Just discovered this space…

[DrinkingMyWaterMindingMyBiz]

I didn’t even know it existed! It’s like a breath of fresh air, knowing it’s here. Just thought I’d say hi to the regular Mumsnetters in this space, now I know it’s here.

Hi 👋🏿 Welcome. I don’t post here a lot but I do lurk and it’s been supper helpful

Thank you! I’m sure it’s going to be a life-saver, both for practical things and as a space just to get away from some of the flippant comments that often crop up on this website.

Welcome

It is not a safe space and is flooded with WW desperate to give their experience/ask advice about hair care.

I should have known it would be too good to be true! I wonder if there’s a Mumsnet-type site out there somewhere for and by black women. (Even better if it’s black British women because our experiences and views can be very different to other diasporas!)

I find the hair advice thing kinda wild. Do they really have no Black friends IRL to ask?

Asking for a bit much there, I think 😄 I’ve only been back on MN after a 4-year hiatus for a week, and I’ve already seen about five separate posts where people claim to know no black people!

🤣🤣

Indeed.

I even saw a suggestion on one post the other day for a white Mary to go and make friends with Black Women so they could advise on their children's hair 🙄🙄🙄

I only really tend to engage with posts where Black women are genuinely seeking opinions from other Black women on something we can relate to; it is what this section was created for.

*white woman, not sure where Mary came from!

It's not a safe space ww wade in often

I mean, the way I read it, it still made sense!

Hopefully I’ll be able to mentally filter out those threads… Wishful thinking, perhaps!

@DrinkingMyWaterMindingMyBiz it's easy to filter them out, I just skip over those threads and don't engage...the amount of videos which exist on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok etc about Afro hair, there's really no excuse for anyone to come on BMN expecting Black women to spoon feed them.

Personally, I don’t mind hair care questions because you can just skip them and some BMN seem happy enough to help. The things that annoy me are

• Non black people wading in when black OP has specifically asked for a black viewpoint
• Post attacking OP for doing this, especially when it’s something that even the best ally in the world won’t have the context for
• The disingenuous “do black people think x is racist, opinions please” threads
• People trying to explain racism to us

I don’t want to feel that people can just run us off this space though and there are some black contributions that are really helpful or interesting.

@MCOut ugh those things are my worst fears. I see them all the time on AIBU threads so when I found this section of MN I thought “finally, a space where we can discuss things freely!”

I think it is a case of some of them asking, getting advice and seeing something different then deciding the advice they were given as wrong.

Unfortunately some people - and in my experience that includes black people - presume black people have one type of hair so we all can use the same products.

Though the tights thread brought back memories....

I can’t believe I missed the tights thread! I still wear tights on my head sometimes and my teenage DD looks at me like I’m mad, so I purposely sneak into the background of her TikToks and FaceTime calls.

Welcome aboard!

oh this your comment about black people thinking all other black people have the same hair is soo true. Only yesterday i was watching a youtube video about hair dos and don't, the woman in the video was telling people not to use the small hair bands to pull the hair together but instead should use the big hair ruffles as they are kinder to your hair. She demonstrated this by swooshing her big afro/big curly long hair into a pony tail and putting a ruffle round it. She looked marvellous.

Now if my hair was anything like that, i would definitely use a ruffle!

Haha the tights/headscarf thread was mine😂 welcome OP🤝🏾