The average American spends 4.8 hours per day on their phone. Meanwhile, 90 percent of Black people live in a household with smartphones, which is six percent higher than the total US population. But, despite nearly 4,000 emojis coded into our phone, most Black people have difficulty finding emojis that accurately represent our hair.
Calling for change, track and field athlete Tara Davis-Woodhall has been working with #CodeMyCrown, a CROWN Coalition campaign led by Dove and RISE365 to pressure the Unicode Consortium to include emojis depicting afros, braids, cornrows, and locs. Much like the gaming industry, Black beauty has been poorly represented across technology, with platforms like Idoru and Code My Crown leading integration into the digital world.
“8 in 10 black people in the US struggle to find emojis that reflect their hairstyle,” says Davis-Woodhall. “I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed.” Wearing her hair relaxed until college, the athlete says her relationship with her hair used to be all about assimilation, which is often credited to lack of representation.
“Growing up in a white society, Black hair is too much work and it’s not looked at as beautiful,” she says. “I always tried to make my hair straight.” But, when she went natural in college, she further understood the beauty in our hair texture. Back in March, she posted her afro for the first time on Instagram along with a blow out and braids, all of which are styles absent from Apple’s emoji library.
These days, “I switch my hairstyles every month,” she says, leaning into sew-ins more now. However, she says finding a routine is often like finding an emoji: more difficult than it should be. “I’m trying to protect my leave out as much as I can,” she says. “It’s actually impossible when you’re doing so many shoots and trying to keep your hair as tamed as possible.”
Banking on deep conditioning treatments and oils, finding time in her busy schedule to take care of her hair is an act of self-care. That, and opening up the pores on her skin and scalp in a long, hot bath at night. “I’m working on my skin, working on my body skin, making sure I’m staying moisturized and exfoliating,” she says. “I’m giving myself a little bit more time because I feel like I give [most of my] time to other people.”
Now, with track season back in full swing, finding styles that can withstand the blood, sweat, and tears of an Olympic athlete is another hurdle. But one thing’s for sure, she’s hoping to have an emoji to represent the emotion she puts into both. “The beauty of our hair is that you can have options and wear whatever you feel like is fitting.”