Warning: I'm about to go off on one of my rants... you know, the kind that makes my boyfriend's eyes glaze over, with perhaps a glint of fear:
I was listening to public radio today and a handful of black women were talking about Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair", a movie about black women's hair that he decided to make after his young daughter asked him why she didn't have good hair. She wanted hair like her white friend's own. Now, I watched it about a week ago and tried to suppress my anger, but the women's comments on the radio got my blood boiling all over again. They said a lot of things that I had totally thought about, too, and tried to move on and get past. But it stayed with me, so I'm writing this to shake some of it off.
It was an interesting documentary and I commend him for making it and doing a good job, but Rock's loathing of black women ('s hair) in general seemed to be simmering beneath the surface, hidden beneath the glossy veneer of comedy. But I'm perhaps being unfair. I digress. One commenter talked about how she noticed that he (or, as the producer, included subjects who) made jokes about women with "kinky" hair- complained about how he wasn't able to run his fingers through a black woman's hair if it was natural. But then in the same movie, he was subtly criticizing the women who straightened and weaved their hair, too. In his world, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. He tried to frame the movie as if he didn't really have an opinion... didn't want to be divisive, but his opinion shined right through, and it made me sad for his daughters.
I noticed this, and many other things, but I'll skip that and get to the icing on the cake for me. At the end of his movie, he said something about how if his 6 (?) year old daughter asked him again why she doesn't have "good hair", the next time he would tell her that "What was IN her head (or was it heart) was more important than what was ON her head." Or something along those lines. And of course the audience sighed and clapped and felt all warm in their hearts at that, and I was aghast, sitting there with my mouth open, my stomach churning. Angry at him, and more angry at the audience's utter stupidity. He wonders why his little girl would ask him something so heartbreaking? Well, my dear, Chris, sorry to say it, but you probably put it there..
Let me back up a second. Okay, on one hand, it's great that he's taking focus away from appearances, because little girls shouldn't be too wrapped up in being attractive... they should be taught to focus on what they can do and how smart they can be, and kind, etcetera. But of course that's really not what he's saying. Look at it this way. What is the REAL, subliminal message here:
Wife: "Does my breath smell?"
Husband: "Oh, don't worry about that. It's your smile that's important."
Message: Yes, it does, but I don't care about that. I'll hold my breath when I kiss you.
Child: "Mommy, why am I so dumb?
Mom: "Oh, being smart doesn't mean anything. It's how well you love."
Message: You're dumb as a board, but I still love you.
Child: "Daddy, why don't I have good hair?"
Dad: "Don't worry about that. It's what's in your head and not on your head that matters."
Message: Your nappy hair is ugly and inferior to your blonde friend, but I still love you.
All of these sound like nice messages, I suppose, because the responder is offering unconditional love, even though the inquisitor is purportedly lacking something, but I take offense at his answer, because I don't swallow the racist notion that black hair is indeed inferior (some of you may secretly disagree, but that's okay, because we're probably all a little bit racist in some way- this is just your way). I honestly don't see why he felt the need to skirt around the question. For that to be an acceptable message to tell a little girl means you've swallowed society's racist, jagged little pill and you are doomed to a prison of self-hatred if you are a black person. Good luck. Don't doom your little girl to that. Why not tell her the same thing Malcolm X's mixed race mother told him: "There's no such thing as good hair. If you got hair on your head, it's good." To paraphrase. Or you could hit her with the science/ history angle: "Now, 'good hair' is a phrase that only people with slave mentalities use (expand on this). Your hair is not bad because it is naturally in tight curls. People have different textures of hair because we all have differently-shaped hair follicles. And we have differently-shaped hair follicles because our ancestors lived in different climates and regions (etc.). Your hair is curly and her hair is straight, and both your hair and yourselves are beautiful. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you or your hair is not beautiful. If someone tells you you have "bad hair", you have my permission to call them an Uncle Tom or a racist Massa." And maybe you could also go off on the media and explain to her why she thinks that way, but it's actually a fallacy in her head. And maybe order some Angela Davis books for her while you're at it.
That's the kind of shit you should tell your little girl, not that crap about beauty not being important! While it's definitely true that it's not as important as what's inside, his silence was a tacit affirmation that her hair is ugly. Way to evade the question, dad. But your silence spoke for itself. I want to kidnap his little girl and re-brainwash her so that she has a chance. Because if he made that movie to make her feel better, well then, he failed miserably. DAD FAIL.
It just really gets to me, because I substitute teach in the inner-city and I hear the most horrendous things regarding hair. I see the little girls internalizing huge doses of hatred, and it makes me sad.
I don't know if I explained this right. I sometimes leave people feeling confused as to why I'm angry. For example, when I tried explaining to a friend recently why light-skinned black chicks are dumb if they try to cash in on their light-skin privilege, he just looked at me blankly, confused. And I don't say they're dumb for the usual reasons most people say it's dumb. Most people say it's dumb because it's mean, unfair, cruel and petty and reinforces racist notions of beauty. I say it's dumb because of all that, but more importantly because it shows that you LACK LOGIC. If you accept that, what is the next, logical step, woman? If you are a light black female with looser curls and you think you're better than a dark brown woman with tight curls because you've ingested racist media's white beauty standards, then what you are saying is that you adhere to a racial ladder in which a white, blonde woman is at the top, and a dark black woman with tight curly hair is at the bottom. If you place yourself above the darker woman, then by extension of your very logic, by your chosen standards of beauty, you HAVE to put yourself beneath the white woman. You have no choice, sorry. You did it to yourself. I tried to explain this to a high yella (I'm high yella so I can say this) friend once, and she was just not having it. She refused. Wanted to think she was better, but on the flip side would not accept inferiority. But if you buy into it, it's whole hog. You can't just climb up onto the second rung of the ladder and not pretend there are twenty more rungs above you, and just sit tight, happy you've got one rung beneath you! That's dumb. They have no problem putting themselves above the darker woman, but ask them to get beneath the white woman and they'll get pissed really fast. How could they not realize that? How could one not see the whole ladder? I refuse to get on the ladder (and not merely because society would place me on a lower rung anyway! If I were white, I'd like to think that I'd still refuse), but many women don't refuse, they take the ladder, or their pedestal, and be glad that they're above somebody. But just don't forget that if you're above somebody, you've just probably put yourself beneath someone else. And that's a place I refuse to be.
Fuck the ladder. Fuck good hair. Fuck bad hair. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. Okay, that last sentence was a song lyric.
/End crazy rant.
