During 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 who are members of Hackney-based community support group Rise.365, similar stories resonated.
“Straight hair is the norm, and[Afro hair]is not represented,” she says. This discussion led to the idea for a campaign that tackled an under-represented area of Afro hairstyles: emojis.
There are 3,790 emojis, including a mermaid, a vampire, and an afro pickcomb, but none feature the afro hairstyle commonly worn by black people. “It’s sad and disappointing, because it just shows how we (black people) are not seen in a brighter light. Because there are girls who are blonde and ginger, and there are girls who have Afro hair and three-legged hair. Because there’s no simple girl who knits,’ or something like that,” Brian says.
Suggested cornrow emoji. Illustration: Rise.365
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.
Suggested locs emoji. Illustration: Rise.365
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.”
Suggested Afro emoji. Illustration: Rise.365
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 after gaining over 65,000 signatures from an online petition. However, it was rejected on the grounds 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.
Suggested braid emoji. Illustration: Rise.365
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.
“That’s why we’re teaming up with Rise.365 to rally enough support to encourage the addition of these new emojis to Unicode. Every time you search (on Google) for the phrase ‘Afro hair,’ Now, these emojis are coming to life. ”
The campaign is an opportunity to encourage a broader conversation about hair expression and discrimination, beyond just emojis, Gray said. “The four we designed are just the beginning.[The campaign]is an educational opportunity. We don’t want people to think we just want emojis because that’s how we want them to represent us. 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.”
