Author: MWAMBA MPUNDU

Thanks for a great semester!
Best wishes and happy holidays to everyone!

I volunteer for the Social Media and Communications department for a church conference. They are always trying to find different creative ways to reach out to the youth and young adults in order to keep them engaged in church activities. Currently they are in the works of planning their very first virtual youth conference and I will be assisting in the planning, and recording for the program. I think it would be interesting to film the day and get people to explain the intentions behind the program (also being that young adults are leaving the church in large numbers.)

INTRO: The Crown Act. It is also known as The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act and it has been making its way through many states in efforts to create a safe space for people with natural hair and styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots. Within the black community, hair comes in many different shapes, sizes, curl patterns, volumes, and more. Numerous hours and days are spent trying to maintain and keep one’s natural hair. Reporter Mwamba Mpundu had a discussion with her sister about growing up with natural hair and the obstacles/stereotypes that came with it.

TRACK: I’m here with Mwenya in our family apartment watching her install her Senegalese twists in her hair. She is a young Zambian woman who currently lives in Maryland working as an administrative assistant for the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists. Mwenya is currently in New York with her family, due to the pandemic, causing jobs to shift to remote work. This has forced her to have time to explore different ways to style, treat, and fall in love with her hair again.

ACT: So, I’ve been trying, well of course, twists, braids. I tried faux locks for the first time…those were fun, some regular twist outs, braid outs. My favorite was the faux locks. They took a lot of work to put in and a lot of work to take down, but they were my favorite look overall.

TRACK: Mwenya has been rocking her natural hair for 7 years now.

ACT: So, I decided to go natural because I really wanted to see what my natural hair looked like. I was tired of the perm, straight hair and I always liked the way curls looked on other people so I wanted to see what mine looked like. When I was cutting it, I was a little nervous, because I have a really big head. So I transitioned for like a year, but even when I cut it, it was pretty short.

TRACK: As she likes to say “YouTube University” is the reason she is able to style her own hair.

ACT: My issue as a young high school student, a young broke high school student, was trying to figure out where I would be finding $150+ dollars to get my hair done at least once a month by someone. But then I was also around the time that YouTube was becoming extremely popular.

TRACK: Hair influencers like NaturallySunny and Chiziduru were hugely helpful in sharing their experiences with transitioning to natural hair. She loved her new look but found that some people had opinions about it.

ACT: I remember one time, and this came from an African-American person I was working with. I would go to work with like twists or whatever, in my hair and this one time, I had gotten my hair pressed and I went to work and she was like “oh Mwenya I like your hair” and she was like “Umm wait but aren’t you African?” I was like “yeah.” She was like “so why is your hair like that?”and I was like “like what?” She was like “It’s so nice. Like my hair is so much harder than yours. Shouldn’t your hair be worse since I am not African African and your African, so your hair should be worse than mine?”

TRACK: She sees these kind of offensive comments as an opportunity to educate people and to help change the narrative of black girls with natural hair.

ACT: In a lot of the spaces I have volunteered for or worked with, it has been with people not of color or mostly non-black people. I always use the times when someone says something or it’s a little bit uncomfortable to make it a place to learn more or grow more from that situation, for them in understanding the black life and black life experience a little bit better.

TRACK: And she thinks it’s important to deprogram certain beauty standards that people internalize.

ACT: So just because we are so indoctrinated with this Eurocentric opinion of hair and beauty and beauty standards, we automatically think that someone with curlier hair or less dense compact curls hair is better than ours when it’s not… it’s just different. And it’s beautiful in, each style but that doesn’t mean that one person’s hair is better than the other, its just different.

TRACK: In September 2020, the house of representatives passed the Crown Act in efforts to make it approved on the federal level. The law was first introduced in June 2019 by Dove and the CROWN Coalition. So far 7 states have passed this law and there are hopes to get the other 43 onboard. The story of Jordan Winder, a student who could not apply to his dream school because of his dreadlocks is one of the many reasons this act was created. Many cases like Jordan’s continuously occur. I asked what Mwenya’s thoughts were on this topic.

ACT: I think it’s extremely crazy and ridiculous that hair that grows out of one’s head had to become something that was legal and something that was ok to go to work in. Whereas others go to work in the hair that grows out of their head, without having to alter it and that’s ok. How do we turn away someone from a job for basically just being them and not altering that?

TRACK: The natural hair community has faced much discrimination for something that grows naturally on their heads. Despite that, we can see that we are in a time period where young people are standing up and changing the narrative. With many protests and petitions going around, there has been some change happening.

ACT: I think it’s great to see all the representation that’s happening on screens right now. From the short hair documentary that just came out called “Hair.” Then when you look at actresses like Lupita Nyong’o and Chelsea Ellis Ross, Tia and Tamera Mowry, and the countless amount of black women that just are rocking their natural hair the way comes out of their head, unapologetically, and just living life the way it should be. I hope for the future, that we are all able to let everybody else live their lives the way they would want to live it.

TRACK: With many new initiatives to change the narrative, there is some hope for things to shift. For Baruch College, in New York, I’m Mwamba Mpundu.

This was my first time attending any type of photography workshop/talk and I can say I truly enjoyed every single second of it. My workshop was titled “Reflecting on Culture & Identity: Photography Talk” and it was presented by Deborah Anderson. She is a well known photographer and English musician. Currently she is preparing to launch her documentary film based on the Oglala Lakota women based in Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. Ms. Anderson wanted to show culture that has been hidden and not been truly appreciated. She uses her platform to raise awareness in efforts to help this community that America has forgotten about (although it was and still is their land to begin with). Also she informed us of how many indigenous groups have been affected by COVID in a huge way so she urged the audience to find ways to help. I truly enjoyed how she made genuine connections with the Lakota women instead of just selfishly using them for her own benefit or to become more famous off of them. The stories she told of how many adversities the women face but choose to still persevere and celebrate their beautiful culture was so inspiring to hear. She also mentioned how one of the women she took photos of, passed away and they put the image she took on her gravesite. Ms. Anderson really emphasized how important it is to be an activist even as an artist. She believes that as an artist you have the ability to raise awareness and create change for the rest of the world to follow. Each picture told a different story wether it was cultural celebration, rape survivors, spiritual practices, and so much more! I truly think she is such a genuine and compassionate soul and I now knew that she cares about shedding light on issues that aren’t frequently talked about. I also believe that she does these projects  because she has a strong passion, not because she just wants a check. At the end, I couldn’t help but to feel more inspired and motivated to find ways to appreciate more cultures and people, including the ones that many don’t always talk about.  I 10/10 recommend everyone to check her work.

The link to her work is below

Deborah Anderson “Women of the White Buffalo”

For my photo essay I would like to be able to showcase Zambian culture. I see this as an opportunity to showcase my country that I found many people do not know about. Ideally I plan to try to display the different types of clothing (casual and ceremonial), food (and include recipes), and maybe music that is rooted within Zambian culture. This would involve numerous interviews with some journalists and creatives that I know based in Zambia. My main intention is to 1)show the beauty of where I come from 2) be able to showcase a different Zambia than the one that is typically portrayed 3) make it eye catching but informative at the same time.