This oddball storymade me wonder. As a commercial real estate agent, over the years I’ve leased a number of rental spaces spaces to non-chain owner/operator black hairstylists, white hairstylists and a much smaller handful to white and black male barbers. Non-chain operators (in my experience) pretty much cut white hair or black hair and there is little if any overlap in the clientele. Also, there is little ambiguity as to what clientle they serve as pictures of various styles are usually plastered all over the place and often in the windows before you even go in, so most of the time by the time you are at the doorstep you know if it’s a black or non-black hair stylist place.
I stopped getting haircuts about 15 years ago as nature took care of that (mostly) for me so a quick run with the clippers once a week is all I need. However, when I did go to Supercuts, the Haircuttery (in malls even) back in the day it was pretty much all white, hispanic etc people getting haircuts.
Do barbers these days cut both black and non-black hair?
Driving home from work one day I noticed a “Haircut $6.00 today” sign in front of a barber shop. I needed a haircut and I’m a sucker for a great deal, so I parked and went in. It took about .0005 seconds to realize that I was the only white person there. No way was I leaving, though because, hey, $6 haircut. After a few seconds one of the barbers looked over and asked “Can I help you?”. I replied, “Yes sir, I need a haircut!”. After a slight pause and with a quizzical look he said “OK, have a seat”.
Apparently I was more interesting than whatever was on TV, because there were more eyeballs on me than it. At that point I was finding the whole thing rather amusing. The only way I was going to leave was if all the barbers all indicated that they couldn’t cut my hair. The other patrons kept glancing between me and the barbers, they were pretty interested in how this was going to turn out as well. If a bookie had been taking bets on whether I would actually go through with it he would have had to have given pretty steep odds to get any money on the “he will” side.
When it was my turn I sat in the barber chair and explained how I wanted it trimmed. The barber hesitantly said “Do you mind if I use clippers? My scissor work is a little rusty.” I laughed and said “You’re the pro, do it however you think is best”. At that he laughed as well. We had a good conversation and he did a darn good job with my hair. It wasn’t the hair style or style of hair he was used to, but he enjoyed the change of pace.
I needed a haircut, found a place near my office that I could walk to. Based on decor, clientele, barbers and the skin mags onsite - caters to African Americans.
One of the best cuts I have had, with attention to detail (e.g. running a razor on the face for the sideburns).
Took the guy’s card, will be coming back. I will happily become the white guy in the place.
White Jewish guy. For a while, for a period that ran from 10 to 7 years back, my hair was patchy balding all over thinning curly. The best place to get it cut was one of the local Black barbershops. First time I walked in I got the same quizzical “Can I help you?” that Doctor J got and the same hesitancy before beginning to cut it, clearly with confidence building as he realized it was basically the same thinning patchy bald he’d done on many an aging Black pate.
Fun place to be going with regularity between 2006 and 2009. Had lots of fun debates with the owner who was initially a Clinton man about my naivete in believing that Obama had a chance to win either the nomination or the general election.
Eventually though the hair was thin enough that getting a cut was a fun conversation not a needed hair care experience. I, like astro, just buzz what’s left down once a week now …
My girlfriend has some particularly high standards for certain aspects of personal grooming and found a barbershop for me. Took me there and was greatly surprised to find that it I was the only white person there. The barber didn’t bat an eye, asked what I wanted, accepted her edits to my instructions, and gave me the best damn haircut of my life.
Every time I walk past my local Supercuts and look through the window, I see the black stylist cutting white people’s hair.
Back in the early days of having short hair, I’d go to the place that catered to all the college kids in the neighborhood. The white barber would do a nice buzz cut on me, but eventually I realized that I could save money by cutting my own hair.
The barber in the OP should have at least said something like, “I don’t have a lot of experience with black hair, just to warn you, but I’ll do my best.” That’s what a decent person would say, IMHO.
We moved into a majority black area outside Atlanta 11 years ago (we are Caucasian looking people), and wanted to keep our money in the community, and support entrepreneurs, so I, too, walked into a 100% black barber shop and asked if anyone there was good a cutting straight hair (no record scratch sounds, but I did get looks). One guy was experienced with hair like mine, just one, and he was my barber until we moved away. He opened his own shop, and I was his “white client”. Great guy, great barber, great discussions about what it was like on either side of the palette. Then some punks shot and killed him in a robbery, and now I go to Supercuts.
I have crazy thick curly European white lady hair. The best haircut I’ve ever gotten at a Best Cuts was by a black stylist. She seemed to understand thick curls much better than the other stylists at the cheap place.
I can once again afford to go to my regular place and have my hair cut by my white stylist. I don’t think she’s better at cutting curls than others but she is very good at MY hair. It has taken her 20 years to figure it out tho.
In high school, super cuts with this really hot black 30 ish something did my Frampton style hair really well.
When I still had some hair and basically had it down normally a couple mm buzzed length in University, I had a Rotarian scholarship interview. Black barber in south sacramento took it down to about 2mm, used a straight razor to cut a part and give me whitewalls. It was totally awesome and I looked like I was out of a 1950’s army recruiter ad. Much better than the normal grown out skinhead look I usually sported. Cheap too. Good conversation and great cut. I never went back but that was definitely one of the best haircuts I ever had.
For several years we took me son to a place called Cookie Cutters that specialized in kids hair. The stylists were always women, and ran about 30% black, no matter what neighborhood you were in. It was first come, first served, so white kids got black stylists, and vice-versa, albeit, there were a lot more white kids than black kids, I don’t know why, but I’ve seen white people cutting black kids’ hair. I’ll bet it was mentioned at interviews that you don’t get to pick the ethnicity or gender you serve.
My son went there a little longer than most kids do-- most kids graduate to a regular place around 6 or 7, but the smell of the stuff they spray on him at places like Supercuts gave him allergies, and they just use plain water at Cookie Cutters. A lot of barbers aren’t crazy about doing really little kids, but we found one who was happy to take him when he was 8.
I watched them do a really great job with some autistic kids at CC, just as an aside, and I wonder if they’d be willing to serve older autistic people, who sometimes don’t mind the haircut itself, but don’t like all the smells and the noise (music often playing) at places like Supercuts. [/hijack]
These can be two different questions, depending on the definition of terms.
The chain places I see have employees of various ethnicities and customers of various ethnicities. I would imagine it’s only at some portion of very small shops where there might be a problem.