Good Hair

Recently I watched Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair. It was an interesting exploration of African American hair culture with of course a bit of humor added in. At the start, Chris Rock reveals his motivation for making the documentary stemmed from his daughter telling him that she wished she had “good hair”. He decided to look into what that actually meant.

  As someone who’s never considered herself to have “good hair” some of the viewpoints expressed by the black women really resonated with me. Also as we look towards a second adoption in the future with the wonderful possibility of having a black girl enter our family, understanding the culture around black hair becomes extremely important. What comes across in both the documentary and in main stream culture is a woman’s desire to have princess hair. You know, the long, flowing thick straight or slightly wavy hair of Disney princesses Ariel, Belle, or Cinderella.

 I have thin, bone straight hair. There is no natural wave and if left to its own devices, my hair will just hang straight and limp. I need to wash it once a day otherwise it looks wet it’s so greasy. So, yeah, I have never thought that I have “good hair”. Taking a walk down memory lane, I have tried countless numbers of hair styles in an attempt to achieve the elusive “good hair”. There was the perm phase which just ended up in somewhat curly, frizzy hair. Then there was the invention of the crimper. This was an awesome 80s invention that allowed you to have totally fake looking tight waves. Crimped hair went nicely with a side pony tail and wave of the bangs. In high school, I tried the Gwyneth Paltrow hairstyle from the Sliding Doors movie. This was a short hair style similar to the horrible John and Kate Plus 8 hairstyle that Kate Gosselin rocked at the start of the show. I think this hairstyle actually suited me somewhat until I got a trim and a new hairstylist shaved the back of my head. I guess you have to be specific when you specify that you want the back short. I meant short, not shaved. I think I actually got a discount on that one after crying in the salon chair.  There was also the Jennifer Aniston circa Friends layered look which unfortunately looked somewhat mullet like on me. I now know that a lot of layers just done work that well with my hair. When you start cutting off layers, you aren’t really left with much underneath. In my 20s and now into my 30s, I’ve come to an acceptance with my hair. I’ve had it short and longer. It looks okay. I don’t think I’ll ever think it looks amazing, except for the hair style I had for my wedding day, but unfortunately, I don’t have my own private hair stylist at the ready every morning when I get up. But, I guess that’s what happens as you get older, you come to accept who you are and embrace it (this might still be a bit of a work in progress for me).

  So back to the documentary, I found it interesting to learn about some of the different ways black women style their hair. There is the relaxer which is what appears to be a nasty chemical that straightens and relaxes hair. Chris Rock spoke with a professor of chemistry who demonstrated the ability of sodium hydroxide, the key ingredient in hair relaxers, to dissolve an aluminum can in a few hours. He interviewed women and children as young as three or four who use this on their hair. Now, it’s easy for me to criticise the use of such a strong chemical on your body, but with everything that I’ve tried with my hair, if there had been a magical chemical that would have thickened my hair, I’m sure I would have tried it. Chris Rock also looked into the weave industry. Hair, mostly from temples in India where women are shaving their head for religious purposes, is attached to natural hair to create a completely new hair style. Extensions are popular with white woman as well, but possibly not to the same extent. I was amazed at the cost. A good weave is going to put you back $1000-1500! I spoke with my hairstylist about this. She’s white and said that she had extensions at one point. As she put it, she had Victoria Secret model hair. This made me wonder how many of those models and actresses whose hair I’ve admired actually have completely natural hair. I’m sure there are a lot of extensions or weaves going on out there for both white and black women. We’re all in search of that perfect princess looking hair.
  Possibly the most interesting part of the documentary for me was when Chris Rock interviewed several highschool seniors who would be graduating shortly. They all had different types of hair styles. A few wore braids, some had their hair relaxed, and one girl had a natural Afro. Chris Rock was interested to know what the girls thought about their prospects for getting a job with the different hair styles that they had. All the girls, except for the one with natural hair, said that there was no way you would get hired if you had an Afro. One girl mentioned that having an Afro just didn’t go well with a business suit. Thinking about the possibility of having a girl in the future, I wondered where these feelings about hair come from. Who’s telling these girls that they won’t be able to get a job if they wear their hair in a natural style. And why as women are we worrying so much about what our hair looks like with regard to our job prospects – I doubt guys are putting the same thought into their hair styles, but that’s a question for another day. Personally, as someone who has always been envious of women with curly, voluminous hair, I thought the natural hair style looked great and was one of my favorites. I spoke with my two friends who are originally from Zambia. These two sisters wear their hair differently. One has long braids and the other has short, relaxed hair. Both styles look awesome. I asked them about what they thought about having an Afro. Both agreed that you wouldn’t get hired with hair like that. One of my friends said that she sometimes lets her hair free from the braids, but that it’s very weather dependent. This made a lot of sense to me. My white friends with curly hair have echoed this as well.
  As a white woman raising a black son and possibly a little girl one day, I’ve heard from other blogs that there can be a lot of attention on how you are styling your child’s black hair. There have been comments made on the internet about whether a white woman would actually be able to properly style a black girl’s hair and understand the importance of styling it correctly. This sentiment I take issue with. First of all, I believe I have the ability to learn what I need to in order to care for my child and if I need help, I’ll ask for it. I wonder where these strong feelings about the “correct” way of styling hair come from. I wonder why it’s considered wrong in some circles for a black girl’s hair to be styled naturally. I was shocked to read that there’s actually a petition out there about Beyonce and Jay Z’s daughter, Blue Ivy, requesting that her parents comb her hair. There was similar outrage to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s daughter, Zahara, about her hair which was apparently left au naturel. Why would anyone care how these two girls have their hair styled and care enough to take the time to create a petition or put their name on it? I have to wonder what little girls think when they hear comments like that, that someone’s hair looks bad or wrong. I wonder does it make them feel like their hair as it is grown naturally on their heads isn’t good enough? Is it this sort of sentiment that is perpetuating the idea of good versus bad hair?
  After watching this documentary, I felt like I had a somewhat better understanding on the ways in which black hair can be styled, knowing that not all black hair is the same. However, I still have questions about where the negative feelings about hair come from. As someone who has struggled with similar feelings, possibly not to the same extent as other women, I wondered, how do we raise our daughters (and sons) to love themselves regardless of their shape, size, hair, or colour of their skin? How can we teach them that they’re all princesses (or princes) regardless of what Disney tells them a princess looks like?

  In the end of the documentary, Chris Rock is clearly struggling with what to tell his daughters about their hair. Brilliantly, he says, “So what do I tell my girls? That what’s on their head isn’t as important as what’s in their head”. I couldn’t agree more.

Getting perms with my best childhood friend, Kim. Ah, I can still smell the ammonia.