Braiders - thee Real Urban Designers

This post was written in December 2, 2020, now published from the drafts on the date above

A city is only as good as its braiders.

If you can’t connect with a braider, or don’t know one. Then Idk what to tell you. Perhaps, to work on your community building?

I joke, but I say that lovingly.

Braiders are counselors, braiders are visionaries. Have you ever seen the explore page of your IG? Have you seen an editorial? Have you ever just looked at your friends or the person coming up from the subway? Their hair looks good!

Rare are the people who can make so many people feel and look good, who construct the temple of the body, the crown, to crop the face, who spend intimate hours with your bald spots, with your dandruff, with your split ends, your breakage, and makes them all go away in a waterfall of plump, even rivers cascading over your scalp and over your neck.

Who else do you trust to put their hands in your hair?

Braiders are mathematicians, sacred geometrists, therapists, councilors, creative advisors, hypefolks, DJs, waitresses, confidants friends, life parters. They are the plug, who gets to sit in their chair and become a relic of their talent.

It’s never just braiding hair. They are magicians, alchemists, braiders are the keepers of the culture, of what’s current, connecting the past to the future, mediums of modernity.

Have you seen Missy Elliot’s newest album? What other style can do that? Which other people can do that?

Braiders are the keepers of culture, customization, and of our confidence. They give us something to be proud of, a way to express ourselves, to be seen and heard, authentically. For the amount of work, effort, skill, finesse, artistry, vision, precision they have - I don’t argue the price, especially when the craft is priceless.

What Cities Can Learn About Asset Management From Hair

This post was written December 2, 2020.

In this society, everything is replaceable.

If it’s old we buy a new one, if it’s damaged, we replace it. Sadly, when it comes to our infrastructure, like roads, bridges, and plumbing, our cities are no different.

But when it comes to Black people and our hair, now that’s a whole different story.

If my family had a mantra, it would be, “preventive maintenance”, in the yoga and healing world, they say, “keep up to be kept up”, or in the church, “prayed up”, “be ready so you don’t get ready.” In short, it means sustainability.

In short, non-expert terms, asset management is basically a routine, a system in place to ensure that everything is primed and ready. In beauty, this would be washing your brushes before and after you do your makeup or brushing your teeth everyday. It’s ensuring you’re doing a little along the way, and not all at one time, which is a remnant of procrastination and lack of preparedness.

Poor asset management is why many of the US’ bridges are in a state of repair or level of service. This means many of our bridges are at the point where agencies are trying to brush their teeth to get rid of a cavity. The only option is total replacement.

Proper asset management ensures the longevity of our buildings, our pipes that give us clean water, to ensure we have sanitary streets and infrastructure that is structurally sound, sustain environmental factors, and meet user experience. However capitalism teaches us everything is expendable, making us lose the ability and patience to care for things and treat them with value, something to pass down to the next generation.

We work to preserve the integrity of our hair, our skin, and our relationships - why not our built environment? I feel like our cities, which are full of planners who’s job it is to plan and prepare, can learn a lot about how to keep its infrastructure and programs running smoothly if they follow the steps of hair care.

Disclaimer, I am not a licensed hair stylist, hairdresser. I’m an urban / transportation planner who also braids [my hair only]

Start with a Fresh Foundation. When you do hair, it’s clean, the scalp has been assessed, done, primed, ready for styling. It’s important to start with fresh clean bases and make sure the foundation is solid. No need to keep treating a symptom when the problem is the root. Same with infrastructure. This step is to ensure you do your due diligence, build relationships with your community, assess the level of service and state of repair the infrastructure is, what projects have happened here before, who was involved? Do your research. Know the history. Do your homework.

Take Inventory. When you’re about to get your hair done, a good stylist lets you know what’s going on on your scalp, especially things you may not have been aware of or cannot see. Did you know you had a bald spot there, is this breakage, did you know you needed a trim? Now, your project is more than likely not to have some dandruff, but there are some places within the city that shows where a city and its community are experiencing some challenges. Make sure you address those. There’s no need to do a fresh style with old problems. Take inventory of who has done what, assessing the scalp or heart of the issue. Fix first, with a plan for correcting, then move on.

Styling. Once you have a fresh base and have taken inventory, it’s time to start your project! This is part of the execution of project management (more on this soon). The asset has been placed! After the construction crew leaves the site and the client gets out of the chair, now, is time for the asset to be managed.

Keep up to be kept up. The same reason why our sofas were covered in plastic is the same reason why we put shower caps on while bathing and satin pillow cases and or tie our braids down at night. After doing all of that work to do our hair, there is no reason why it should be left to the elements to do erode. Do you know that potholes are formed the same way cavaties are? Instead of plaque cracking at your molars, rain and salt freezes into asphalt, causing it to expand and melt, creating a crater that devastates cars, bikes, and causes serious need for repair in cars, and injuries for unweary cyclists and pedestrians.

Oil / Moisturize Your Scalp. It’s much easier to drink one gallon of water throughout the day rather than at the last hour. In fact, it’s harsher on your system to do the latter. Another way I like to think of it - the more time you give yourself to get from point A to point B, the safer your journey will be, since you won’t have to worry about speeding to get there on time. Maintain your asset by doing work gradually over time, rather than rushing at the last minute.

Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. There’s nothing worse than wanting to do your hair and not having any of your tools with you. Before pandemic planning, we still had one or two things of jam and a braiding bag full of hair ready to go. Make sure you have what you need ahead of time so you don’t have to scramble when the moment comes. For cities and other workers, this looks like creating space within your calendars and teams to ideate and rest, it’s taking inventory of problems and fixing them right away. It’s keeping up and maintaining relationships with constituents, it’s allocating budget and resources for maintenance for the long and short term.

Honor the Life Cycle. This goes back to starting with fresh foundations. In infrastructure, a sidewalk has a life cycle of about 30 years. Does it make sense to take out the sidewalk then lay new concrete, or does it make sense to pour new concrete on top of the old? Exactly. In hair honoring the life cycle in asset management is trimming your hair, getting a new style, making sure that your hair is fresh, healthy, and rested, to prepare for the next style ahead. In infrastructure projects, some assets will have to be replaced, some projects and methods no longer serve the intended goal. Sometimes it needs to be let go or updated.

Asset management ensures that we preserve the longevity of our lives and the things we use to navigate it - like our cities, our mobility devices (like our cars and bikes), and especially our hair. Though some things need to be let go, undone, and started all over again, that’s okay. It’s the circle of life. Let’s make sure we make the best of it (and our braids).

Remembering Cecily Tyson

I’m here under sad pretenses. My vision of this post was different. I would be chatting. with Ms. Tyson in a Cornrow Convo, not commemorating her posthumously.

Cicely Tyson, who rejected straightening in the ’60s and became the first woman to wear her natural hair on TV, is shown here in the early ’70s with cornrows

As I began doing this work researching the history and impact of cornrows, Cicely Tyson was one person I could not miss. And, if you wear cornrows, or styled some for a shoot, you shouldn’t miss this either.

Of all the things Cicely Tyson is known for - actress, model, elder, author - did you know she’s also responsible for inspiring the first natural hair movement?!

Before you think of D’Angelo, Alicia Keys, or Beyoncé wearing their iconic cornrows, we should celebrate and thank Cicely Tyson for ushering the popularity of cornrows as a style, on and off camera.

In the 1960s, she was the first black woman to wear her natural hair and cornrows on TV - in her role in ‘East Side/West Side,’ and in the 1972 Depression-era movie Sounder.

In Sounder, she wore cornrows and a headscarf like many Southern women wore their hair. But did you know that wasn’t the plan? The directors wanted her character to wear her hair straight. Ms. Tyson, staying true to her craft and the character said otherwise: “I knew that during that period women in the South cornrowed their hair, so I said Rebecca [her character] would wear her hair in that manner…" 

Though this makes all the sense in present day, this was a huge risk. A career-ending risk.

During an era where braids and cornrows were seen as a “sign of unsophistication, a downgrade of [a Black woman’s] image,” says Lori Tharps, Cicely Tyson wore them with pride. From the promotion tour of the Oscar-nominated film, to the cover of Jet Magazine, Ms. Tyson sported her signature crown; cornrows running victory laps over her scalp, with a beacon on top, symbolic of what she would become to many of us and continue to be. 

I still have so many questions I want to ask her: Who taught you how to cornrow your hair? Who in your life wore them? Who braided your hair in Sounder? What about your cover for Ebony?

Cecily Tyson lived a life that was similar to many people’s hair goals - long and full. Building a legacy, photograph after photograph, braid by braid, she laid a foundation to inspire so many of us.

Thank you, Ms. Tyson, for inspiring us, time and time again, to see our hair and ourselves, just as we are - elegant and intricate works of art. 

Wishing you elevation and a peaceful transition, Ms. Tyson.

Getting Started - Intro Post

Getting started is always the hardest.

One thing I’m loving about this research is the aha moments I am having in discovery, especially sharing those discoveries.

For anyone, anywhere, who has ever built anything, put themselves out there, or have a client tell you, “idk do what you want” — it is a mixture of freedom and despair. You begin to sympathize with the painter and the blank canvas, the writer and the flashing cursor, the detangled dry hair. Getting started shows us that anything is possible is as free falling into creativity is freeing and scary.

Two blank pages Source: Malhar Mali

When I initially started this project, I started with a yearning to go home - home to Atlanta- after moving to Boston. But really, it started a year before that, when I cut off all my hair. In love with seeing my full face and scalp for the first time, I immediately wanted cornrows for the same effect. But when your hair is literally * snaps * that long, the only thing you can do is wait.

Researching this project began with three things: Lori Tharpe + Ayanna’s Byrd’s Hair Story, Shani Crowe’s Braids exhibit (and her work with Solange) , and Emma Dabiri’s Don’t Touch My Hair.

Those books and art with my planning background, I started weaving Braids: The Essence of Urban Design, a session about braids as the social and urban fabric of the city. Even after the session, where I compared cornrows and braids to the built environment and way for building and sustaining a city anew, I knew this was work I wanted to keep in my life, it was work I wanted to intertwine in my life and everything that I do.

It’s woven within me.

But to get a conference proposal to a website with content, pictures, blogs, collaborations? Oh my goodness. I cannot tell you how many times this has cycled in my head, how convoluted the explanations and pitches have been. But how to get people to see it?

As I reached out to spiritualist, big artists, braiders, and therapists, I was falling on unanswered emails and a lot of doubt. Where is that enthusiasm from Hindsight, why won’t they email me back?

Here comes the aha.

Well, just how it’s hard to see that a three small strands creates a cornrow, it must be difficult for people who are not close to see what this project is. I was trying to start braiding a cornrow from hair in the middle of my head, not at the edges of it! I realize that the starter strands aren’t those people who will come across my journey eventually, but those people who are close to me, who are at the edges, the delicate, most important part of the style that makes the look - my friends who know how I think, who are dope ass braiders, thinkers, and artists who support me, this work, and who literally get it.

Getting started is always the hardest part - but when you start with what’s close to you, make a plan (post soon to come), and get your ducks (um hair) in a row - you’re good to go. After that, the most important part is to be steady, and keep going.

Now, a year later, here we are, untangling those ideas and building that dream out, one cornrow and conversation, at a time. The people who get it, get it, and those who don’t soon will.

So this first post goes out to my edges, my close friends who see the vision, who inspired and sustain this work, who anchor me and this project. This goes out to you. Thank you for reviewing my work, for your insights, pictures, and encouragement. Thank you for helping me get started.

If you want to help get us started, please, follow on IG and Twitter at @cornrowconvos and submit pictures of your cornrow styles here, and stay tuned!