Summary: In this video I explain in ASL with English captions a little bit about my hair/confidence journey from when I went bald. You will see my hair grow from day one to one year later, some of my thoughts about that, and other takeaways from this personal journey of mine. There are also a bunch of added notes in the video. The original video ended up being almost an hour long, so forgive me with the edits – I’m not a pro at vlogging, but I certainly did enjoy the process!

Key words: Bald, one year hair growth, deaf, ASL, sign language, phi kappa zeta, greek system, social change, untaming, self analysis, learning journey, eating disorders, introspection, colonialism, white supremacy, racism, elitism, empathy, love, self love, growth

Transcript & English captions available on YouTube.

Lots of love 💖

***DISCLAIMER (9/30/2020): my thoughts have shifted a lot regarding what I said in this video about elitism. I am unpacking and processing this, and thinking about my own trauma and privilege from a hearing and white centric system and the ways I have contributed to harm, and what elitism truly means – I now think the focus should be shifted more towards the different aspects of privilege and oppressions that exist, rather than focusing on the term Deaf elitism, which refers to deafness and ASL (the common definition of elitism – Deaf of Deaf, growing up at a Deaf school, etc).

For more insights on this, refer to http://www.elenamfruiz.com/ and https://whitedeafprivilege.wordpress.com/ and some Twitter threads out there (to name a few) for their excellent insights.

It is nowhere “enough” to only recognize our privileges, but it’s certainly important to continue uncovering and unpacking. I have many more thoughts and have been collecting them, taking various perspectives in. Disregard what I said about elitism, and groups… That term wasn’t the best choice and the message I conveyed isn’t quite the message I want to convey now, though there are aspects of what I shared that I still resonate with. At first I wanted to delete my video, but for now I’m leaving it up to show how our thoughts can be harmful and how much they can shift, and this is some documentation of my learning. My perspective has expanded and like I said in the video, I think differently re: some of the areas I covered. I’m still processing, listening, and having conversations about this. I truly appreciate our community’s willingness to learn and heal together, and be better, though it’s a tough process at times. If you have any thoughts to share, share away! <3