3.2 Pride in your identity

Identity is important to all of us. It can be a great source of pride for many, and of shame for others. Identity is complex, messy and multifaceted.

Pride in our identity is really situated around this sense of belonging in history – what that history represents and where that pride is derived from, particularly in terms of identity. As you will hear in the next video, there is a narrow definition of Western beauty, which, when allowed to dominate, can lead Black people to feel pressure to suppress traditional characteristics that are important to their identity.

Hair means something different to each of us. ‘Black hair’ has a uniquely meaningful history as a symbol of survival, resistance and celebration. It’s been wielded as a tool of oppression and also one of empowerment – and our society’s perceptions of Black hair still influence how Black people are treated today. Eunice shares some of their experiences in the following video.

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Transcript: Video 8 Eunice Olumide

EUNICE OLUMIDE:

For me, personally, in terms of natural hair movement, I was famously dropped from one of the biggest model agencies in the world at a really young age of 15, 16 because I refused to relax my natural hair. So, for me, campaigning for natural hair and the acceptance of Afro-Caribbean hairstyles has always been fundamental to my identity, to the work that I do, and I suppose in all aspects of my life.

I don’t have an issue, for example, with going to a job and wearing my hair a certain way or straightening it or wearing a wig, but I had an issue with society telling me that I was unattractive because I didn’t have European-looking hair. It’s funny how it happened at such a young age, me choosing not to relax my hair. It wasn't political at all, it was literally because a cousin of mine had relaxed their hair and they left it on for longer than a minute. And if you leave on for longer than a minute, it can give you third degree burns. So she actually received quite severe burns, and that had totally put me off.

So when I was asked to do that, I was actually scared. There was a genuine reason why I didn’t want to do it. And I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just use straightening hot irons if I needed my hair to be straight. So I’ve worked with a variety of different organisations and institutions, such as World Afro Day, and we campaign, we go across the entire UK, we go into schools, we talk to headmasters, and we educate them on the fact that our hair is Afro, that’s how it is.

I do understand that that’s difficult to understand because all of the images, particularly recent images of Afro-Caribbean people, they’re always wearing wigs, they’re always wearing weaves, they’re always having their hair straightened. So I think that people don’t really understand that achieving that look is extremely time-consuming, it can completely affect your health, the chemicals are carcinogenic.

End transcript: Video 8 Eunice Olumide

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Video 8 Eunice Olumide