Behind the Scenes: My News12 Feature on BAD Hair Uprooted

When Katelynn Ulrich from News12 reached out to say she wanted to do a story about my exhibition, I was beyond excited. Just one day after I had sent her the link about BAD Hair Uprooted, the Untold History of Black Follicles, she enthusiastically pitched a few ideas to feature it. One of them was filming me behind the scene as I was interviewing people.

The prep

I cautioned Katelynn that interviewing non-Black people about Black hair wasn’t easy. The questions themselves are tough, and on top of that, people are often camera-shy or worried about going viral for the wrong reasons. In today’s world, the fear of saying something offensive and losing your job is real. And then there’s the fact that we’d be approaching people during lunch—probably not the most ideal time to ask deep, thought-provoking questions. Most people just want to enjoy their break in peace before heading back to work.

Yet, the topic of Black Hair and equal hair rights is so important to me that I've done quite a few of these interviews. Most of them on my own and I was out of my comfort zone but I learned a lot. One of the things is, you’ll always get more "no's" than "yes's," and it’s not personal—at least, I hope not. 

There were days that I started to wonder if the response would be different if I wasn't Black. The Jewish videographer I was filming with that day, told me that I did pretty good. So, I just learned to expect no and to be happy when you get a yes.  

Interview with News 12

The interview with Katelynn went smoothly. She is easy to talk with, was interested in hearing how it all started so we talked about half an hour in Cafe Garden Carver, a cute cafe in Williamsburg before we hit the streets.

As I expected, we got a lot of nos but we did get one yes. That is the beautiful lady you see I am talking with later in the segment. She is not a New Yorker but is from Hawai and happened to have also lived in the Netherlands.  So we talked about more than just hair and then it was a wrap. 

Let us know what you think of this segment and stay tuned as more of my interviews will be posted in the coming weeks. Click to watch and read more about BAD Hair Uprooted. 

 
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