If you get a chance, I recommend watching Good Hair, Chris Rock’s documentary on black hair. I had no idea of the size and reach of the black hair industry ($9 billion/year, the majority of money spent on hair in the US), or the link between hair extensions and Hindu sacrifice.
Commenter Emily L. Hauser (ellaesther) has posted her take on it over at ABL’s place.
MikeJ
People who don’t know anything about the subject often think that people who put caustic chemicals on the heads of others for money shouldn’t be required to be licensed.
Foxhunter
@MikeJ:
What he said.
stuckinred
Fried, dyed and laid to the side! Do they mention Dixie Peach?
gene108
Hindi is a language. Hindu is a religion. Are you getting the two mixed up?
Ija
@MikeJ:
I wait for the day Matt Yglesias will turn full on glibertarian. I think it’s not long now.
stuckinred
Dixie Peach
schrodinger's cat
mistermix@top
A small correction
I think you mean Hindu, not Hindi.
Hindu: Practitioner of Hinduism
Hindi: Language spoken in northern India, also India’s national language
ETA: I see that gene108 got there first. Sorry for being redundant.
asiangrrlMN
Emily also posted it on her own site, FYI.
@schrodinger’s cat: And, from last night, cilantro tastes like soap to people who are allergic to it. Apparently, that would be me.
amk
Let me make that a trifecta. It’s Hindu not Hindi. The first a religion, the second a language.
mistermix
I fixed the Hindi reference – can’t ever seem to get that right.
DJShay
I loved this film. But what was really sad was that the majority of the black owned businesses that created and sold these products are now owned by multinational corporations.
gene108
@mistermix: What’s the link to Hindu sacrifices? I mean there’s not a lot of sacrificing in Hinduism, compared to the “good old days”, when every big prayer needed a sacrificial animal to be chopped up.
I guess it’s getting your head shaved at a temple and the where the temple sells the hair…
Is the hair imported from India or do they get it from U.S. Hindu temples?
amk
@gene108: Many Hindus offer to shave off their hair in temples as a sign of letting go one’s ego and thus a sacrifice. (Of course, with the usual prayers of “God make me rich”.) :)
There is a one big mountain temple in South India which is famed for thousands of people being tonsured everyday and the hair export from that temple is a big revenue earner.
Bondo
I have Good Hair ranked as my 12th favorite documentary of all time. Yeah, it is a good one.
I still think MattY has a point about licensing of barbers…legal liability would seem to be sufficient to make those offering potentially dangerous services seek suitable training.
schrodinger's cat
@asiangrrlMN: I can understand the cilantro hate, I used to hate cilantro as a little kid. Also a little cilantro goes a long way, as a garnish.
If you want to give cilantro a try, try it as a part of cilantro sauce, blend together cilantro, garlic, ginger, serrano pepperswith some water. Use as a marinade for fish or shrimp, cilantro goodness, without the soapy taste.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, my first reaction to the title “Good Hair” was “Is this a documentary about the current governor of Texas?”
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
mistermix
Thank you so much for this! I have been especially heartened by the discussion going on at ABL’s site and at my own (where it’s crossposted). I was nervous about putting it up — there are lines that have been crossed far too often by white America and I didn’t want to cross them myself — but I’ve been really touched by the reception it’s gotten (in Twitterville as well!).
At any rate, thanks!
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: You are not the only one, that was my first reaction too.
MikeJ
@Bondo: Why stop with barbers? Why not demolition crews who blow up buildings? Why not neurosurgeons?
Most people would like to prevent the harm before it happens rather than relying on 20 years in court to set a price for the damage after the fact.
gene108
@amk:
The temple is Tirupathi.
It is a very wealthy temple.
The deity in the temple, Lord Venkateswara, is supposed to return any offering 10 x, what is offered.
So if you put Rs. 100 (Rupees 100) into the Hundi (where donations are given at a Hindu temple), you should get Rs. 1,000 back.
If you ever go there, as you are walking in the queue to the main place where the deity is, you can see huge Hundi’s, which are hung from the ceiling, and people throw large sums of money and jewelry in.
Since many people get their head shaven at Tirupathi and Lord Venkateswara, when he went to the hill, where Tirupathi is built, claim to fame is promising Lord Kubera (Hindu god of money) that he’d pay Kubera 10 x the money he had to borrow for his wedding, people tend to focus on getting more money, when visiting Tirupathi.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
There you go, bringing sensible thinking into the argument, again. You will not last long as even an associate member of a Rand Paul fan club.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@DJShay: One of the interesting things about the documentary, to my mind, was the way that Rock managed to keep seeing all manner of sides to things.
Yes, much of the money spent goes back up to white-owned firms, but not all of it, and as Rock points out, lots and lots of small black-owned beauty shops, etc, are supporting families and paying bills and putting kids through college. As always, the issues get complicated the more you factor people into it….
It was really a fascinating film, any way you slice it.
geg6
Watched this film the other day and I’m still floored by it. My heart goes out to African American women so much. First, they are convinced (by terrible history and its never ending effects) that natural hair is a horrible thing and this from the moment they are aware of themselves as sentient beings. Then they go through torture and injury and endless chunks of time and money trying to reach some unreachable ideal. The straightening and extensions never really look real and don’t really fool anyone.
I found it a profoundly sad film. And don’t get me started on Matt Yglesias and his stupid libertarian bullshit on barber/beautician licensing. He got banned from my blogroll over this very subject a long time ago. Since he’s balding, I guess he’ll never get the pleasure of having his hair and scalp irreparably damaged by some unschooled colorist or stylist, so I can’t wish chemical burns on him. So I’ll just say I hope he goes and DIAF.
amk
@gene108: LOL. I see that I was preaching to the choir.
MikeJ
@gene108:
So that’s really the place to go to be circumcised.
greennotGreen
Also, since I’m white, Not My Business, but it’s not like natural black hair can’t be creatively coifed. It can be quite sculptural. I think *all* women of *all* colors should be encouraged to feel good about their natural bodies, but that would be devastating to the cosmetics and diet industries, wouldn’t it?
The Grand Panjandrum
Tangentially related to this is the subject of Church Hats. The pictures of these proud women in their church hats are just stunning.
gene108
@MikeJ: LOL! Interesting idea ;-)
akaoni
That video is heartbreaking. Especially the portions with the kids and the dolls.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Interesting, I did not know that. Don’t people (men) shave their heads if a close relative dies (parent or sibling) as a sign of being in mourning.
All this hair talk, brings to my mind, the significance various cultures attach to hair, especially woman’s hair. Whether it was Hindu widows who had to had their heads shaved (a barbaric practice which has thankfully fallen out of favor, in recent times) or Muslim women who cover their hair. Why does hair have so much subtext?
Darkrose
I haven’t seen Good Hair yet, but I kind of figure I’ve already lived it, from getting my ears burned with the hot comb as a child, to years of “relaxers” that were anything but, and finally, after a stress-related scalp problem, saying “screw this” and cutting my hair into a short natural. When I think about the amount of time and money I spent on my hair over the years, I want to cry.
The funny thing is that my mother went natural in the early ’70’s. I’m told that I was furious when she came home with her hair short. She thought it was hilarious when I went natural 20 years later.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: That was a truly idiotic argument. Didn’t EDK make it here, as well? I remember discussing this on Balloon Juice, am I imagining it?
monkeyboy
One thing about the “hippie era” is that many blacks wore their hair natural as a statement of principle.
Since then has there been backlash against natural hair because it was stigmatized as sign of being a DFH or that the natural wearers were considered some sort of elite?
mistermix
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I agree with this – Rock did a great job. It’s mainly sympathetic reporting on a cultural phenomenon, one that I knew nothing about, and one that’s basically ignored by mainstream media.
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, I think you’re right about EDK mentioning it here. Notice it’s never a woman who makes the argument that there should be no barber/cosmetology licensing? Men really are clueless about women and the shit we go through to look pretty. And most of that shit involves deadly chemicals, massive amounts of heat, and lots of pain even when done by the best.
LM
I watched it last week, thought it was a great documentary. I’ve never especially liked my hair but now when it swooshes, I’m grateful I didn’t have to sit nine hours in a chair and pay $1000 for a weave I can’t get wet or let people touch! And I never realized girls as young as two and three were getting their hair straightened. I understand wanting to be in style but what a heavy–and toxic and painful and expensive–burden.
Another documentary I thought would be meh but turned out to be terrific was Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. She’s so driven to work every minute that it borders on Oliver Sachs level tweaked.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: So true, not to mention tweezing eyebrows, waxing etc etc. Beauty is pain.
gene108
@LM: I didn’t know there was a Joan Rivers documentary out…she’s one of the more fascinating people to me in show business…
Really was a cutting a female entertainer 30-40 years ago, burned out, drugged out, drunk, and now has a steady gig at E!
ThresherK
Anyone else first learn of the subject via Spike Lee’s “School Daze”?
(Disclaimers: I’m white, Yankee, male, suburban, and grew up before the intertubes.)
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
There is a point what women do to look pretty is just to impress other women.
The shit with eyebrows and eye lashes is some sort of chick thing to impress other chicks.
I have yet to find a man, who spends any significant amount of time comparing the attractiveness of women based on their eyebrows or eyelashes.
If men even notice your eyebrows and eyelashes, I guessing there’s something hideously wrong with them or at the least you have a unibrow.
P.S. When I go to get my hair cut now, the women at Fantastic Sams keep asking me if I want to have my eyebrows trimmed. One of them went a trimmed them without even asking. I really don’t get the trim eyebrow thing.
P.P.S. Nose hairs I can understand trimming, but eyebrows…uhhhh…makes no sense…
Brachiator
@monkeyboy:
The “hippie era” overlapped the Civil Rights Era and Black Power Movement eras, but they were not the same thing.
Naturals weren’t really “natural,” but were a hairstyle. Hairstyle trends come and go.
@geg6:
OTOH, the cosmetics industry is a near universal thing. Women (and some men) in various cultures spends tons of money dyeing, curling, straightening, bobbing, and otherwise messing with their hair. I don’t know what kinds of stuff is used to make women into blondes, but it surely ain’t natural.
And what’s up with the shaved heads and wigs that some Hasidic women wear?
In the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries, hair straightening is a big deal, especially among some Latins with African ancestry. There is often a lot of anguish if hair which was straight in childhood begins to “kink up” in adolescence.
I’ll definitely add Good Hair to my movie rental list, though. Sounds really interesting. I’d heard about it, but didn’t get a chance to see it when it played in Southern California.
Does the film mention Madam CJ Walker? There is a Wiki note that “The Guinness Book of Records cites Walker as the first woman who became a millionaire by her own achievements,” a fortune built on the hair care industry.
jibeaux
The scene where the high school girls are talking and the others are saying to the cute girl with the really cute short-ish Afro that her doesn’t look very professional broke my heart. No one has ever copied my sense of style and never will, but I think a cute short Afro looks a hundred times better than someone trying to chemically tame their hair into some sort of a pageboy or other look that it just wasn’t made to have.
ruemara
I read what Emily/Ella wrote and was profoundly grateful for it. It’s amazing what the concept of “good hair” does in the black community. I’m mixed, both in culture and in hair texture. I’ve never had a good fro, I straighten as the seasons turn so that it’s so damn thick but I could care less about it not getting wet or anything else. Haven’t seen the documentary, but I’m going to add it to my queue.
Legalize
I liked this doc because I actually learned something about what a whole set of Americans actually deal with every day. I really knew little to nothing about the scope of “black hair,” from the burns the chemicals cause, and the young age that little girls get their hair relaxed, to the huge industry behind the whole thing – both at the huge corporate level and at the locally owned level. Chris Rock was a great tour guide through all of the facets of the story. He obviously had a perspective to start from, but even he seemed to learn interesting things along with the viewer.
Brachiator
Also too, Hair,
And Willow Smith, Whip My Hair
Chat Noir
Yes! I loved this documentary and I love Chris Rock. I bitch about my hair a lot, especially when it’s humid outside and I have frizz (my hair is much better when the air is dry). After watching “Good Hair,” I will bitch less often.
@Villago Delenda Est: Me too.
jibeaux
@Brachiator:
Do watch the Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young/Bruce Springsteen version on youtube next. Yes, it’s the same tune as Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young’s version of “Pants on the Ground”, but that’s o.k.
Darkrose
@jibeaux:
The sad thing is that it’s not just high school girls saying that natural hair is “unprofessional”:
“First slide up: an African American woman sporting an Afro. A real no-no, announced the ‘Glamour’ editor to the 40 or so lawyers in the room. As for dreadlocks: How truly dreadful! The style maven said it was ‘shocking’ that some people still think it ‘appropriate’ to wear those hairstyles at the office. ‘No offense,’ she sniffed, but those ‘political’ hairstyles really have to go.”
schrodinger's cat
@Chat Noir: I know what you mean, humidity is not my friend either, where hair is concerned.
Alwhite
I had an AA friend when I was in Elementary school(late 50’s early 60s). I went over to her house to play one day but her mom was ‘doing her hair’. The offered me to come in & chat since it was going to be awhile.
I am not sure I have recovered from what I witnessed. I had never heard of Madame Walker but the foul smelling discharge from that jar, the cries of a girl, maybe 8 or 9, the tears were well beyond anything I had experienced in my own home. I was completely ignorant of what she went through to have straight hair or why it might be ‘important’.
I was in high school before I really started coming to grips with what I saw going on and it still affects me to this day & how I view color in this country. I have not seen this movie yet but really want to.
Brachiator
@jibeaux:
Will do. Thanks for the tip.
Tony J
Topic related anecdote.
The significant other and I took a camping holiday along the Dordogne this summer and spent a few days in Bordeaux (very nice, do go). Had to pop down to the main train-station to arrange tickets for the inland section of the trip and walked back to the metro-stop through a few hundred yards of the ‘African district’.
There were maybe six or seven Beauty Salons in that short stretch, all of them loudly advertising their hair-straightening/straight-extensions services and competing to have the biggest poster of ‘Blond Beyonce’ in the window. Not one Afro-sporting model in sight.
So, not just an American phenomenon. The only people in Britain I see rejoicing in the “I get this look for free” structure of their hair folicles are a (small) minority of younger black guys, while the girls are uniformly smooth and straight or short, wet and straight.
I’d suggest Luke Cage should have a word, except that he’s gone all ‘blackball’ himself (Thanks a lot, Baldy Bendis). Time for Misty Knight to stand up for the ‘fro and give the youngsters a role-model with natural hair. Marvel Comics, get this woman a movie deal, stat.
jibeaux
@Darkrose:
Yeah, that’s completely ridiculous. I’ve heard a little about that kind of thing from a black friend with multiple types of cancer thankfully all in remission. Having lost her hair twice now to chemo she just keeps it short and natural and is grateful to have it, which she says people interpret as a political statement when it’s really just “I am alive and happy to have hair and I’ve had quite enough chemicals in my system, thank you.” She also said people tended to think she is lesbian. What a weird world.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@mistermix: Another fascinating piece for me was how clearly stunned and surprised he, himself, was. Starting from his very young, much beloved and oft-complimented daughter asking “Daddy, why don’t I have good hair” and finding himself smack in the middle of a black cultural phenomenon about which he had only the vaguest of clues (and he’s kind of made a career of knowing exactly what’s going on in his culture!).
asiangrrlMN
@schrodinger’s cat: No. My hatred for cilantro is complete. I will eat it because it’s omnipresent, but I won’t actively seek it out. And, yes, E.D. did do a post on barbers as well.
Beauty: Long, complicated relationship to the notion of feminine beauty. Both my cultures have a fetish for skinny women, and I am not skinny. Even when I was skinny, I wasn’t the stereotypical Chinese pretty type of woman. I don’t do any of the typical feminine things (shaving (I’m Asian. Not much hair. Plus, I get rashes when I shave), makeup, hair styling) in part because I’m lazy, but also because I don’t think I should have to. I’m not talking about basic hygiene or looking my best. I’m talking about all the garnishings. I will do it occasionally (lipstick, mostly), but not on a regular basis. I pretty much run a comb through my hair and go. It’s one benefit to having really long hair.
@gene108: Heh. I was bitching about having big feet and how hard it is not to find a shoe that didn’t exaggerate how big my feet were. My best friend said, “I did the same thing until X (her hubby) said, “No guy ever looked at a woman and said, “Man, she’s hot, but her feet are way too fucking big!””
PurpleGirl
@ThresherK: Didn’t learn about from Spike Lee but through a close friend and her trials involving how to fix her hair. It isn’t really nappy but a kind of semi-curl that didn’t grow evenly. She didn’t really like using hot combs or chemicals or such. But she couldn’t get a nice even natural either. She found one chemical that didn’t hurt too much and used that off-and-on and tried to grow her hair as long as possible so she could pull it back in barrettes. Over time, her hair sort of became nappier and she began wearing it more in a natural style.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@jibeaux: This makes me think of that high school girl who a few years ago recreated a famous experiment with black and white baby dolls.
Here’s the short version, with the sorrowful evidence of little black kids judging the white baby dolls more desirable and, in fact, “nicer” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDa0gSuAcg&feature=related
Here’s the longer version, where she also talks with other young women about the very struggle shown in that one brief Good Hair scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk_x7s3QiYk
As a mother, as a woman, as a human, both videos just about broke my heart.
mslarry
I loved the film too. Perhaps because I gave up on relaxing my hair about three years ago and I live in LA, so let’s just say I’m a radical chick for this. But the film also made me sad, as i it also reminded me that as a black woman I’m still very much an “other” even within my community. Also can I just say “the don’t touch a black woman’s hair thing” is true, true… Even in its natural state and when i’m dating guys who aren’t even black, DO.NOT.TOUCH.THE.HAIR. It’s ingrained in me.
I’m loving that white people have watched and enjoyed the movie. I think it’s a great way to talk about race and identity for everyone.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@ruemara: Oh, thank you so much for saying that! I have been really, truly, genuinely moved by the responses I’ve been getting from black readers. It’s a very touchy business, this business of being a white person observing black culture, and it’s been just so great to feel like I was able to touch a nerve, but do so with respect.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Oh and PS: Thanks for mentioning that, too! :) You, me, and hair. We go back a long way.
Tony J
@gene108:
Not just a woman thing. I get my hair cut by a 30-something Liverpudlian guy whose clientelle are mostly teenaged/20’s Scousers who want it “Short all over, mate. I’m out on the beer tonight”, and – every – time I go in he finishes the cut, picks up a trimmer and asks me – how – I’d like my eyebrows trimmed. Not if, just how.
FYI – I’m nearly 40, salt-and-pepper grey and developing a beer gut. I can only assume his expectation means that my demographic are not exactly strangers to the ‘styled eyebrow’ thing.
mistermix
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: That part didn’t surprise me, as a man, since we’re generally clueless about most feminine beauty rituals.
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, he had a posting on it and it was a long thread as I remember it. But I didn’t read too long into it because I don’t agree with the idea. I think most BJers disagreed with him.
asiangrrlMN
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Yeah, we do. Shampoo. Good times. Keep up the good work!
@PurpleGirl: Yes. Roughly 99% (number pulled out of my ass).
Darkrose
@jibeaux:
Yeah, I get that. I mean, the whole “short, fat chick in jeans and Birkenstocks/Docs holding hands with the other girl” is kind of a giveaway, but when I started going natural, I was dating boys. My (white) boyfriend was thrilled, both because he thought my hair looked better natural, and because it didn’t take me an hour to get ready to leave the house.
geg6
@mslarry:
Thanks for saying you’re glad that us white people are watching and enjoying. I have been a little afraid to talk about my feelings about this film for fear if stepping in where a white woman shouldn’t. But we’re all women and we all go through all kinds of bullshit to conform to whatever “beauty” is in our time. I just find it so much more poignant, what AA women go through. The history and the notions of beauty that are so attached to white “beauty” just break my heart.
catclub
@MikeJ:
I thought that MY was pointing out cases where City A has a licensing board and City B does not. Then he points out that City B does not _seem_ to have a great many problems with unlicensed barbers run amuck.
His conclusion is that the board primarily benefits the incumbents – not the consumer.
How wrong am I?
PurpleGirl
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: The thing is you wrote with a great deal of sensitivity and pain at what you learned. That came through in your posting. I read it over at your own blog first, but didn’t give much thought to it at the time. (I dunno what changed today.) Pam at Pam’s Blend has often remarked that she has a hard time getting discussions going in threads about things kinds of racial issues and wonders why. (I haven’t spent much time over at Pam’s Blend or Pandagon in a while though.)
Tony J
@Darkrose:
This.
My girlfriend is naturally mad curly, and back when she had long hair it used to be simplicity itself to get her out of the door and into an alcohol-positive establishment where any moisture just made it curlier and cooler. At least that’s what I thought, she, apparently, always wanted straight hair and took to spending a good hour in front of the mirror making it so, which I never understood.
Now she’s got it short and straight, and though the 1920’s English Public Schoolboy side-part looks great on her, every time any of her female friends sees an old photo of her with that massive explosion of sleek, black curls falling everywhere, they end up gobsmacked that she’d pay to have it any different. They’d all pay a fortune to get that look. Hell, I’d pay a fortune for it, and not just because my experiments in hair-growth have traditionally produced a cross between a fat John Lennon and the feline-looking Alpha Bee-Gee.
PurpleGirl
Oh, historically, the ancient Egyptians made kohl for outlining their eye lids and reduce the reflection of light. They shaved their heads and bodies and they wore wigs to handle problems with mites and bugs like lice.
Benjamin Cisco
Saw the film with Mrs. Cisco awhile back. We both loved it even though she is not a Rock fan.
geg6
@catclub:
The reason the city with no licensing board has fewer “problems” with hairdressers run amuck is that exactly who do you report those hairdressers to when they burn all the hair on one side of your head or turn your platinum blonde hair green?
MY is an idiot who knows less than nothing about this issue. I would never even consider a hairdresser without a license even though I don’t color or process my hair. There are also public health issues involved. I only want people with extensive training in all those things touching my body. And I want a regulatory body out there making sure such people have that training because the fucking magical market won’t do it. And never has, thus the reason such licenses were required in the first place. Thankfully, here in PA, you can’t practice without a license and there is a state agency that oversees such licensing so that all citizens are protected from asshats like MY.
MikeJ
People run amok, not amuck.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@PurpleGirl: I have to wonder if people are just tired, and wary especially of white folks who want to find a Magical Negro to Explain Black Society To Them (if you see what I mean).
Once the talk gets started though, it’s often so worth it!
(And thank you!)
@mistermix: It’s interesting though, since so much of what women do is thought to be for male approval, and our investment in it really is a form of social control (not only, not exclusively, but certainly in part) that winds up serving men’s interests — and yet men often have no idea. It’s a lose, lose!
burnspbesq
@DJShay:
Not sure why that’s sad. Should successful black entrepreneurs not be allowed to cash out and head for the beach, just like their white counterparts?
mslarry
@geg6:
I think talking is always a good thing and personally i’ve been surprised by how much the movie has touched my white female friends. As a black woman, I’ve always just assumed my white friends or boyfriends “just won’t get it” when it comes to race and so I don’t bring “it” whatever “it” is up. But given the responses I’ve read on this thread, maybe I will next time. :)
Mnemosyne
Being a sheltered white girl from the Midwestern suburbs, I first ran into this when I had an AA roommate in college whose hairdresser would come to our apartment with the relaxer and hot comb while I kept an eye on her four-year-old (a really adorable kid who almost made me want one of my own).
My roommate usually wore her hair in the standard-issue pageboy, and one time the hairdresser talked her into letting her leave part of it curly. It was flat in front and then fell into really pretty curls at the back and it was a really flattering look.
And my roommate hated it. Hated it. Couldn’t wait until she could get it straightened again. I asked her why, and the only way she could explain it was, “It looks too ethnic.”
From everything I can gather from conversations and popular culture, it does seem that the closest equivalent for white women is weight. It’s the thing you constantly have to watch to make sure it’s not getting out of control, it’s the thing that bugs you first thing in the morning and last thing at night, it’s the thing that convinces you that strangers are staring at you and judging you even though most of them probably don’t even notice. It’s the thing that can get you fired from a job if you don’t conform.
burnspbesq
@ThresherK:
Earlier in my career, I had a colleague who had been in a sorority at Howard. She said Spike nailed it.
MikeJ
@catclub: I have heard very few complaints about unlicensed neurosurgeons. Obviously this means they the idea of mandatory medical school for them is just a way to stifle competition.
Suffern ACE
@catclub: Of course it benefits people who already have licenses.
Is there some kind of crisis in hair cutting and styling in the US that I am unaware of? Has it become so overburdened with rules and regulations and shortages that only the wealthy have access? Are the licenses in such short supply and tightly held that only through bribery and cronyism is one able to get a haircut?
I thought his real beef was that the neighborhood committee wouldn’t let a bar open up near where he lives.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
It probably seems that way because cosmetologists are licensed by the state, not the city. It’s possible that some cities have additional requirements, but that’s an add-on to the state license, not a substitute.
If MY is so ignorant that he thinks licensing is done by cities and not the state, no wonder he keeps saying such idiotic things.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
btw,
Did anyone see how fine Michelle Obama looked last nite on the Kennedy Center Honors program.
Daaamn — Barack is winner!
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Just read your post on ABL’s blog. Thanks for writing about this with such sensitivity. I stopped using relaxers in my hair seven years ago (after I developed a small bald spot from what I assume was a chemical burn) and went natural. First I wore a really short ‘fro. I got quite a few compliments with that look actually. Then I wore my hair in braided extensions until it was long enough to lock (about an inch). I got no negative reaction from friends and family until I said I was going to get dreadlocks. My mom nearly passed out. The funny thing is she never let me wear my hair anything but natural until I was 16 and on my own, but locks were a bridge too far ;). She wears a short fro. I got teeny tiny Sisterlocks (about 500 locks) when I lived in Boston and have never looked back. They looked great short – I let them stick right up in a lock-fro. They are now shoulder length and I can wear them straight or curly (looks like the Boston.com image above from behind when I go for the curly look) or braided or cornrowed. Freedom – and everyone loves them. My mom heaved a sigh of relief when she finally saw them. I don’t know what she imagined they’d look like. Probably this.
Original Lee
Thanks for posting about this. I definitely want to see the documentary now. Having grown up in whitebread Midwest Middleofnowheretown as a white child with hopelessly straight hair, I had no clue for many many years, even after moving to an urban area. My daughter’s friends were the ones that gradually opened up to me about this. My daughter prefers to wear her hair long, and when she was little, she wore it in two long braids. Her friends would beg to come over to our house and they would spend hours on her hair, but never on their hair. Their hair was never to be touched except in very superficial ways. They would talk about how many hours they spent getting their braids done, or about how they needed to schedule their homework around their weekly hair appointments. The day we had a swimming party and all the careful styling went out the window was the most revealing one to me – I actually paid one mother $50 because her daughter’s hair needed to be redone for church after swimming in our pool. But other than occasional compliments, I totally leave the topic alone unless they bring it up first, because it’s Not My Business.
mike in dc
Great film. I wonder how many white guys in interracial relationships help their significant others cut/remove their extensions. I’ve done it for my wife at least a dozen times. I always marvel at how elaborate and tight the threading is, and think about the hours my wife spends every couple months getting her hair “done did.” But she can wear it any way she wants and it’ll still be be-yoo-tiful to me.
gypsy howell
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Wonderful post over there. You’ve inspired me to see the film.
Gina
My biracial daughter, 9, and I are still navigating these treacherous waters. I commented over on ABL, am glad to see the subject here too.
I’m white, and had “bushy” hair most of my life, and hated it. I felt very cheated that I could never get a smooth Dorothy Hamill cut and have it look like anything other than a sad fuzzy mushroom head. When I got to adulthood and lived in a majority black neighborhood with salons every other door on every block, I learned a lot about what high maintenance hair can really mean. Making black female friends really brought home the reality of the time, money and serious freaking PAIN that go into heavy-duty hairdos.
Fast forward to my daughter being born. When she was a toddler, her hair was pretty much the same as mine was as a kid, known territory. As she gets older, it gets kinkier in texture – the Andre Walker scale would put her at about a 4a, with some 4b and 3c thrown in to keep things from getting boring.
From what I’ve seen and learned from adult black women friends, I decided early on that no way in hell was I going to relax DD’s hair. But keeping it natural, even for a little kid, has generated some negative responses that I work hard to shield DD from – “Mommy, what did that lady mean my hair was ‘nappy’?”, as well as really unhelpful advice to ignore DD’s discomfort due to her being ‘tender headed’ and just to make her sit through hot combs, or Dominican straightening (wash, comb out tangles – lots of pain there – set with rollers, sit under hot dryer, then using hottest setting on dryer blow sections bone straight, yes, it burns the hair and smells horrible, and once she gets it wet or perspires, it’s all gone.)
In my Albany NY area, I can’t find any salons that are specifically geared toward natural black hair, so I get what info I can from the internet, learn to smile and thank the perm-pushers for their concern, and just try to muddle through without driving DD or myself totally insane. (any natural care info much appreciated!) I’m still working to find something that doesn’t take forever (less than 4 hours would be lovely), and that lets her just be an active, athletic kid without all the hairdo baggage. Happy Girl Hair seems like a promising blog about caring for kids natural AA hair, I’m just shocked the videos show the kids sitting happily and quietly – something to aim for!
catclub
@geg6:
Mnemosyne made my point for me. “cosmetologists are licensed by the state, not the city.”
Thus MYglesias complaining about CITY licensing boards is that they are simply protecting the people who already have licenses. NOT improving safety of consumers by making sure that cosmetologists are trained and licensed.
jh
My older sister has been a hair stylist specializing in natural hair for over a decade. The salon where she works in downtown Brooklyn does all kinds of hairstyles, from weaves to locs and everythign in between.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to be a fly on the wall to many conversations, crises and epiphanies black women have had about their hair.
Most of the shop’s customers aren’t there to get natural hairstyles, instead, they come week in and week out to have their hair relaxed, straightened or whatever other procedures are central to their beauty ritual.
I’ve had some truly heartwrenching experiences over the years in that shop, mostly by women who don’t think they are beautiful or attractive if their hair isn’t straight.
One thing I heard a lot of is “I would go natural but my man wants my hair straight“.
I even hear from my sister’s customers that men often “request” that they straighten their hair.
What we are witnessing with the persistence of the “good hair” is the effects of prolonged and relentless psychological conditioning. It is the byproduct of a perverse value system that attaches worth to a subjective attribute like physical attractiveness, and measures that against an unattainable; even for most white women, ideal.
One need only follow the money to ascertain why such a damaging state of affairs would be allowed to continue.
Darkrose
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Wow, those are gorgeous! Almost makes me want to investigate my options around here.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
One eensy problem, though — there are no city licensing boards for cosmetology, at least not in Los Angeles.
Please link us to these mystery licensing boards MY was criticizing that Google can’t seem to find.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Oh my, that second link cleared my sinuses! Yes, I imagine she had some image like that in mind…!
I think the lock-fro sounds adorable, frankly. I wish you had a link to that!
I will say that I have always hesitated a bit to compliment black women on their hair when it’s obvious that they’ve decided to go natural. I remember back when a particular model (can’t think of her name) became very popular — she’s African-born, came here as a teenager, is fucking gorgeous, and has very dark skin and strong features, and I remember hearing complaints from the black community that the white-dominated fashion world liked her because she was so “primitive” and/or “exotic” looking.
Which kind of horrified me at the time (a. no, it’s just that she’s just gorgeous and b. she looks how she looks – that’s “primitive”?) but also sort of understanding and even seeing the point — the majority culture often does prefer their minorities to appear exotic, other, and (yes) primitive. So I worry, a little, that that’s what black women might hear when a white woman compliments their natural hair.
But then I try to let go of it, and just give the compliment, because honestly, I fucking overthink everything, and, end of the day, a compliment is a nice thing to get.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@gypsy howell: Thank you very much! It’s much worth it. (It’s also funny, btw! I mean: Chris Rock!)
Mnemosyne
@jh:
With apologies to the men who post here who think they don’t do it, that’s absolutely my experience. They say, “Why don’t you go without makeup?” but when you do, they say, “What did you do? You look like you’re sick.”
What they want is for you to go to the effort and not tell them about it.
Bubba Dave
@MikeJ:
You owe me a new keyboard. You can pay for it with the Internet you won.
Gina
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): DD loves the look of the teeny Sisterlocks. Is it hard (or possible) to maintain on your own? To my knowledge, there’s no salon locally that does them, we’d have to travel to NYC. The expense is daunting, and I’d love to hear more about how the process works – basically, I don’t do microbraids now because I don’t want to see breakage and bald spots. I’m pleased to say, my devotion to her scalp and hair health has paid off, man is it THICK and super healthy and long. Which makes it quite the management issue ;-) (she does gymnastics, and likes to swim so we’re looking for long-lasting, easy to maintain, turn into a ponytail and not worry about getting wet.)
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
My mistake on cities – which was due to MYglesias using Washington DC as an example.
How about this one:
“Barbers are totally unregulated in the United Kingdom, is there some social crisis resulting from this? Barber regulations differ from state to state, are the stricter states experiencing some kind of important public health gains? “
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
He’s still wrong, because barbers in the UK are not totally unregulated. They’re self-regulated.
Unless you want to claim that lawyers and doctors are totally unregulated because they’re regulated by their state Bar Associations and medical boards and not by the state government, his statement is still idiotic and completely fact-free.
Belvoir
About the Hindu haircutting ritual. Last year I was reading about the custom, in some super-Orthodox Jewish communities in NY and elsewhere, for some women (of a certain age perhaps?) to wear wigs. Because showing one’s own hair is seen as immodest, but a wig is all right, or accepted. Much of the hair for the wigs comes from India, specifically from the haircutting sacrifice at Hindu temples. Apparently this is controversial in the Orthodox community, that the involvement of the Hindu makes the wigs unkosher, unacceptable. It’s a touchy topic, an Orthodox acquantance confirmed for me.
But they are preferred to synthetics by the ladies who wear them; apparently Indian hair is prized for its lustre and..wait for it, in context of this thread… straightness, sigh. Sort of confirming the bias for straight or straightened hair that persists, alas.
@Grand Pajandrum: I read Crowns a while ago, fascinating book. There were several black churches in my SF neigborhood, and seeing the ladies in their Sunday best, with the Church Hats, was always a joy.
Alwhite
@asiangrrlMN:
Actually, there is a Fats Waller tune “Her Feets Too Big”
DOn’t remember it all but parts –
Yes, your feets too big
Don’t want ya, cause ya feets too big
Can’t use ya, cause ya feets too big
I really hate ya, cause ya feets too big
Don’t want cha, cause ya feets too big
Mad at you, cause your feets too big
Your pedal extremities really are obnoxious
Never knew where that came from, I assumed it was just being silly
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Agreed. Its not that they don’t care, they just don’t want to know.
P.S. Probably not true of all men, I am sure there are exceptions.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I took the precaution of never wearing makeup except when I am forced to for social occasions, so G thinks I look strange with it on because he’s used to my bare face. :-)
(I can get away with it because I have rosacea and insanely sensitive skin that means an automatic breakout whenever I wear makeup, so I have a medical excuse if anyone tries to make me do it.)
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
One lock-fro pic here. I wish I had more.
@Gina: They are hella expensive to start, which is why I waited several years. It’s like a crochet technique. Many wearers learn to maintain them on their own (I haven’t yet), but it might be too much for a kid. There seems to be one person who does them in Albany. Most people balk at the price (I did initially) but they work for me and I think they’re worth it.
Sounds like you’ve done a great job with your daughter’s hair. I did wear larger box braids for years and learned to do those myself – avoiding the traction alopecia problem (it’s hard to pull your own hair too tight). That might be a good option for her if she likes those.
Gina
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Thanks for the info. It seems pretty excessive for a little kid, but then I look at the misery and money we’ve spent on fail-tastic options and can *almost* rationalize it :-) I think it’ll be a good option when she’s older, hitting teen years.
Right now I can do some simple braids, but even the washing and sectioning are tortuous. The best bet so far is keeping her hair sopping wet, and with lots of slippery conditioner, using a smooth wide toothed comb and just hoping I can get enough done before she freaks out on my ass. Needless to say, the results aren’t exactly stellar, but at least it’s clean and healthy.
Steeplejack
Good Hair is just starting now on HBOZ. It will be shown at 1:30 p.m. EST tomorrow on HBO.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Like I said: Adorable!
It sounds like you’re enjoying it longer, too, though, so that really is the best of all worlds. Options!
Phoebe
@gene108: Ha. You have no idea. You might think that done eyebrows are the little pencil thin jobs, but you really have no idea what the before and after are. Some of it’s subtle, and the effects are subliminal. You do not know what got plucked, a lot of the time.
This reminds me of guys who say they hate make-up, but they really mean they don’t like too much of it. Because if you wear a little, then one day don’t, they tend to say something like, “you look tired, are you ok?” when you’re not tired and are perfectly ok.
But it’s OK!
Also: article was great.
asiangrrlMN
@Alwhite: See! My feet ARE too big!
@Mnemosyne: I don’t wear any makeup either. I could say it’s because of my sensitive skin, but it started as a statement back in the day, and then I realized that I really didn’t want to wear makeup–except for lipstick on occasion.
Anne Laurie
@Alwhite: __
I was told that the “feets” in question were a… double entendre. Because for women, the paleolithic jokes about pedal extremities indicating genital capacity are, shall we say, less admiring.
Karen
I saw that movie for the second time yesterday and I learned so much. My girl friend relaxes her hair and I told her she looked pretty when her hair was au natural but she refused to even consider that.
Up until I saw the movie, I couldn’t see how she could spend so much money to go to the hairdresser every week.
It saddens me that she was taught by her experiences and society that her hair isn’t “good” enough.
What I find very amusing is all the girls with “good hair” pay to make their hair curly. Those perms are just as harmful as relaxer.