Disrupting the Status Quo, with Sara Green
Sara Green is a mother, a partner, an entrepreneur, a singer, a painter, an all-around creative. She is an introvert and an empath. Sara would describe her journey as being bumpy with the all-encompassing ebbs and flows life has handed her, however, today she finds herself in a place of peace. Acceptance of the good, the bad and the ugly have taught her how to find balance in her life.
If I were to describe Sara in one word it would be, soulful. She has the biggest heart, and she is a beautiful woman inside and out. Sara is the type of human you want walking beside you through life. She is soft hearted, intuitive, compassionate and wildly creative. Sara’s power comes from deep within her soul, she is as sincere as they come and a voice that I am truly proud to participate in amplifying. As a collective, we need to hear more from people and women like Sara. Over the past number of months while navigating through these unprecedented times throughout the pandemic and the heightened emotions and awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement, this time has involuntarily allowed Sara to slow down and connect with gratitude on a deep level. She has a new perspective and an appreciation for self-care and self-reflection. Today, she feels comfortable and confident in her own skin more than ever before. Her heart is full.
Sara is originally from Grand Bahama Island, popularly known as Free Port. When her sister was born, she and her family moved to Canada. Sara was raised in Hamilton, Ontario and now lives in Burlington, Ontario with her partner and 13-year-old son. Sara visits her family and friends back home as often as possible. She and her community have contributed significantly to hurricane relief over the years. Collectively, they raised $19,000 and they even drove a Uhaul to Florida and took a ship to Bahamas to deliver supplies to those in need.
“I never imagined I would see the day when change seems possible. Stand up for every single person you know, and who you love.”
Sara comes from a family of entrepreneurs. Her mother started a group home for brain injury children, then went on to become a yoga instructor and painter. Her Uncle owns a building company and her sister owns Bodega Wellness. And Sara is the proud owner and operator of the very successful beauty bar, Dollface. Prior to opening her business, Sara worked in the hair and makeup industry, but her goal was always to work independently and build an empire that she could make her own. She found her way into the lash business unexpectedly as saw an opportunity in the market. Sara loved the idea of going somewhere beautiful where clients could have a memorable experience. Her vision blossomed from there and it has turned into something truly special.
Sara started her company at home before moving into her first salon after only six months in business. With the help of social media and maintaining her organic vision, she stayed true to herself and the brand grew rapidly. “When things grow quickly you have bumps in the road, and it has been the greatest learning experience”. Sara is often asked if she has considered adding other services to her brand, but she’s always appreciated businesses who specialize in one particular offering. Because of that, Sara didn’t want to be an all stop beauty shop. She says being able to focus on the one thing that she is so passionate about is wonderful, a dream come true.
“A lot of what I do stems from that internal instinct. What would I want? What would I do? What am I looking for? And with that type of mentality, likeminded people will enjoy it. I’m not trying to serve everybody. Our client understands and appreciates that Dollface isn’t just about lashes, it is an environment for women (I say that because we’ve only had one male client). It’s somewhere you can go and form a relationship with your stylist, and that is so special. The thing about lashes is you’re laying down with your eyes closed so you’re automatically in that therapeutic position where there’s no form of judgement.”
Sara has experienced racism as a child and as an adult, she’s experience racism from her clients, staff, and members within her community. Her first memory of racism was riding the bus to school with her sister. She remembers seeing kids push crayons into the back of her sisters hair and feeling them being pushed into the back of her own hair. As a young person, she felt a constant need to fit in. When she discovered her passion for music, she wanted to be in her school plays. She was exceptionally talented, yet she was never cast in a leading role. She vividly remembers her music teacher laughing at her for auditioning, and it didn’t end there. As a teenager, she was followed by store clerks, pretending they were working around her, when really, she knew they were watching her. “It’s like because I was black, I was going to steal something. That stuck with me and it still happens to me today.” Sara’s son is biracial, and he is currently going through the stage of, am I black or am I white? Friends tell him he’s not black enough. So, he’s experiencing his own version of what Sara went through. Sara and her family are focused on teaching him the new world. A world where you speak your mind, and you stop people from making you or others around you hurt or uncomfortable.
As a black female business owner, people continue to look surprised, even shocked, when they find out Sara is the owner of Dollface Beauty Bar. The little reaction of surprise or shock happens more often than not. Sara often wonders if customers expect that she be dressed in a suit jacket to make it known this is her business. These are the undertones of racism; polite racism. Sara hopes that people out there are asking themselves the tough questions. Questions like, did I disrespect this person, did I look at this person differently because of their skin colour, did I discriminate in the past? Sara believes if people are asking these types of questions and truly facing themselves, this is the only way we’re going to more forward as people.
Society constantly reminds Sara to act a little “more white”. For example, if she were to wear her hair straight people would likely take her more seriously. She understands most people don’t intentionally hold these types of beliefs, but she feels that judgement in a very deep way. Sara always struggled to find a hair stylist. She was told by two different salons in Toronto when she called to get a blow out, that they don’t work with her type of hair. She would think to herself, but it’s a hair salon. These experiences always bothered her, but as she continued to shrug it all off the layers piled on. Because of the belief system we’ve all subscribed to Sara buried her feelings for most of her life. All she wanted was to be downtown and get her hair done with her friends, but she couldn’t. As humans, when we look at our past and at our trauma, once we connect the dots and figure it all out, each experience contributes to the insecurities we all carry around with us.
“I wouldn’t be here had I not gone through this really dark time and really allowed the pain to sink in. This time allowed the trauma to come to the surface.”
When the world experienced the loss of George Floyd, the anger and sadness was overwhelming for Sara and her family. Sara was overwhelmed by the amount of people who were reaching out to her. She felt pulled in so many different directions emotionally that she wanted to get her feelings out, so she chose to share them publicly. On June 3, 2020, Sara posted a very powerful video on her social media platform. The response to this post was positive in the sense that she felt the love and support from her community, as she has always had a feeling of discomfort being a black business owner in Burlington. But she doesn’t dwell on things, she’s tried to stay focused on moving forward. However, while reflecting, there were moments of anger because Sara knew she had been constantly trying to hide who she was and to look a certain way so that more people would respect her as a business owner. This was hard to process and undo. Sara understands this is the deep underlying reason why so many people have to suffer in silence. Because they’ve never felt like they could say anything. Publicly sharing her experience was empowering and a release, it was honest.
Sara knew it was important that she express her experience with racism. She wanted to give those people who love her the opportunity to hold compassion for her. And to turn something on that would allow others to absorb the information differently. She says that by sharing, it took the lens off of everyone around her and it allowed her to see people for who they are and why they were in her life. “In that sense it was freeing because I needed to disconnect from a lot of things that were constantly re-traumatizing me without realizing that it was happening.” This experience gave Sara her power back, and she will never go backwards from here. Sara continues to hold space for those who respect her regardless of her hairstyle and how she chooses to use her voice. She feels that she is in a much better place now in feeling secure in herself. Self-love and self-acceptance have changed her outlook on things completely.
“I wouldn’t be here had I not gone through this really dark time with a lot of people around the world and really allowed that pain to sink in. This time allowed the trauma to come to the surface. You can’t dwell on things you just have to move forward. But it made me stronger, I am resilient because of these experiences. The people in my circle are my tribe. They get me, we’re on the same page, we don’t need to bombard each other with anything, we’re there for each other when we need each other. The outer circle is gone now, I don’t even acknowledge it, and it’s not in a negative way it’s just I only do what feels authentic. This was part of my lesson and my inner work without being asked to or forced to. It comes from a place of love; I finally love myself and I give my love to the people who get it.”
Photography by, Robyn Russell
It is time for us to disconnect from learning through the internet and start learning internally from ourselves. That goes for everything, including how the pandemic has changed us and coming together as a collective to support the Black Lives Matter movement. There is still a force that exists to continue the divide. When we’re constantly scrolling for information from the many platforms available to us, we’re not doing the work of bringing it into our own real everyday lives. We allow it to live in our heart only when we’re watching it unfold on a screen. A social media post cannot be how we check off our work for the day. There are still a lot of people relying on what they see online and that’s a problem.
Doing something real outside of your phone like reading a book on black history or having conversations at home, that’s the important work that will ultimately move the dial and create real and honest change. We must work towards bringing it into our homes and having an out loud conversation. Don’t get all of your information from the internet. If you do know someone who is a person of colour, have a conversation with them. It will change how you look at things. That is what we can continue to do to make it a real-life thing as opposed to an internet thing. It’s us as people. We have to do the work individually. This is not about Instagram and Facebook. It’s about the people sitting at our kitchen table, and our next-door neighbour and every person we meet in a restaurant or on the street.
“I never imagined I would see the day when change seems possible. Please stand up for every single person you know, and you love. Stand up now and please don’t swipe because it makes you uncomfortable and you’re sick of hearing about it or because you’re tired of being bombarded with Black Lives Matter posts.” –Sara Green