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A black entrepreneur revealed how colleagues at work thought it was okay to touch her Afro hair without asking, and how she was told that her natural hairstyle was not appropriate for work.
When Daniel Obe, a 42-year-old business consultant, was in his 20s, he experienced “intense interest” and “extreme curiosity” from white colleagues in various roles. She says people make inappropriate comments about her hair and sometimes try to touch it without her permission.
“One day when I went to make coffee, two senior white team members started touching my hair,” Obe told The Independent. “I thought this was no longer an attractive issue, but a last-minute harassment. And it was hard to shake it off.”
To avoid attention and realizing that her hair was the subject of unwanted scrutiny, she once decided to braid it. When she arrived at work, her 50-year-old white male manager yelled at her, saying, “What the hell were you thinking, getting your hair done like this for work?”
According to Sport England statistics, 95 per cent of black adults and 80 per cent of black children cannot swim (Daniel Obe)
Mr Obe told the Independent:
“I had no idea that it was a form of discrimination, but this extreme curiosity made me uncomfortable. My hair became the talk of the office.
“What I see in the work I do is that there is a lack of education, and that creates fear and stubbornness in thinking that it’s because our culture, our language, our food is uneducated. On diversity and the beauty of diversity. ”
These experiences seriously affected Obe’s self-confidence, and it took her many years to overcome them.
Ms. Obe is also the co-founder of the Black Swimming Association (BSA), which works to make the swimming sector more accessible to everyone.
Statistics from Sport England show that 95 per cent of black adults and 80 per cent of black children do not swim, as well as 93 per cent of Asian adults and 78 per cent of Asian children.
Mr. Obe takes a photo with his two daughters (Daniel Obe)
One of the reasons behind this disparity is the lack of suitable swim caps to protect Afro hair, especially considering the damage chlorine can do to textured hair.
Obe and his daughter Kayla are aware of the risks of chemical damage to Afro hair. When Kayla was young, her hair had to be thoroughly washed after swimming lessons because ineffective swim caps designed with gray hair in mind allowed water to seep in.
So Obe made the following promise to his 4-year-old daughter. ”
So her mother created waterproof scarves, called obes, after her family’s surname, to “enable people with textured hair to feel comfortable in and near water without losing their identity.” I got an idea.
Customers wearing OBE’s waterproof headscarf (OBE)
Furthermore, she added: “As women of color, we curl our hair for everything we do, like when we’re making curry or when we go out to take out the bin. The care we give to our hair. is exactly like that.
“For some reason, that pain I felt when my hair became a topic of discussion at the office was a manifestation of my calling. It was a turning point.”
Obe said the product has been well received around the world and is purchased by people of all ethnicities with different hair types, from thick-haired white women and people with traction alopecia to members with tuberculosis. He was surprised at first. The Sikh community wears patka turbans.
Some 20,000 emails from customers around the world highlighted the reach of her headscarf.
“Suddenly it wasn’t about Afro-Caribbean hair, it was about all hair types,” Obe said.
“What this product has done is give us options. I’ve always been adamant about this, but the versatility and uniqueness of this product is similar to Afro hair. We use our hair in a variety of ways. It is our identity, our joy, our crown, our beauty, and we can express it in any way we want to express it. .
“This is a tool that encourages people like me to find our place in the water, in our own way.”
A study by Pantene, Black Minds Matter and Project Embrace revealed that 93 per cent of black people in the UK have faced microaggressions related to their Afro hair.
Additionally, one in five black women feel the need to style their hair for work, according to Halo, an organization that works to end hair discrimination.
Last month, celebrities and campaigners including World Afro Day’s Mel B and Michelle DeLeon launched a campaign to lobby the UK government for Afro hair to be protected under the Equality Act to help tackle discrimination.
