From declaring it an attractive scalp summer season to being buzzed and booked, many Black girls are revisiting an empowering ceremony of passage with quick haircuts which were trending all summer season.
In case you’ve scrolled by means of TikTok or IG Reels these days, you’ve most likely seen it: clippers buzzing, curls falling, edges getting freed. The large chop is not only in a nostalgic, “Remember when we all went natural back in 2001” sort of method. It’s a modern-day reckoning.
Whereas huge chopping is nothing new—and might embody each curly and straight selections—Black girls as we speak are snipping off greater than broken or weighty hair this time round. Many people are chopping ties with the stress of profession setbacks, unemployment, and underemployment.
For Black girls particularly, the chop is about reclaiming energy when every part feels out of our management. It’s a ritual of launch—like saging your crown. We’re saying goodbye to previous variations of ourselves, outdated magnificence requirements, and the burden of being “on” on a regular basis.
We’ve lived by means of a pandemic, confrontations round race and gender, “crashout burnout” tradition, and the quiet grief of desires delayed. The unemployment fee for Black girls is disproportionately excessive, lingering at 6 p.c (double that of White professionals—a report).
Take inspiring examples like that of Pleasure Reid, award-winning journalist and creator who, earlier this 12 months, was fired from MSNBC the place she was host of The ReidOut after serving within the function for 5 years, tackling actual conversations round race, fairness, tradition, and the U.S. methods minorities are continuously navigating.
All through the present’s time—as many people do within the office—Pleasure Reid wore her hair in a plethora of kinds, from tapered curly ‘dos, to chin-length waves, to braided extensions. This was all whereas being the primary Black girl to anchor a primetime cable information present, successful awards, and raking in prime rankings on the onset.
The fallout of her MSNBC departure was public, and Pleasure unapologetically shared, by way of a recorded Zoom name, that she’d “been through every emotion, from anger, rage, disappointment, hurt.” Since then, based on a latest interview, she’s totally leaned into the quick blond pure she’d debuted on MSNBC final 12 months, and nonetheless proudly rocks it whereas internet hosting The Pleasure Reid Present podcast, which launched this June. “I finally did it, and I love it, and it’s so fun,” she mentioned within the interview. “I think we’ve been so kind of tormented about our hair as Black women, and our hair has always been political. It used to be illegal for us to wear braids—or not illegal, but people could fire you for wearing braids.”
“I definitely had the anxiety of, how is this going to go over? You know, go over with my audience. And so we think about it all,” she continued, including that she feels free.
There’s a particular sort of emotional alchemy that occurs when Black girls minimize their hair, particularly in a profession transition.
Whether or not it’s strolling away from a poisonous office, moving into entrepreneurship, or pivoting right into a extra purpose-aligned path, the massive chop turns into a visual, visceral declaration: I’m not who I used to be once I began this job. Hell, I’m not outlined by a job—interval.
Pleasure joins many different highly effective Black girls who’ve proven the world that quick hair could be each evolutionary and revolutionary in a single’s private {and professional} life. Halle Berry, Toni Braxton, Rihanna, Yvonne Orji, Solange, Grace Jones, Keke Palmer—all of them took daring, very public steps that redefine what self-care, therapeutic and thriving can appear to be. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley publicly shared her challenges with alopecia in 2020 and has since continued to proudly embrace her bald head as a part of her in-office fashion.
These girls didn’t want a haircut to shine—the expertise was already there. However let’s be actual: Grace, Halle, and Toni’s iconic quick haircuts didn’t simply flip heads, they turned their careers up a notch. The crown wasn’t the supply, however it was a highlight. A contemporary minimize can’t make you—however it positive can let the world know you’ve arrived.
I lately went again to quick and pure after a stretch of carrying wigs and extensions and dropping shoppers left and proper attributable to range funds cuts. I’ve needed to make a significant pivot in my profession, and it’s laborious sufficient rewriting resumes, tweaking proposals, rebounding from fixed rejection, and piecing my psychological well being again collectively after continuously second-guessing why I don’t simply surrender and do one thing cyber-based and unusual for a lil’ change.
The very last thing I want proper now—on this financial system and wacky job market—is high-maintenance hair. Fortunately, it’s simply curls, water, gel, and go—a pointy, quick TWA that retains me grounded and makes me pop. No stress, all presence.
So, in case you’re on the skilled edge (actually and figuratively), questioning why you’re caught in a wacky Twilight Zone episode in your profession, take into consideration letting that hair go.
It’s true: An enormous chop isn’t any magic wand to remedy all of your job search or profession development woes. And it on no account will reverse the troubling socioeconomic and political circumstances we’re residing in proper now. The dilemmas many people are dealing with are harsh, terrifying and exhausting. Sure.
However in case you’re continuously hitting profession partitions and also you’re at your wits finish, possibly your scalp deserves a little bit of daylight. In 2025, the massive chop isn’t a breakdown—it’s a supporting character in your profession breakthrough. And it’s reminding us—Black girls— that we are able to reintroduce ourselves at any size. No warning. No permission. Simply vibes, clippers, and readability.
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Featured picture by Face Inventory/Shutterstock
