to
(30:23):
change the minds over there. But if we are always
on the forefront, then it is our responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So while we know that the media is the one.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Who are the ones who are telling us that we
aren't beautiful and that black men don't value us and
that they want a long hair, thick redbone like how
Ween says, or we have to stand up against that.
But also I see a change in it. You see
a lot more artists who are pushing dark skinned women
with dark with black features, full features in the natural hair,
(30:58):
in their videos and their music. You're hearing more artists
like talk about like how they're proud of their blackness.
So I think, while yes, like that those artists do
exist who like who have their own internalized anti blackness,
we can also highlight the ones who are proud of
black women.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah, that's who celebrate black people, like.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Lucky Lucky Day.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
It's a video a while ago, I want to say,
pre twenty twenty, where like I just remember turning it
on in this beautiful, dark skinned black woman had this
like afro and she was just beautiful and sexy and confident,
and she had this black man who's just as dark
and just as beautiful and just as confident. And the
(31:50):
black love that they like created first. So you know,
it just resonated with me. Yeah, and I feel like
it'll teach people that beauty is not a one note thing,
especially when it comes to black women, Like we're all beautiful,
like in general.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Like I feel like we are chasing the filtered highlight
reel of people's lives and we think, oh, well, this
is what you look like. You know. I when I
post pictures, I will say I go on ig with
nothing on, you know, because I do want people to
see me. But sometimes when I post pictures, that Paris
filter just makes it look.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
A little slaughter.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yes, it's a little shinewaty, But like I certainly
you know, don't look like that in real life. And
I have to constantly when I wake up in the
morning with nothing, with none of this, like I spend
some time with myself to look in the mirror, s
like this makes sure you like itself.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
We like ourselves, saying okay, then let's go and we
love ourselves.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I have to be intentional about it. I didn't grow
up with social media, and so I look at these
young girls who that's all they have every sec it's
awful for them. When you were in the industry, there
was no social media.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Social media is I mean I started at the magazine
in the eighties, has meant so much in that And
I really attribute this to Susan Taylor. Her she traveled
all over the country all the time to be with
the reader and she would come back to our editorial
(33:22):
meetings and tell us who she met and what she
looked like and what she talked about. And so we
got to meet people through her vision and understand that
this is who we serve. And it was the every
black woman who is excellent, who is living her potential
(33:43):
or who wants to. And I think that's our job
now to each of us who can see you know
when when when I walk down the street and let's
see a sister who looks good. I compliment her all
the time, and sometimes they're like, you're talking to me,
but yes, I am.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
As black women, that's literally.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
There's like video circulating on TikTok where like a little
white girl or somebody who's non black gets complimented by
a Black woman, and it's something about like the power
behind our voices in general, Like it just makes you
feel good when another black woman tells me I look good,
Like I know I ain't.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Telling you that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I know she's telling it.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And by the way, I'm glad you said that because
I say it to all people.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
It's not just the black women.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
I say I look for the beauty in people and
call it out because it makes you feel good that
someone is acknowledging the greatness in you. You asked something
earlier that I wanted to double back to this eyelash thing,
especially with our young people. So as a mature woman,
when I see it, I'm like, oh MG, I don't
want to see that. It's too much. But then I
(34:50):
have a daughter's about to turn twenty one. She's not
so much doing the lashes, but what she was doing
is like the dramatic eyeliner, you know, like the cat
with different colors, you know, not now, a few years ago, right,
And I think we need to give them some grace.
They're having fun. Young people experiment, they're having fun. A
(35:14):
lash is nothing. You can take it off. It's not
the end of the world. I think we even though
I don't necessarily like some of the choices.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
That people make.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I just have fun.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Girl.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Now, when you go to a job interview, take that off? Also,
do they have to because it depends upon the job.
I understand that, But.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Does a lash take away their intellectual capacity?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Like, here's where I'm old school. Here's here's where I'm
old school.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
And you know, a big part of my work is
teaching people how to present themselves.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
So I'm old school. I admit it.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
And I think that if whatever you are wearing takes
away from a person's ability to see you, to hear,
your intelligence, for your power to come through. If it
is a distraction, leave it at home. Why bring a
distraction with you? I just don't think it's a smart
(36:14):
thing to do. It is not to say that you
should come as a cookie cutter of anything. I don't
mean that, but like if you have on purple lipstick
and all I can see are your lips and I
can't I can't even hear what you're saying because I'm
mesmerized by your mouth saying with the lashes that are touching. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you know, Or a skirt that is so
(36:37):
short that all I can't help but want to look
up your skirt, you know, Or something that's so low
that all, even if you don't mean to, your eye
goes to cleavage. I think that's a distraction. So I
think we should be strategic and how we present ourselves
so that whatever our goal is, we figure out how
(36:58):
to reach our goal strategically.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, I understand this strategic part.
Speaker 6 (37:04):
Especially, I feel like, while I while I do get that,
I think that people are going to have to choose
what strategy is best for them if they feel like
this thing is so a part of their identity and
they want to show up. Whether because I feel like
people said that black hair was distracting. We can't wear
(37:25):
our corn rows, we can't wear afros because it's distracting.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I used to I used to work.
Speaker 6 (37:29):
For TSA for a long time, and I used to
wear my hair big and curly, and they said it
would distract from the uniform.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
But this is just me.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
And even if it wasn't their hair on my head,
it's their hair that's on my head and.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I can't do that now.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
So I'm with you.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So those type of things is like, it's like, yes,
you can fight, like you said, we can fight with
the company that doesn't want us to wear our natural hair,
or we can go somewhere.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Where it's not.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
It is a difference. Yeah, it is a difference. I
do believe that it is a difference.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Because that's your natural that's.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
How your hair goes. If you are making the choice
to wear these caterpillar.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
Legs on, but that could be hair pillar, that can
be hair styled, that can be but that.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Matters too to me.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Like so I would say, if somebody comes in my
office and they want to a lot of people, I
think now because of the way journalism has gone, when
people say they want to be a journalist, I don't
even know if they know what that means, because I
think they think give you on TV talk and that
makes you a journalist.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
But if somebody comes to me, and they want to
work in a newsroom and they show up with caterpillar
lashes and they have that baby hair jail down to
here and stiletto nails. I am going to take you
less seriously. That has nothing to do with ethnicity. I
am looking for black people to hire and penetrate newsrooms.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
But that is not a serious approach to me. But
are you looking and I'm not saying you specifically, but
because you say me specifically, you are you looking for
black people who only fit a certain mold because this now,
because this is that also is like a generation thing
like their generation.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Once they're like.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Edges and the big lashes and the long nails, does
that it doesn't mean that they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And so if they came.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
In and they were tight, you know, and they're like, yep,
these are the eight papers I read every morning. And
here's some of my favorite bylines. Here's the past three
books I read. And yes, I can tell you rise
of the Global South and what's happened in European markets
grow you higher, But I would probably still say, what
is it that you're trying to do in this industry?
And I can help you I mean, look, we all
in news like you're gonna get made up. It's like,
(39:34):
you know, it doesn't matter what you look like, but
you have the extra tight.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
This This is the discussion that is ongoing, like we
shouldn't agree on this. Yeah, it's good that we are
not agreeing. There isn't one answer. The reason we have
the Crown Act is people pushed, pushed, pushed and pushed
until like, wait a minute, you know then I think
even with that, and this is me, I'm old school.
(39:58):
I admit it sometimes times, and I have natural hair.
Sometimes natural hair is so unkempt that it's like, but
what does that mean? Is it is it? Is it clean?
Has it been has it has it ever been combed?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Does it? Does it look professional? Now?
Speaker 5 (40:24):
That is a huge question. What does professional mean? That's
when we go back to what is the industry that
you're in? What are the boundaries around professionalism? I think
that we can push the envelope, but I have definitely
seen people walk into spaces like.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
What I appreciate about the new generation and I understand
what I appreciated about them is that they are pushing
these boundaries. They are breaking these glass ceilings.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Do you consider yourself the new generation.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
No, I'm a millennial. I'm in my thirties.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I feel like, yeah, we're growing up, growing up. Yeah,
but like you know, yeah really but like, but what
I appreciate. I feel like the millennials we're all about
talking things out and like you know, and which I
(41:19):
love them, which I love about us. But the gen
z they're about that action. And then's something that I
really appreciate about them. So even if what they present
as is impalatable to you, they're gonna tell you that
is not palatable. They're gonna tell you why you think
that it is impalatable, and they're gonna take themselves elsewhere,
and then they're gonna go and talk about you on
(41:41):
social media. Well there's that, which is councel culture, which
we need to do away with anyway, I think, I think,
which I mean, we could take this with a grain
of salt. I love the title of Nick Cannon's podcast
and not to do it's called counsel culture that it
can cancel counsel counsel because I think, because because I
(42:05):
always think of where I am today, at the age
that I am, and where I was ten years ago,
two different people and I think that there's a lot
that you can learn as you grow, and people should
be given grace to grow and learn totally, not everybody.
I mean, like, if you like your rapist murdered, Like,
of course you know that m arm people, But if
(42:28):
you have the opportunity to take a step back and
understand the people around you and understand that the way
that you think might not be the only way of thinking,
Like like I can appreciate understood.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
And I think what's happening culturally in American culture and
global culture. People do not have jobs the way they
used to. Like who has a job the same job
for their whole career?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Hardly no one.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
It's how many people move around in this economy. How
many people are forced to become entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, whatever, or
because there isn't a.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Job for them when that job.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
When that happens, you have more freedom because if you
are on your own, you can look however you want,
You can do whatever you want. You you may become
a chameleon that you know you are a particular way
for this job and that job because it works for you.
But you're you're being forced into freedom. Yes, is a
(43:26):
really interesting space to be in, and I think that
what's positive about that is kind of what you're describing. Well,
I'm going to take action. You're not going to hire me.
You're not going to hire me. I'm going to create
something exactly and I'm going to figure out how to
draw wealth towards me and whatever the opportunities may be,
exactly as I am.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
As that happens, our culture changes.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
The only caution, though, I would offer, is you ain't
the boss yet, you know, so you do kind of
have to conform a little bit without denying your ethnicity
and out without denying your natural self. But yeah, you
can't come in at twenty three trying to work with
your lashes out to here and the baby here, jail
and the outfit and it's the let on nails.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
You know, some people I have to say, and some
people can say, yes, I can, I do it right now.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
But let me think just for one second.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Yeah, when I had my first job out of college,
I didn't want that job. So a lot of people
don't want their first job. You know, you think you're
the smartest. You you want to make more money than
whatever they're paying you. And it was a conservative job.
It was a job, and I remember that I wore
a pair of dangly earrings and the office manager came
(44:39):
over to me and she said, Harry, she I know
she agonized over this, Harriet, those earrings are so nice.
Like she gave me a complimise. I said thank you,
and she said for the club. Now she had thought
about how can I get her to hear me? Yeah,
because it was not appropriate where I was working. Now
it doesn't matter at all, But it's the lettone nails.
(45:00):
I have seen so many women in positions where they're
administrator in the beginning and their nails are so long
they cannot type. They can't type well because the nail
is this long and they can't even touch the keyboard.
But everybody has the type just about. So are you
doing what my mother would call shooting yourself in the
(45:21):
foot if you can't do your job because of a
beauty choice? Is that a smart choice to me?
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's different.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
I mean as a as a model, like I have
long nails right now because I'm not on.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Set, thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I look.
Speaker 6 (45:37):
I just try to keep them, keep them, you know,
in natural tone, just in case I do have to
check it down but when I'm on set and I'm
selling a product, like you said, I can't distract. So
I know, if I'm selling an earring and I'm doing
something like this, my nails are going to distract from
what I'm actually selling.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
So anything, of course that's gonna.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
I think that's.
Speaker 5 (45:57):
People don't always think about it. The reason I mentioned
it is is people who are not conscious. I wasn't conscious,
like I didn't want that job, so I would do
things that could have gotten me fired. They were beauty
things I did and other things, and then I realized, oh,
I can't go fire. My parents would kill me, you know,
so I had to shift. People do things unconsciously when
(46:17):
they don't want to be where they.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Are, And I think that's a really interesting well.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I will say I did unconventional things. I used to
host the show at MSNBC, and I dress very different.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I remember, yes I did, or are you.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
More more color than anyone on the Tire Network?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I was like, no, thank you. I wanted to.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
I wanted I'm sure they didn't like that though.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I wanted us to fright. I wanted us to see us.
And we take pride in our parents. We take pride
in how we look and even if I were the
same thing, it was going to fill out differently on
me than it wasn't somebody else.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
And so what did they say? I was always curious
about that.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Well, I'll say one thing. This was kind of my fault.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
There was breaking news and I was in New York
and I had a wardrobe malfunction, and so I had
ordered a top to wear and it was the only
thing I had. It's like, I gotta be on set
at like eight am. You go through hair and makeup,
and this top that I had on the picture. It
looked cute because they had little cutouts like at the
underarm when I put this thing, and I looked like
(47:20):
a stripper going to I mean it was I'm in
all the way in. It was I don't remember what
the story. I think it was when the building collapsed
in Florida.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
It was bringing news.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
I'm like, this looks completely inappropriate, but I had no
choice then That's all I had. What ended up happening.
They had my lead in. I think it was ali
Vel she We Love You Alive. I think he carried
the show for me for the first thirty minutes, and
then I could.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Come on and do my show, but I can no, No,
they just didn't go with it.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, which I was completely fine with.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And nobody could actually say to me, you know, we
don't like, because then I would have had to say, well,
can you put that in an email to me and
tell me why and what specifically and what should I change?
And can we talk about a wardrobe budget for me
if I'm wearing something you don't.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Like, you know, but but they should, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
But the difference, I would say is I was not
establishing my career. I wasn't starting my career. I had
navigated newsrooms for about twenty four years at that point.
I had earned the rights to come on this set
and look how I wanted to look in service to
my community. I was not living in service to the
white corporate structure of NBC News. I was living in
service in my community. And sometimes that runs contrary to
(48:29):
what corporate.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Corporation right, absolutely right.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
It's an investment, you know, like, yeah, you have to
pay your dues in order to show up the way
that you want to show up. So for the girl
who comes in with the long nails, this may not
be the time for you, but eventually.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Earned that right, Yeah, earn that right.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
And also she may get to the point where she's
the one making the decisions and the next person who
comes in she's like, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Cool with it, just like that's what it's going to take.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Yeah, at the end of the day, and I'm gonna
say times, el Ish, I love that network, and it's
there's still there's nobody who looks like you just on
that network right now. Yeah, And when I think it's
okay for us to accept that when you fully claim
who you are, you got to find the right place
(49:16):
for where you are.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Well, Joy, I mean when Joy and Reedy some of
the whole primetime show when she put all her hair
off and now it's rock, Like I am obsessed, like girl,
this is your look beautiful. But even like her rise
in the industry, apparently black woman in this space. And
here's the part that frustrates me. We got on this
(49:38):
a little bit earlier, but you know we do sometimes
on the show on the street to talking when we
talk about like what people are saying, it becomes acceptable
when white people do it, you know, and that I
refuse to wait until white women deemed something fashionable, and
then I can say we drive it, but then the
white folks in corporate America say, oh, well, if Betty
(49:59):
does it, then it's okay for Tiffany to do it.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And it's like, I knew how important it.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Was for women to see me and build themselves reflected,
and I was not necessarily trying to make people comfortable.
And so when I look this is why I get frustrated,
because when I look at people like the Kardashians, and
it's not that I don't follow the I awn't watch
the reality.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I'm not entertained by mess notice anybody who is.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
But when I look at the billion dollar industry that
they've been able to build on their backs, literally, I
think it's unfair to women out there who have been
work like black women, like you are profiting off black culture.
You are making a living off of our struggle. You
are surgically manufactured to look like us, and bypassing us. Now,
(50:45):
that's not their fault. It's the industry's fault for summarily
ignoring us, dismissing us, discarding us, disrespecting us. And I
just get exhausted with it.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
And it isn't new.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
It is how this country has it's worked since the beginning.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
How do we change it?
Speaker 5 (51:03):
It is global, Yeah, it's global. I mean I think
the more institutions we own that we also support. The
things that we own, we can have control over the
things that others own we cannot have control over. We
can have our moments, but they're not ours. And our
(51:28):
culture has always been co opted, always been co opted.
And so while I'm not defeatest in this thinking, I'll
just say that feels realistic.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
So what do we do?
Speaker 5 (51:39):
Figure out how we can own it and present it
to the world in ways where we will support it.
That is the hast key that we support. They take it.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Right, our multi trillion dollar buying power we buy all
these products or what we create. I mean, we think
about any of these social media platform what would it
be without us? We create the dance moves, we can
the life, we create, the fashion. It just is frustrating.
It's like that we don't get credit for it.
Speaker 6 (52:06):
But what I think like one thing that I feel
like is gonna change that narrative is us understanding that
we are and always have been the blueprint of most industries. Well,
we're the blueprint of humanity in general. The world came
from black women, like we're not going to play with that.
But also it's understanding that once we understand our power,
(52:30):
understand that our influence, we can take it back into
our hands. We can have that ownership and then we
can dictate what is beneficial for the world and beneficial
for us as a people.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Do you remember the model at hu at Howard University's
homecoming and she was just there, you know, and a
talent agent was there and found her. She was very
dark skinned and had on outfit and she like developed
this whole career. This was like five years ago, and
she became a model because somebody saw her at these
see you homecomings.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
It is we are present.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yes, yes, it is a whole.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
At Clark at the Atlanta University Center, it's Clark Atlanda University, Spelman, Mouse,
Morris Brown and fashion Fridays used to be a thing,
like everybody came, you know, like you you It's just
something about our community, you know, like we want to
look good. And I don't remember. Honestly, in my life,
I don't think I've ever gotten beautiful. For a man,
(53:27):
I want them to benefit from it, but honestly, the
reaction I'm looking for is from y'all.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
You know, how about my girls, like girl.
Speaker 6 (53:36):
That's right, yes, great, they don't know, they don't know
what you really put on, right.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I peeved you from had to tell and you from
head to tell, you know, like the jacket, the foods,
the leather.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
I mean I when y'all walked in, we.
Speaker 5 (53:48):
Assessed, and that's what we been in a positive way. Yeah,
because by the way, when it's not positive, you know,
leave that at home, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yes, no no.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
And I guess that's kind of my concern with the
latches and the baby hair jail and all that because
if these.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Well, because you can't let that go.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Well it's okay if it's creativity, but if it is,
I don't look good without it. If it is, I'm chasing,
you know, this Instagram model or this reality show star.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I think that's the process too.
Speaker 6 (54:21):
Like that's especially because a lot of them are younger,
and I'm not saying that they won't get older and
still want to I have I have an aunt who
still puts a bunch of layers of mass scarron and
she looks beautiful for her and as long as she
feels good, that's all that matters.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
That's true.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
But also I used to wear super dark eyeliner at
the top and bottom. Please don't scroll back to the
put it to a phy. But I was learning. I
was just like understanding my face and then now that
like I have a better understanding. I'm on my skincare,
I'm doing everything I know that me without everything else
(54:57):
is beautiful to me.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Are we not supposed to wear dark eye line?
Speaker 5 (55:00):
Our problem?
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Because I have dark island.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
We still can't. It was the way I was doing it.
I want to make sure girls, I think.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
The point of that, which is going back to your point.
We can have fun, we can experiment. It's figuring out
how playful we can be with how we present ourselves.
And also strategic. I do think it's important to have strategy,
not necessarily in every moment, but as you're building your life,
(55:32):
what what do you want it to look like? And
how do you get there? If you think about that,
then that's going to drive your steps. And I do
think that's important and it could be anything.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Yeah, but I think they're dressed like the job you want.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
To show, just like the job you want, not like
a job you have.
Speaker 6 (55:48):
And then as as a model, a little tip to
like models out there, if you want certain clients, your
portfolio has to reflect that. So like so I know,
like I get DM spum girls who are like, oh,
I want to be a model, you know, but I
go to their page and it doesn't reflect what it
takes to be in this industry. And I'm not saying
it from a Eurocentric standpoint.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
It's just from a strategy and professional And this is
true for job by the way, you.
Speaker 6 (56:17):
Know all of these things because you got to be
a blank canvas.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
This is true for whatever you want to be and
the land of social media. Know that everything you put
out there, everything lasts forever. Even if you take it down,
it's not gone. And what is What are you putting
out there? And are you conscious of what you're putting
out there?
Speaker 4 (56:35):
It used to be.
Speaker 5 (56:36):
Don't leave a voicemail when you're angry, don't send an
email when you're angry. Don't make a so social media
post if you're not conscious, you know, don't be drunk
or high on social media.
Speaker 4 (56:49):
Don't do it.
Speaker 5 (56:50):
Don't language watch your language, watch how you look. If
you don't want your moment to see it, you probably
shouldn't be posting it.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Yeah, I know, I know you don't like that one.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
I feel you because I love my mom my, Mommy.
I love my mom.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
And she and she's great and she she I shoot
lingerie and she's like, girl, you look good, like like
my mom is not tripping my dad. He might not
like some of the stuff, but I just feel like
I'm an individual. I'm a grown ass woman. I get
to choose how I want to show up. The way
that I show up may not look like the way
(57:26):
that you think is acceptable, or you think is acceptable,
or society or whoever else. I agree with that that
someone is going to resonate in the way that I
feel about myself, in the way that I show up
for them, even if it's not, because sometimes it's not
for me. Sometimes it's like like like even coming here today,
coming here, like what we wear and how we wear
our hair is like a political sense at the end
(57:49):
of the day. So even coming here today, I'm like,
normally I put my wig on. I think, honestly, this
is probably the first like appearance that I've done without.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
Straight up I bet that you served they did serving.
Speaker 6 (58:04):
Everything you last time, I, you know, even put this
outfit on. I had a straight, kinky straight wig. Yeah,
I still looked like my hair, you know, it's a
little unclomktable.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (58:15):
When I got ready today, I was like, no, Yeah,
we're talking about blackness and not that this is the
only time that it's appropriate for me to wear my
hair in this way, but we're talking about blackness and
standing in that power and how do I feel most powerful?
Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, it's like this. I so like this lady showed up.
Speaker 6 (58:33):
It took a lot more work to show up like
this than it would have for me to just throw
my weg on and to come. But it's not always
about me. Sometimes it's about the person who needs to
see this so that they can be inspired to do
what I did, yeah, you know, or to just show
up as themselves whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
I love that message. And the caveat is you are
a grown ass woman. I think a lot of what
I'm saying is for like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old
And I think that's what you were saying because at
that point your mind isn't really done functioning or developing rather,
and so when you put something out on social media
at that age, I think it should be off limits.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
But sadly it's not.
Speaker 5 (59:08):
You know, let me just say, I'm not just talking
about the fifteen year olds. Okay you are, Yeah, why
am I saying that? Like, just as an example, there
were teachers on a cruise sharing a toast with each
other who lost their jobs as teachers because they were
drinking on social media. Now I think that's way too far.
(59:29):
It's way too far, but it happened more than once.
So I'm just saying, what does your industry say is Okay,
you decide whether you care and then you act accordingly
whatever that means.
Speaker 6 (59:42):
Or you can decide to flip it upside down and
change it from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (59:47):
But like you said, it takes investment, It takes you know,
speaking up about things. If you decide that your strategy
for making changes in the world and whatever industry or
whatever company strategy for changing it is to show.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Up loud and proud as whoever you.
Speaker 6 (01:00:04):
Are, then activist your life. Yeah, you can also go
another route and conform for a while if you want,
and then show up as who you want the industry
to be later on or whatever strategy you want. Just
make sure that what you're doing you're doing it for yourself,
You're doing it for the benefit of or I would
(01:00:24):
hope that you do it black people. I would hope
that you do it for the benefit of our community.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Oh, live and service the community. That is always and things.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Don't try don't be so focused on building the brand,
be focused on building community.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
So I think that is a good place to close
out the conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
This was so great, and I just want to say
I listen for people who might be offended at what
I was saying about lashes and everything. I think we
are such a beautiful people, so I'm not trying to
discourage you all from expressing your beauty as you like.
When I was little, I put activator on my hair
and one of the dairy curls, so that might be
the equivalent to the thing. And just let y'all know
this little clip has been sticking me. I just want
(01:01:00):
people to see it's not a son in track, but
it's literally clips that I have in my right right Okay,
that is added to my hair. I'm how to figure
out how to get it back in, but it literally
snaps in. Okay, thank you, these ladies gonna help me.
But This is not what my natural hair looks like.
I am wear makeup and lash of it because I'm hair, yes,
(01:01:22):
but when I'm going to Whole Foods, I don't look
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
You know I'm very natural.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
So anyway, I want you all to be comfortable when
you wake up in the morning and you look at
yourself with no makeup on, fresh out the shower, and
you look at yourself. I want you all to love yourselves.
And if you are raising a young girl, we want
to make sure that they love themselves poofy hair, kinky hair,
straight hair, however it looks. Because we are such a
beautiful people, and other people profit off of our beauty
(01:01:47):
and we help make this country a superpower. So it's
time for us to bring our beauty home to ourselves,
our journey home to ourselves, and celebrate who we are.
So thank you so much for tuning in to another
episode of Across Generations, and we'll be back now next
week with an all new episode. Keep tuning in, drop
me a comment let me know what you think about
this episode. I can't wait to hear from you guys.
Thanks and we'll see you next week. Across Generations is
(01:02:07):
brought to You by Willpacker and will Packer Media in
partnership with iHeart podcast I'm Your host and executive producer
Tiffany d. Cross from Idea to Launch Productions executive producer
Carla willmeris produced by Mandy B and Angel Forte, editing,
sound design and mix by Gaza Forte for original music
by Epidemic Sound Video editing by Kathin Alexander and Court
(01:02:31):
Meeting
Host
Tiffany Cross
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.