The Womanist Salon Podcast

TWSP Live! - Hot Off The Press featuring Dr. Brittany Cooper

Join the Hair Docs for our first live podcast show and final appointment of the year! Sunday's podcast is HOT OFF THE PRESS as we host a salon favorite and special guest in The Womanist Salon. That's right! Dr. Brittany Cooper aka Professor Crunk is in the salon. Come on in so we can talk hair and turn heads at the same time!"Sunday by Ballpoint"

TWSP Ep5 - Scratching Your Head Out: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

On this episode of The Womanist Salon Podcast, the Hair Docs are ready to scratch your head out with love. That's right! Today, it's all about love. Who doesn't love a good conversation about love? From Alice Walker to Toni Morrison, to Hair Doc Renita Weems herself, the Hair Docs are taking a page from some of our favorite texts and bringing them to life in the salon. What stories of love can you share? Are you a ride or die chick? Have you ever had your heart broken? We're going there. So, come on in, take a seat. Whatever doesn't come out in the wash will surely come out in the rinse."Sunday by Ballpoint"

TWSP Ep4 - New Growth: There’s No Such Thing As A Permanent Relaxer

It's time for your appointment and the Hair Docs are ready! On this episode of The Womanist Salon Podcast, we are celebrating all of the wins down at the salon. There's a new administration on the horizon as President Elect Biden and Madam Vice President Elect Kamala Devi Harris have won the 2020 US Election. That's right, the salon is buzzing with commentary as we are talking about politics from the resiliency of Black Women Voters to the disappointment of the 18% of Black Men who voted in the opposite direction. That's just the tip of the dialogue with the Hair Docs as we continue to part ways with the patriarchy. So come on in, take a seat, and get ready for your weekly touch up."Sunday by Ballpoint"

TWSP Ep3 - Snatching Edges: Lay It Down, Don’t Pull It Out!

On this episode of The Womanist Salon Podcast, The Hair Docs are talking all about Snatching Edges! Now you know good and well that you want to protect your edges at all cost. You need your edges. From conversations that bring Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, Malcom X, Meg the Stallion and Breonna Taylor together, the Hair Docs are ready to lay your edges with care. What are the various ways that we can protect the edges, baby hairs, and peach fuzz, of Black Women? You're in the right place. So come on in, take a seat, and let the Hair Docs freshen you up."Sunday by Ballpoint"

TWSP Ep2 - Sitting Between The Knees: Work What Your Mama Gave You!

Sitting between our mother’s knees getting our hair done was a time when lots of information, knowledge, and coded talk was passed along to black girl children about beauty, womanhood, self-esteem, self-love, and self-protection. Lots of policing our appearance, speech, and sexuality with pressure to be good girls, respectable ladies – not the kind who makes the rest of us “look bad.” Getting and keeping our hair “fixed” or “done”  was our first and most important strategy as girls on how to avoid the racist, classist, and sexist stereotypes other people might put us into. Before all that wisdom and knowledge could be passed along, there was the detangling process. A black girl’s hair has to be detangled before it can put back right. Many Black women have experienced the horrific childhood moments of sitting in between our mother’s legs as she combed through our hair which involved lots of tugging, tears, and even a few love touches to the head. Detangling. Deconstructing. Decolonizing. Demythologizing. Demystifying. Breaking stuff down. Hair texture mattered, but what we now know is that product and the proper tools matter too. You learn that if you have the right  -- detangling moisturizer, the proper brush and comb-- and patience, detangling becomes a breeze! In this episode, the hair docs specialize in the ministry of detangling the politics of Black hair for Black women facing the double bind of caring for their hair and resisting hair discrimination. (Intro/Outro Music provided by Epidemic Sound: Sunday by Ballpoint)

TWSP Ep1 - Let’s Take Your Hair Down: Who’s Been Doing Your Hair?

You may recall Sesame Street and the song, “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others by the time I finish my song?” There’s no doubt that every identifiable Black woman experiences the saliency of this song when it comes to living one’s life by comparison and embodying that difference. You have to get through our hair before you can engage our minds and understand our point of view. Our hair symbolizes and signifies all that is summarily unique and ubiquitous about being Black women in a world, as Patricia Bell Scott once said, “all the women are white and all the Blacks are men, but the rest of us are brave.” There’s a world of difference between white women’s aspirations for equality and Black men’s fight for liberation. Did you notice that white women “let down their hair” and we “take down our hair” and Black men have to merely get an edge up and we have to “tend to our edges” and “comb out our kitchen.” There’s something very precise about that wording. Black women’s hair poignantly represents “what we go through,” “where we go to,” “those we allow to touch us” conjuring up for us a crown of thorns or a crown of glory. In this episode, the hair docs tell their hairstory and talk about Black women becoming victim to “Verzuz” and “Cancel” cultures because of how they are viewed aesthetically."Sunday by Ballpoint"