For brothers, getting a recent lower on the common is a part of our customary working process. Whether or not you go to Midtown Barbershop (6406 Tierwester St, Houston, 77021), Beautiful Barber & Magnificence Bar (21502 Aldine Westfield Rd., Humble, 77338), BlackStar Barbers & Books (17675 TX-249, Houston, 77064), the place Defender Digital Content material Supervisor/Sports activities Editor Terrance Harris will get his doo did, or any of the Houston-area Black barbershops, getting your stuff lined up, freshening up that fade, or ensuring your beard is on level, is sort of as important as water.
However what in regards to the brothers who can’t take pleasure in that have so many people take with no consideration?
Take, as an illustration, Black males who’re at present and/or chronically unhoused (homeless). Misplaced within the actuality of those brothers missing a roof over their heads and common entry to meals, together with a myriad of different challenges, is the truth that a easy haircut that does a lot to raise Black males’s spirits, is one other casualty to their unhoused actuality.
Enter Christian Khammany, an area barber who dedicates a lot of his break day the clock to reducing heads on the streets of downtown Houston.
“I don’t at all times carry money on me. So, one factor I do at all times keep it up me is my clippers.That’s the place I thought of it. I used to be, like, yeah, perhaps I ought to begin reducing their hair.”
Barber Christian Khammany
For the previous yr, Khammany actually units up a desk with all his head-cutting tools and chair in Houston’s downtown nearly each Monday and Tuesday.
The Gen Zer has been reducing heads for a decade now, along with his coaching coming from self-taught classes of trial and error, which started when he was 14. The Houston transplant obtained the thought to serve the homeless along with his head-cutting abilities within the midst of some soul-searching that had him searching for methods he may develop into a greater individual. Then, whereas driving by means of Houston’s downtown, he discovered his reply.
Figuring out how vital the barbershop expertise is for Black males and seeing homeless brothers on the streets merely attempting to outlive, Khammany surmised he may use his clipper abilities so as to add a shiny spot to the robust days the unhoused expertise on the common.
“I don’t at all times carry money on me. So, one factor I do at all times keep it up me is my clippers,” Khammany informed KHOU. “That’s the place I thought of it. I used to be, like, yeah, perhaps I ought to begin reducing their hair.”
One factor Black barbers and their clients have mentioned since clippers first began making fades pop is a haircut makes a brother really feel like a brand new man. And it was with that spirit that Khammany started his distinctive “giving again” journey.
“Possibly I could make a change within the homeless neighborhood, you realize, with the present that God gave me, which is reducing hair,” he mentioned.
So, regardless that Khammany cuts hair seven days per week, he nonetheless dedicates time on two of these days to enterprise downtown and provide edge-ups or no matter these downtown residents request, and does so till the clippers run out of juice.
“God gave me every part that I can ask for so far as success, household, love, happiness and every part else. So, I felt the necessity to give again to the neighborhood,” Khammany mentioned, who hopes his instance will encourage others to make use of no matter skills they must deliver gentle to somebody in want.
“I need to affect the youthful folks to do one thing good for the neighborhood and do one thing to be a greater individual themselves… [It] makes me really feel good that I can change lives one haircut at a time.”
(supply: KHOU.com)
