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#ActingWhileBlack: Black Hollywood Puts Beauty Pros On Blast For Unequal Treatment

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 06: Yvette Nicole Brown attends the 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 06, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

#ActingWhileBlack: Black Hollywood Puts Beauty Pros On Blast For Unequal Treatment

Yvette Nicole Brown, Gabrielle Union and more speak up.

Published March 25, 2019

Olivia Anakwe, a Black runway model, started a movement on social media when she shared an awful experience she had on set at a show where stylists didn’t know how to tend to her natural hair and/or didn’t even care to know, a saga well known by many Black women in the entertainment industry. She said she hoped her message would encourage stylists “to expand their range of skills.”

As Olivia put it, “Black hairstylists are required to know how to do everyone’s hair, why does the same not apply to others?”

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This message is to spread awareness & hopefully reach anyone in the hair field to expand their range of skills. Black models are still asking for just one hairstylist on every team no matter where your team is from to care for afro hair. I was asked to get out of an empty chair followed by having hairstylists blatantly turning their backs to me when I would walk up to them, to get my hair done. If I am asked to wear my natural hair to a show, the team should prepare the style just as they practice the look and demo for non-afro hair. I arrived backstage where they planned to do cornrows, but not one person on the team knew how to do them without admitting so. After one lady attempted and pulled my edges relentlessly, I stood up to find a model who could possibly do it. After asking two models and then the lead/only nail stylist, she was then taken away from her job to do my hair. This is not okay. This will never be okay. This needs to change. No matter how small your team is, make sure you have one person that is competent at doing afro texture hair care OR just hire a black hairstylist! Black hairstylists are required to know how to do everyone’s hair, why does the same not apply to others? It does not matter if you don’t specialize in afro hair, as a continuous learner in your field you should be open to what you have yet to accomplish; take a class. I was ignored, I was forgotten, and I felt that. Unfortunately I’m not alone, black models with afro texture hair continuously face these similar unfair and disheartening circumstances. It’s 2019, it’s time to do better. || #NaturalHair #ModelsofColor #BlackHairCare #HairCare #Message #Hair #Hairstyling #Backstage #BTS #AfroTexturedHair #Afro #POC #Braids #Message #Spreadtheword #Speak #Awareness #Growth #WorkingTogether #BlackGirlMagic #Melanin

A post shared by Olivia Anakwe (@olivia_anakwe) on

Well, Community actress Yvette Nicole Brown caught wind of Olivia’s post and helped spread awareness of the issue by tweeting about her own struggles with glam teams who have little to no knowledge of Black haircare or makeup. The hashtag #ActingWhileBlack quickly went viral, and more of Black Hollywood got involved to shed light on the blatant disregard for Black hair, complexion and more.

See Black Hollywood blast beauty pros for the unequal treatment they receive below:

  1. Yvette Nicole Brown
  2. Gabby Sidibe
  3. Yahya Abdul-Mateen
  4. Malcolm Barrett
  5. Gabrielle Union
  6. Natasha Rothwell

Written by BET Staff

(Photo by Daniele Venturelli/WireImage)

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