Megan in oakley. How are you . Doing just fine. Congratulations on your reopening. Hows Business Today . Busy, a little nervewracking but were doing really well. Do you have a waiting list . How long is the wait . Can you give us a sense for that . Im about two months booked out. Depends on the stylist. Weve had three months of clients so you can imagine the chaos that comes along with that. Is it because you dont have enough space in the salon . Yes, and also extra sanitization time but our stylists booked every day so thats 90 days of, well, probably 60 days of clients that you are fully booked every day and then here we go. Doors are open and its a mad dash to try to get everyone in while abiding to the laws and regulations. So youre extending your hours . We are, we are. High risk mondays where our clients who are higher risk will be allowed to come inurg times. And seven days a week, whatever they need to do to make that happen. Megan, i know during this time of closure, you made some chans. Takin u for a tour to show us what are some of the physical changes you made at the salon . Id love to. Id love to start you out front because we have a little setup right when we first walk in. I enjoy living vicariously through your and your phone. I feel like im there. You made requirements before they get to the salon, even booking . Yes. Yes. They get our guidelines list. Before they come, they have a form they must fill out, its a waiver and they have to fill that out before entering the building. Once they get in, they wait for the stylist and they see these signs. The sign tells you all the rules regulations. Hand sanitizer for your hands. Salon safety guidelines and one. Safety first. No problem. We can wait. And i notice that door is closed. You guys keep the door closed or locked at all times . People cant just wander in. They have to have an appointment. Oh, here we go. So when you walk in, this used to be our waiting area. Its now where we put a station allowing for our social distancing to happen throughout the san. We have removed our our break room is in here. Its a little bit of a mess but weve removed our break room. Theres no break room at the moment. I noticed your customer was getting, is that coloring . Are you doing all your services or some that youre not performing . The only thing were not doing is blowsusto un e airborne qualities of it all, so we just want to make sure that were being safe. As more information comes out, well definitely do our part to switch things up, but for right now, until we know more, well just do that. Is there a time limit on the appointment . We try to do only maintenance color. Like touchups, partial highlights like in and out, 45 minutes of contact or less and pcessg time and each leave wet. Oh, okay, get people out. What about people who come with like a child or the person who gave you the ride to the salon . There will be absolutely no guests tagging along with you at this time. We cannot be a full capacity, so we do not need any extra bodies, plus its just not what we are striving for this whole pandemic situation. We want to keep the less contact, less people all the way around. Sure. Thats good practice. Whablt wh ou i see youe all Wearing Masks but like taking temperatures or is that something you want clients to do before they come . They will do that before they come. Thats on the waiver. And then we just ask them some covid questions and we just ask them to follow our policies which is a mask at all times and just following our rules, washing your hands before you come in, being okay with the no blow drying. You havent encountered any challenges with people keeping their masks on or saying, i dont want to wear it because weve seen that on airplanes, even though the airlines have the rule of saying please keep your mask on if youre not eating but a lot of people d to flight attendants dont want to have to confront them. Its true. I have heard that a lot with hair stylists but its our first day and people are chomping at the bit to get in the door, so they could wear a hazmat suit if we asked them to. I totally get that. What about payment . Have you changed that up . Are you going cashless . Were doing contactless payment. If clients want to use cash, well provide an envelope to put the cash in where well then keep it just like, disinfect how we can in that measure. Got it. Are you doing eyebrow waxing yet . We are not cleared for waxing or nails, which is a real bummer i kno allow ty ifhe i think that offers you some hope, right . Are you getting ready . Yes, a discussion. We havent had that discussion in months, so thats huge. Were getting ready. Ill take you there. Weve got our plexiglas put up, i dont know if you can see it. But they put their hands through here and stay through there. This will get moved to the middle of the room. The clients will walk in and out this door, so they wont be passing the nail tech at that moment so theyll have their own entrance in and out. I see. We do now that in san francisco, they will be a little later. In Contra Costa County, hopefully be able to resume soon in a very safe manner. We appreciate the time you spent. One last question before we go, are you raising prices given your additional costs to have to operate this way . We are not. We feel super blessed that weve had clients that have waited for us through this whole thing, so we feel like the best thing we can do is give back to them as they have for us. Megan celine, coowner of secret salon in oakland. Best of luck and thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Coming up next, aunt jemima is gone. Now what . Well talk to an associate professor at Cornell University about racist symbols to reconsider and why it took so long to see this change. Were taking a short break on the air but the welcome back. Mars incorporated owns uncle bens rice and related products. They now say its time to evolve the visual brand identity. This comes after pepsico made the announcement earlier today it is getting rid of the aunt jemima brand. They recognize that the origins of the brand are rooted in nostalgia for slavery. Next guests publicly asked for this five years ago. She wrote an article in the New York Times titled, can we please finally get rid of aunt jemima . Joining me today to talk about this is associate professor of african studies. Professor richardson. How are you . Okay. It took a while but you got your answer and your wish. How about that . No more aunt jemima . I think it is really an important step. Its really inspiring to see them attempt to move forward, to move their company and brand forward in a more visionary way. For me, it always goes back to charleston and to the tragedy that happened there at father Emanuel Church with the eight other victims of dylan roof and because he was embedded in Confederate Flag symbolism, the question began to emerge, what other symbols need to go . Thats how the piece came about in the New York Times and how i ended up writing about aunt jemima. So this is the fifth anniversary and yet again, theres been the tragedy of george floyd and continuing protests. So im very excited that were actually in this space once again, but i think that its going to be so important to think outside the box, no pun intended. Thats okay, i do enjoy puns. But you know what, on our earlier show today, we asked viewers what they thought about this. More than half said pepsico should have kept the name aunt jemima. What do you want folks to consider or maybe what they dont know . Can you draw on your own experience . I understand the attachments some people have to symbols like aunt jemima. For some, she represents home. She represents family. She represents a kind of maternal image and what we think of as comfort food, but theres another side to it. Theres a little bit of an echo. I want to let our viewers know were also showing a picture of gone with the wind. It might be a good time as theyre looking at that because im wondering if you see a connection between aunt jemima and the character in gone with the wind. Yes, definitely. I mean, haddie m a her as an actress. She had to deal with conditions under which she worked, the times in which lived and in gone with the wind is inextricably linked with aunt jemima stereotype but what people need to recognize is this is making fun of people. This is a caricature. Thats what these images were intended to be, they were intimately tied to notions of black inferiority. And so, think about what a lot of people do without knowing damage theyre doing. When they put on a black face and different black stereotypes. Because it is a stereotype and its a character, right, its not a complex person, but you have the good black and the bad black and even when its the good black like the aunt jemima or uncle bens character, thats still insidious which you argue no better than the bad stereotype. Right, they end up being two sides of the same coin and i think these benign images can seriously repress the deeper implications and a lot of times, people have continued to be in denial about the ways that these images can be linked to certain microaggressions against blacks. Would anyone want to have anything around that made fun of them . That sort of thing, or be the butt of the joke . So these images take us back to some of those problematic dynamics. I think that is obvious when we look at images like, theyre obviously cringe worthy, and so the box on the breakfast table seems a bit more innocent but when we take a second look, we realize it has problematic implications. All right. We have a question coming in from one of our facebook viewers, robert, who said i just became aware Francis Scott key the man who wrote the star spangled banner was a racist slave owner. Will there now be no more star spangled banner . In some ways, yes, i think in some cases, we need to begin conversations so we can excavate and pull out these layers and help people understand what is at stake in Certain National images or monument because a lot of times, the problematic connotations for some people, so i think it can feel jars when folks suggest, oh, that just needs to go but increasingly, we have to get to a place where more and more people will feel comfortable with divesting from painful images of the past and then envisioning more inclusive monuments for the 21st century or thinking about what monuments mean or whether they should exist. We see Confederate Flags being removed as well, thats what we show video about. That debate and battle is still going on. I should let folks know were going to break but professor richardson also famously taught a beyonce course. Were going to talk about that, so dont go anywhere and in well many people have such a misunderstanding as to how a reverse mortgage works. People think that the bank takes your home, but that is not true. Thathe home is ours. We can sell it if we want to at any time. I like the flexibility of not having a payment, but i can make the payment if i want to. Youre responsible for keeping up your property taxes and youre responsible for paying your insurance on the property. For us, it was a security blanket. The value of our house, was to fund our longterm health care. For years, reverse Mortgage Funding has been helping customers like these use the equity from their homes to finance their lives. They know the importance of having financial security. Make an appointment so they can tell you how it works. Its a good thing. Access your equity. Stay in your home. Have peace of mind. All right, we are back with rashay richardson at Cornell University. We were talking about aunt jemima being no more and this is something she wrote about in an oped in the New York Times five years ago, so delayed gratification, nonetheless, its happening, and also, professor richardson, you a few years ago taught a course very revolutionary at the time. Its all about beyonce. I think its called beyonce nation, right. Yes. Talk about that because you really want to explore the image of black women and how we got from aunt jemima to where we are today and how thats evolved. Tell me, what do you think . How has it evolved . I think that itsvo veryinirinways i mean, you have icons over time like mary mccloud, wells, harriet tubman, Michelle Obama and beyonce, but images of women like that, images of empowerment are obscured so that you have a reliance on a stereotype. So when we let go of the stereotypes, i think theres more room to celebrate images that are empowering of black women and that they will hold a lot of potential to really uplift and inspire women everywhere. Do you think beyonce is the embodiment of all those potentials . Well, she is for me. Thats the premise of my forthcoming book. Emancipation daughters, reimagining the black body and femininity and the conclusion focuses on beyonce and that the research for that conclusion is actually what led me to develop the course beyonce nation because i think that black womenhood has often been figured as being objective as weve seen in the image of aunt jemima but also images of black women that really come to represent american identity and those images are less familiar, so in our time, beyonce is definitely a persona like that and thats one of the reasons it will be so fascinating. Every time shes brought us to a formation nation. Right, i mean, i will say, todays young people, i think that is their view. That is who they think exemplifies the black women, i think when my kids walk tooth grocery store, they dont know that aunt jemima character. Thats not what they see today. Right, right, so we have to increasingly recognize that our nation is becoming much more diverse and we have to think about how we want those futures to come. Or send a ball through history. I think that we learn from our past because anyone whos unfamiliar with the past is more likely to repeat it. So as best we can, we have to grapple with these painful histories, you know, recognize what is valuable to celebrate and validate but then continue to move forward in ways that honor and symbols. Also important for them to rethink the workplace cultures and to ensure that they have welcoming inclusive diverse and safe or a range. The removal of the symbols, thats just the first step. But black women as catalyst for change and this new era. Right now, its very woman on the democratic ticket with joe biden as the running mate, as you know, some of the front runners are senator kamala harris, representative val demings and keisha lance bottoms, all very strong black women. How important do you think that is . We cant forget stacy abrams. Georgia, of course, but how important do you think that is . It is very important. We cant ignore, lets take how much black women help to impact the vote in 2016 in the most recent president ial election. We can all think of the role they played in the Senate Election in alabama. And help to elect doug jones. So black women have really been very much at the forefront in terms of notion of where i entered and suggested its so important. The black woman suggested the whole race would enter but i think i would even broaden that and say, when we uplift and give voice to black women, we empower a range of people and i think thats what the protesters show because you have the black lives Matter Movement catalyzing and energizing protests around the nation and world and concerned about the issue of violence against blacks in policing but then also a range of other issues have come forward. I wonder if you think the evolution of black women, how is the evolution of black men mirroring that or is it going in a different direction and not really on a parallel . Well, i just think that its important in my work, i have looked at black masculinity and actually, black masculinity was the Foundation Upon which i developed this project, because so often, black men have been set forth as being representative of the race and so thats one of the reasons that i started there. But i feel that there has to be that complementarity to see howw interlinked our struggles continue to be and intersectional approaches to advocacy and activism are crucially necessary and so even, say, for black men, who care about whats going on with black men, we have to understand the importance of recognizing breonna taylor, sandra bland, to say her Name Movement is so crucial. Professor richardson, we started with aunt jemima and moved on to a whole host of other topics. All i can say is i hope your class is one of those classes that cornell puts online for free so that i can pop in every once in a while. Great conversation. Youre most welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you too. Take care. Folks, were going to take a short break but thank you. Do we have time for the break . And were back. Thank you so much for joining us today on this interactive show. Getting answers. Hopefully you learned something from getting an inside look asa. Ats open in Contra Costa County and the changes you can expect. Well be here every day at 3 00 on air and on live stream. Answering your questions, facebook live, tonight, breaking news from atlanta. Two Police Officers now charged in the deadly shooting of rayshard brooks. The d. A. Before the cameras late today. Rayshard brooks shot twice in the back. Former officer Garrett Rolfe now facing 11 charges, including felony murder. Officer Devin Brosnan charged with aggravated assault. The d. A. Says brooks never posed a threat. One officer accused of kicking him after he was down. The other standing on his body. The d. A. Today saying the second officer has turned on the one charged with murder. But tonight, that officers Attorney Says thats not the case. Hes not agreed to testify, not agreeed to plead guilty and not agreed to be a states witness. As tonight, the abc news exclusive. Martha raddatz oneonone with