This Vid of a Reporter Asking The Weeknd How Often He Washes His Hair Will Shock and Offend You
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A new video TMZ just shared on their YouTube perfectly and depressingly, displays the ignorant stereotypes that still surround black hairstyles in today’s society.
In the video, one of TMZ’s reporters has tracked down the Weeknd at L.A.X. airport and asks him about his hair care regime. The Weeknd, who probably recieves this invasive question often, responded, “I’m black.”
The reporter then presses him for more info, asking, “How often do you wash it, man?”
And he responds simply, “Every day.”
The video promptly cuts to TMZ’s staff room, where the staff is utterly confused by this information.
“Really?!” TMZ’s founder, Harvey Levin, asks.
“Every day?!” the reporter who originally asked The Weeknd about his hair proclaims skeptically.
A slew of ignorant responses like, That can’t be possible!, I don’t understand that!, I thought it’s dreads though?, How do you wash dreads every day? You can’t wash dreads every day! follows - all from white staffers who do not have dreads.
Besides the staffers’ uncomfortable fascination with The Weeknd’s locs and their references to them as “wild”, it’s particularly mind-blowing that despite the staffers admittedly having no knowledge of how to care for locs, many of them still seem confident that he could not possibly wash them every day.
Finally, a black staff member speaks up to educate his coworkers, the video’s one saving grace. First, he asks everyone to please shut up because they sound stupid, before explaining exactly why their comments are so ignorant. “You wash your dreads every day because it’s already locks, and you can wash it as much as you want to,” he explains to the room of shocked faces.
“Why am I a stupid white person if I just don’t know this?” Levin asks.
“Because you think people with dreads don’t wash their hair - they wash their hair all the time,” the staffer replies. He’s, of course, referring toa common stereotype people with locs deal with all the time: that they don’t wash their hair and that their hair smells.
Check out the distressing and sad moment below:
~sigh~
