This morning was one of those moments when I just don’t know what to think. I usually watch the local Fox morning news. Mainly because it’s the only local news cast on weekday mornings in Dallas. And there really isn’t much of the partisan politics that the Fox network usually gets accused of on the morning show. Mostly it’s a classic morning news show: stodgy, older anchor; perky, young co-anchor; whacky traffic guy, etc. They do live shots from elementary schools, say “happy birthday” to little kids and older folks, and tell you if you need to carry your umbrella. Honestly, at 7:30 in the a.m., I don’t really care what’s happening outside of my own Metroplex. I’ll catch up on CNN after work.
But this morning, they were talking about the movies opening for the weekend, and one of the flicks mentioned was Chris Rock’s doc “Good Hair.” And I don’t want to say that the two anchors sounded exactly prejudiced. But my spidey senses started kind of tingling at the really dismissive manner they treated the movie’s subject. I don’t like to call “racist” without some damned good evidence. But it was like one of those moments where you’re talking to a group of people that you thought you knew, and the conversation takes a weird turn talking about race, or sexuality, or nationality, and you’re suddenly wondering if in a minute or two you’re going to have to take a stand. You’re not exactly ready to jump on your high horse, but you might want to check the saddle girth, just in case.
I’m lucky in that I’ve had black girlfriends that I’ve been close enough to in order to ask the stupid questions about black hair. “What’s with that really thick conditioner, dreads, straightening? What’s a conk? What does nappy mean? How long does it take to do braids?” And for all of those friends, hair has been anywhere from a moderate issue to a great big emotional thing. I don’t know anyone who was black and female for whom hair was no big deal. It always seems to mean something. Me, I’ve always thought that if I was black, I’d wear one of those cute little natural ‘dos that Shari Belafonte used to rock back in the 80s. But I’ve known very few black women who’ve chosen either the afro or braids. And given what a costly, time-consuming and potentially painful choice straight hair is, there’s obviously some heavy emotion at play if so many people chose it. Certainly not something I would expect two public figures to make light of.
But not everybody has the chance to ask a good friend a potentially embarrassing question in a safe environment. And given that two presumably well-educated and clued-in newscasters acted pretty condescending about something that they appeared to know very little about, I’d say that if “Good Hair” is a movie that can be that explains “good hair” to white people the way that black friend they’ve never had would, then it deserves to be on at least two people I could name’s must see list.
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5 comments:
The WaPo had a good article last weekend and interviewed about six black women about their personal feelings and experience with their own hair. It was pretty enlightening. One young lady commented that she thought black hair was the best because she has so many more options (dreds, braids, cornrows, afro, straightened, permed, etc.) that we do. I never thought about it that way. How many white women can carry off cornrows(other than Bo Derek)?
I had various black roomies in college and I have a much better understanding of what black women go through to get their hair done.
The African American community is also busy discussing how Michelle Obama wears her hair, which is probably why Chris Rock decided to make this movie at this time. Those newscasters should be more aware of things.
I had always had the short afro as my imaginary black hair, until I recently saw this woman with braids that were in this gorgeous half-up 'do. Very modern, yet somehow vaguely Victorian. Amazing. I so wanted her hair. But three words - Juliette, Lewis, Cornrows. Enough said.
Of course, you really run into that "things white people like" trap of "having black friends", but sometimes you just want to tell other white people, "Dude, go out and meet a few people (black, gay, Jewish, muslim, even just a little bit not like you), just so you don't sound dumb." Ya know?
to be able to do cornrows well, you have to be able to do bald well - all about good head shape -not for me clearly
think I'd go with dreds -may still do that in my dotage
I would consider dreads, but I've heard that the amount of sheer cussedness it takes to get caucasian hair to lock is monumental. Not something I'm up for. I'm thinking my senior hair plan is to get a Flo-Bee and some Mrs. Stewarts hair bluing.
My hair "locks" on me every night causing half-hour+ detangling every morn - think I got that part sussed.'
I'm with you on the hair-bluing too - did you see Whip It yet? The scene on the Austin bingo bus has some rad hair colors.
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