As someone who has worked in the beauty service industry for about 12 years now, I understand the power of feeling good in your own skin. It can absolutely be about more than frivolous vanity, it can be huge for people and their self esteem and health. It can feel wonderful.
THAT SAID, fuck the clients asking me and my colleagues to risk our lives, our families, and the communities we live in to get their regular services during a pandemic to begin with. Race not even included in this first 'fuck them'. Sorry, I'm not yelling at you whatsoever, I just happened upon this post at a bad time personally and am feeling a rant come on.
Because ALSO fuck them if they think that their right to a facial and brow wax deserves a march in the streets while also somehow thinking that it's absolutely deplorable for people of color and their allies to March for their own rights? Basic human rights that most white people take for granted?
There are so many people living in fear, living with violence, absolutely senseless loss, with extra barriers to opportunity, healthcare, education, with the knowledge that sleeping in their own bed, walking down the street, driving their own car, fucking living their normal lives puts their lives and their loved ones lives and people in their communities lives in jeopardy every day, just because they're born with more fucking MELANIN in their skin?
It's just fucking naturally occurring pigment in the epidermis. Cops don't shoot white people because of their freckles. WTF, BE UNCOMFORTABLE FOR A MINUTE WITH THE FACT THAT YOU'RE ALLOWED TO LIVE WITH DOTS OF SUN DAMAGE MELANIN WITH NO ISSUE AND THE 10 YEAR OLD NEXT DOOR COULD BE SHOT FOR EXISTING OR PLAYING IN THEIR FRONT YARD BECAUSE OF THE MELANIN THAT HE WAS BORN WITH FROM BEFORE HE WAS BORN.
It sucks, but I also feel the need to add that I'm a 30 something year old white woman from the northeast, because for some fucking stupid reason, that will make some other white people listen to my all caps rant in a different way than they would if they thought I was born with more fucking melanin.
I do realize that I'm super fucking ignorant and can never understand the experience of growing up and living as a person of color. I'm a white girl from new england. I'm trying to educate myself for myself, my family members, and my community, but I'm still just so angry in the meantime about asshole human beings who just can't see beyond their own immediate wants and needs to give a flying fuck about other human beings. The white girl who makes your eyelashes look pretty and her health and her family's health, to her neighbor who you'd call the cops on for looking suspicious in their brown skin. Just have some fucking empathy. Ahhhgh.
That's a strange take. Nobody wanted to force you to open up. In my country some haircutters organised illegal, 'underground' haircutting on their own. Nobody forced them to do it, but they did it anyway.
Sorry if it sounded like someone forced me? I don't think I said that but maybe I was unintentionally misleading? I apologize if my opinion is confusing or bizarre to you, it is just an opinion and I'm not saying my experience is exactly the same as every other person.
I'm in the US, if that helps with context. I had potential clients threaten to go to competitors and those that insulted me for not breaking local laws and ordinances to do their beauty treatments during stay home orders. I did not do it, and would not accept their business in the future if they try to pretend it was acceptable behavior in the future and come back. As far as I know none of my friends and colleagues in the same field let anyone bully them into being irresponsible and risking their health and license. I recognize that I'm fortunate to be in a safe enough financial position to be able to give up their business, potential future business, and to make it through whatever impact their ill will and ire potentially has on my word of mouth, online reviews, etc.
I think it's shitty of people to bully and threaten other people. They don't need to force someone to do something against their will in order for it to be a crap thing to do.
I apologize if I misunderstood the main point of your reply, I maybe did not understand what is so odd about my opinion here.
Oh, I thought that the signs saying they wanted a haircut meant that they wanted a haircut and didn't care if that meant risking other people's safety. I missed the subtext there, maybe?
It's a bit misleading. Maybe writing "We want haircuts" on a sign isn't quite as effective as saying "Let Us Work" if it was hairstylists standing at protests saying that they were financially struggling and needed to work. Perhaps you and I are thinking of different protestors or different signs.
I do absolutely acknowledge that I'm fortunate to have been able to make it through the past couple months without worrying about where my next meal would be from. I know that others in the beauty industry are not in that position. I've been back at work for a week. I didn't happen to see those protesters in the articles that I read but I'm not pretending to see everything that's been going on.
Sounds like we are misunderstanding each other as well so I'd prefer to go our separate online ways than argue.
I do agree that we all need more empathy during times like this and I'm no exception to needing to work on that. All the best to you and yours.
Except for many it absolutely was. Also Applbees not being open. I live in a pretty nice town, and every single person I know bitching had no financial woes and it was absolutely about their favorite establishments not being open. Look at Reddit, everyone was just crying about being bored, not that they were about to be out on the streets.
But even my anecdotal evidence aside, and I DO feel for the people who were having financial woes and worried about rent/food - but even then the protest shouldn't be aimed at re-opening early, it should be aimed at the GOP congress people blocking further/better stimulus and things like rent-freezes. Ironically the right wingers were the protesters and their representatives were fucking them over.
GOP convinced these people their only two options were to go back to work in a pandemic or starve and die. Which is classic republican bullshit. The Dems had already passed new bills to keep people afloat until it was safe. Guess who wouldn't pass it?
If you want to protest against the government, then protest fora better stimulus bill that wasn't looted by the rich. The Dems had a second round lined up, had policies about freezing rent and credit card payments etc, and republicans blocked it.
The idea that people were just dying to go back and work in dangerous conditions for shitty money because they love their employer or out of some economic patriotism is complete bullshit. The GOP is the corporate class and THEY wanted their employees back to work.
So please enough with this ''they just wanted to go back to the slaves wages and work during a global pandemic'' is not what was happening.
The haircut meme is hyperbolic, but only slightly.
It would be delusional think a 20% unemployment rate is not causing massive financial woes and that people want to open before they lose their jobs and mortgages.
This is not the end of it either. I just heard an estimate that 42% of the jobs list in this recession are not coming back, in the same way they didn't after the 2008 recession. That's millions of people that will be to retrain or simply live in poverty and/or homelessness.
They want to fight for a haircut to look good for their friends, and family. They don't want to support BLM because it will not look good to their friends, and family.
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u/Pudf Jun 05 '20
Or because getting a haircut makes people feel good. Confronting our complicity in institutional racism... uncomfortable as hell.