Normalizing Emojis in Black Women’s Style: Embracing and Accepting Our Natural Hair | Women’s Hair

IDuring her first year of culinary school, 18-year-old Leanna Bryan was told that her braided hairstyle was inappropriate for the kitchen. “I thought, ‘What do you mean no braids or dreadlocks?’ Because this is what I wear. My hair is in braids most of the time,” she said. I say.

When she shared her experience with a circle of young women of which she was a member, Rise.365 a Hackney-based community support group, similar stories resonated.

“Straight hair is the norm,” she says. [afro hair] It’s just not expressed.” This discussion evolved into the idea of a campaign that tackled an under-represented area of Afro hairstyles: emojis.

There is 3,790 emojis some of which include mermaids, vampires, and afropic combs, but none feature the afro hairstyle commonly worn by black people. “This is sad and unfortunate, because this just shows how we behave.” [Black people] We don’t have girls who are blonde or ginger, or just girls with afros or braids,” says Brian.

For Amina Gray, youth leader and facilitator for Rise.365, this is exactly why this campaign is so important. “Black people, especially women, tend to have so many different hairstyles, none of which are represented.

“We need to normalize that our hair, whether in its natural state or in protected hairstyles, is acceptable and professional.”

To address this imbalance, Brian and other young members of the group were asked to design emojis using common hairstyles worn by black people. “I asked all the young people to draw something that reflected them or an emoji they wanted to see on their keyboard,” Gray says.

The group narrowed it down to four hairstyles that they felt best reflected the community’s variety of hairstyles: braids, afros, locs, and cornrows.

“I always wear braids, so I thought, ‘Let’s do it,’ because obviously it represents me. It’s like a protective hairstyle. You can style your hair in many different ways: long, short, colored, etc.,” says Brian.

Good Relations PR junior designer Vanita Brown helped bring the sketches to life. “Most emojis tend to reflect the majority. Early designs prioritized black and mixed-race hairstyles, as creators did not necessarily consider or prioritize the diversity of black hairstyles. I feel like I didn’t.”

Suggestions for new emojis can be submitted to the Unicode Consortium, which sets standards for digital typography, but only a portion will be accepted for encoding. The group plans to submit a design in April.

In 2019, Rhianna Jones submitted an official proposal for the Afro hair emoji, which garnered over 65,000 signatures. online petition. But it is I refused The reason was that “the curly hair emoji is designed to reflect a variety of hairstyles.” That year, the bubble tea and dotted face submission was accepted and released as an emoji.

Brown said Unicode relies heavily on suggestions and feedback when deciding on future emojis, such as how often terms related to the submission appear in Google searches.

“This is why we are working with Rise.365 to gather enough support to encourage us to add these new emojis to Unicode. [Google] You can make these emojis a reality by searching for the phrase “Afro hair.” ”

Gray said the campaign is an opportunity to encourage a broader conversation about hair expression and discrimination, not just about emojis. “The four we designed are just the beginning. [The campaign] It’s an educational opportunity. We don’t want people to think that we only want emojis because that’s how we want them to be expressed. Because there’s a deeper message behind it, which is to empower people and make them realize that their hair is beautiful. ”

Why is it important to Brian? “My younger siblings will be able to see emojis that look like them,” she says. “If this works, it could actually change history.”