An Unloving Portrait of Black Women

By Pamela Newkirk

Few issues are as emotional for black women as hair. Many of us were born with hair that is short, dark and kinky in a land that idealizes long, light and straight. These European notions of beauty played out on plantations where the rape of black girls and women by white men would resulted in a spectrum of skin shades and hair textures that hurled us head first into a self-negating and centuries-long quest for acceptance.

Women who dare resist these dominant cultural cues have been shunned by black men and passed over by employers. Only in recent years could professional women dare to display their natural locks in the workplace, thanks in part to challenges, legal and otherwise, by their forerunners. Still, few natural crowns are to be found on black women in the upper echelons of business, media, or politics.

So when Chris Rock ventured into this emotional minefield one would expect the longing for “good hair” to be contextualized by this painful history. But instead he unleashes an ahistorical and apolitical riff on black women who are cast as mindless, vapid creatures who spend their rent money on relaxers and exorbitantly priced hair from India just because.

Rock says the film was inspired by his own daughters who wanted to know why they didn’t have good hair. He might have told them what W.E.B. Du Bois told his daughter, Yolande, that “brown is as pretty as white, and crinkly hair as straight, though it is harder to comb.” But instead, one of the film’s most wrenching scenes shows a sheepishly grinning Rock trying in vain to unload bushels of tightly coiled hair to beauty suppliers. This unloving portrait of black women and black hair might be good for a laugh or a pot of gold, but it won’t help his daughters or ours navigate a society that demeans and devalues their very physical essence.

Pamela Newkirk is a professor of Journalism at New York University and is the editor of Letters from Black America.

Smothering Our Natural Selves in ‘Creamy Crack’

By Stacey Patton

When asked why he did not showcase more black women who choose to keep their hair natural instead of sewing in weaves or smothering their kinks with “creamy crack,” Chris Rock responded: “That would be like doing a story on ‘Hey, there’s no toxins in the water. Or ‘Let’s do a story on people who didn’t get murdered yesterday.”

What an obtuse response.

The awful juxtaposition of water pollution and homicide to black women who allow their hair to grow from their scalps as nature intended it to, simply does not work here. Rock’s explanation reveals the central problem with Good Hair and the way much of the public conversation over black women and their crowns is often had.

Rock has essentially said that black women with Afros, locks, twists and braids have no place at the discussion table. And this view is quite clear in the documentary, even though black women embracing their natural selves has always been the crux of the problem on a personal, collective and political level.

Also problematic is Rock’s over-reliance on black men and whites to explain the choices black women make. Of course many black women themselves have complicated opinions on how they deal with their own hair and how their sistas deal with theirs. Many of the flaws of “Good Hair” may stem from one singular astonishing fact: that out of the dozens of black women who Rock allows to speak in the film, only one herself has natural hair.

Stacey Patton is Senior Editor of The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and TheDefendersOnline.

Chris Rock’s Celebration of Rape

By Esther Armah

Good Hair equals a celebration of rape. That’s the unspoken truth of this funny, painful documentary by Chris Rock. The origins of that phrase—good hair—speak to terrifying moments of enslaved African women’s intimate relationship with sexual violence by white men, producing nigger babies whose hair—as well as their complexions—came to symbolize divisions between women that turned into discussions that linger to this day.

Good hair symbolized a curse, a cuss, a pain, a jealousy, an envy, an internal hatred, a loathing born of plantation people, backs bent, cotton-picking, sun up to sun down, poised in terror and anticipation as a white man forcefully enters borrowed homes and penetrates chocolate skin with white supremacist ideology and a privileged penis. The result of this union: Good Hair. Kinky sex, white men claimed. Kinky? Ain’t that ironic? Was that code for getting down and dirty with sisters?

Except it was rape, not follicle penetration, or consensual horizontal nappy relations. Violated bodies led to broken souls, and a leering Willie Lynch rubbing his hands, smiling, saying “ain’t that lil gurl got some ‘good hair.’” The curls bigger, the naps smoothed, so began black privilege. Light skinned-edness, and the desire for the sweetest chocolate cake to be marble cake pretty. That ain’t new, that’s history.

Criticism about this lack of context [in Rock’s film] poured in from voices who argued that seeing Hollywood lovelies on the big screen flipping luscious locks (not the dread kind) and dipping fingers into weaves implied that black women were creators of our own pathology. In other words, we sisters just crazy ‘cos we crazy; and the relaxer—the ‘creamy crack’ as one sister called it—is our way of getting down, our poison of choice. And that criticism doesn’t mean hating on the creamy crack crew, or the weave wearin’ sisters, it means speaking the fullest truth about the origins of this phrase: good hair.

Maybe that’s too simple. Some say to even seek to untangle the nappy-haired roots of this issue is to be political. And Chris Rock should be congratulated for doing just that. Some say the fact of our current conversation, my tapping away on this keyboard to add historical context and the cancerous legacy of the origins of good hair is symptomatic of the documentary and the comic doing their job. That putting all this nappy laundry on the mainstream big screen is a beginning. And credit where credit is due.

Seeing juxtaposed visuals of a laboratory where scientists test the sheer cancerous disintegrating strength of the ‘creamy crack,’ followed by a little girl wincing in the salon chair as her mama or somebody makes sure her hair gets did, so it can be the proverbial bouncin’ and behavin’ ‘good hair,’ are powerful political images. No question. Seeing Chris Rock in India talking to sisters whose waist-length hair would soon adorn a Brooklyn babe, and his inability to sell an afro for a single dime, makes a powerful political point. And isn’t art supposed to provoke?

And ain’t nobody arguing that personal responsibility in the present is not an integral part of this equation. Change gon’ come, but it ain’t down to Sam [Cooke], it’s down to the sistahs, said others. And ain’t we all got nappy haired horror stories? Still, it wasn’t enough, folks argued. Ignoring the historical context means sharing partial truths of a history whose legacy continues to imprison baby girls, their mamas, their sisters, the brothers, you, me, us. And white patriarchy swaggers by, fingers pointing at the spectacle of black women served up as entertainment via the creative comic hands of a black man, as reviewers rave that this ‘coon bizness’—to quote writer Greg Tate—is ‘hilarious.’ Sit back and relax, says the film. Good hair equals the rape of black women by white men.

Ain’t nothing relaxed about that.

Esther Armah is an international journalist, author and playwright who has worked in print, radio and television in the United States, the United Kingdom and Africa. A public speaker and director of a creative media company, she also hosts the provocative radio show,“Off the Page,” on WBAI 99.5FM in New York City.

Dirty Little Secrets?

By Karen Hunter

I arrived at the theater to see Good Hair just as the movie was starting. It was dark and crowded and I had to sit in the very first row. After the movie was over and the lights came up, I was amazed at how many white people were in the theater.

Directly behind me was a white couple with their two little blonde daughters; neither girl was more than 10 years old. There were a handful of white women and a few white couples leaving, too.

Initially I was perplexed. Why do they care what we do with our hair? What’s the fascination? Mind your business! I was defensive and felt as though they were peaking in on one of our dirty little secrets and I didn’t like it. I felt like this was “our” movie, for “us,” and how dare these white people intrude on that.

But then I stopped myself. This was South Orange, one of the most diverse and open communities in New Jersey. These white people were not there to spy. They must either be genuinely curious about this whole black hair issue or they wanted to support Chris Rock. Either way, I had to lighten up.

Black people are fascinating. If I were white, I would want to know about us, too. I remember going to the Blockbusters in South Orange to get a Tyler Perry movie and it was sold out. I questioned the worker and he told me that a lot of white people were renting his movies. Huh?

So I’m starting to get it. And I guess it’s always been that way. As much as there is racism and the appearance of hatred of blacks by some whites, there is even more wonderment, admiration and appreciation.

And that’s a good thing.

The more we know about one another, the more we will find out that we really aren’t that different after all. And perhaps this whole notion of “us,” and “them” and will begin to fade away and we can truly live in a post-racial society.

I can hope, can’t I?

Karen Hunter is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, best-selling author and media professor at Hunter College in New York City. Her website is www.karenhuntermedia.com.

Good Nappy Hair

by Karla D. Henderson

Back in the 1970s, I wrote a poem for a people obsessed with the texture of our hair:

HAIR

They said her hair was
Bad
But I never saw
It hurt anybody
Or Make Anyone
Cry
Except
When they tried to
Fry
It into being something it
Wasn’t

They said her hair was
Good
But it never made anyone laugh
Or
Smile
Except maybe because
Someone
Wasn’t always trying to change it
Into something it
Wasn’t.

Now
I don’t really understand
How hair
Can be
Good or Bad
I mean
I’m just going to
Comb and brush it
Not
Eat
it

I wrote this poem over 30 years ago but with the release of Chris Rock’s new movie, Good Hair, it still, sadly, has relevance. We are, in spite of everything, a people absolutely obsessed with the texture of our hair, especially when it comes to our females. Little girls are, even in the 21st century, being taught, covert or overtly, that there is ‘good’ hair and, conversely, ‘bad’ hair.

Good = straight, fine, long and the further removed from that the worse your hair is; it is Bad and not in a good way. Bad = coarse, nappy, and (generally) short. When, in 1998, Ruth Ann Sherman, a white, third grade teacher, shared the book children’s Nappy Hair, by Carolivia Herron, with her mostly black and Latino students as a lesson in accepting themselves and others—she was verbally attacked and physically threatened by parents and members of the Brooklyn community until she felt pressured to resign.

Our most celebrated women, primarily those in the entertainment business, almost all have straight hair, whether long like Beyonce or short like Halle Berry (as long as we know she can grow it long if she wants to), the most important factor is that it is straight.

I say ‘almost all’ because there are a few marked exceptions, i.e. Whoopi Goldberg and Toni Morrison, but even these formidable talents are not looked upon as examples of physical beauty. When it comes to that, our natural hair is a no-no.

When the New Yorker magazine tried to make a (supposedly) satirical statement about the Obamas’ radicalism during the 2008 presidential campaign, they chose to give Michelle Obama a large, Angela Davis-esque Afro. Even non black people know that nappy hair sends a different message than straight and to some audiences, that message is not a positive one. I don’t think we will ever see the Obama girls again with their natural hair as shown in some of their earliest pics.

It is also not a coincidence that our first black millionaire businesswoman, Madame C. J. Walker, achieved fame and fortune in the early 1900s by showing us how to more easily straighten our hair (and lighten our skin with bleaching creams).

So, why are we, as a people that have made so many strides, overcome so many barriers, achieved so much in so many arenas, still so hung up on the texture of our hair? One of the most liberating advances we have made was turning the word ‘black’ into a symbol of pride. Instead of continuing to let it be used to degrade us, giving others power over how we view ourselves, we made it our own defiant definition of what and who we are as a people, worldwide.

I haven’t yet seen Rock’s movie, although I definitely plan to, but have seen the trailer and read what he had to say about what prompted it. And he’s right. It is laughable, in a painful kind of way. We still behave as if the closer to the white ideal of beauty we can get, the better. We still make value judgments about our external selves and find that which so definitively describes us as a unique people, the least attractive. It is not our skin color. There are white people that are inherently as dark or darker; one only has to look at the people of India, the Middle East, Polynesia to see this.

More than anything else, it is our hair, our nappy, coarse, short, Cadillac (it rolls up and parks) hair. And so many of us will do practically anything, suffer any indignity, to get as far from its nappiness as we possibly can, continuing to send this shameful message to our little girls.

Karla D. Henderson is a retired college dean and published poet living in Palmdale, Ca.

The ‘Kitchen’: If You Can’t Stand the Heat…

By Linda Jones

The release of comedian Chris Rock’s new documentary film, Good Hair, has revived the ongoing issue of what is allegedly “good“ and “bad “ about black folks’ varying hair textures. As a writer and natural hair advocate, I wanted to share a humorous look at that unique section of the scalp known as the “kitchen,” and just how good this oft-described “bad” hair is.

As a natural hair expert and advocate of long-standing, a napologist, if you will, it is my responsibility to be well versed in the vocabulary of nappy hair.

It is also my responsibility to help others become familiar with kink terminology so when they are engaged in nappy dialogue, they won’t get things twisted. For people unfamiliar with black hair culture, there is one word in nappy vernacular that often causes confusion.

That word is “kitchen.”

We all know the definition of a kitchen as a room where food is prepared and cooked.

But many black folks, particularly black women, know that the kitchen serves another purpose. It is also the room where our hair is cooked. The kitchen is the room in the house where you find fire. And fire is what was needed to heat up the hot combs used in the ritual of straightening our nappy hair.

Now let’s take the kitchen connotation to another level. The kitchen, in black vernacular is not only a room in a building. It is a place on our bodies. The physical location of a black person’s kitchen is right at the nape of our neck. “Kitchen” is what we call the place where our most rebellious kinks congregate.

Hair that resides in our kitchens is the hair that is the nappiest, curliest, kinkiest and the most resistant to change. Since there is already a negative stigma attached to nappy hair texture as being “bad,” one can only imagine just how much the hair in our kitchens is viewed with disdain.

Those among us who are in nap denial have gone through great and often painful lengths to obliterate that shameful section of our heads. Some preferred having razor bumps replace their kitchen hair and resorted to shaving it away. Others used double doses of chemicals to kill their kitchen hair. .

But I maintain that these efforts were woefully misguided.

Kitchen hair is powerful.

While the hair on the rest of our nappy heads to easily surrenders to the hot, smoking comb known as a weapon of nap destruction, our kitchen hair does not give in without a fight.

My own kitchen hair is so fierce that I have given it a name of honor: Nap Turner.

Much like the heroic slave, Nat Turner, my Nap Turner kitchen hair rebels mightily against chemical bondage and hot comb oppression. My Nap Turner kitchen will not be beat into submission.

Even the nap-savvy Afro pick has lost a few teeth during expeditions into black folks’ kitchens. Love partners of another culture who expected smooth sailing when they ran their fingers through our kitchen hair were unexpectedly thrown “off coarse.”

Much like disappearing into the void of the Bermuda Triangle, our mates’ passionately probing fingers got lost forever in the kitchen kink!

Our kitchens are such a deeply-rooted institution that they have even commanded the respect of the Ivy League. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the esteemed Harvard professor, pays homage in his memoir, Colored People. “If there was ever one part of our African past that resisted assimilation, it was the kitchen,” Brother Gates proclaims. “No matter how hot the iron, no matter how powerful the chemical, no matter how stringent the mashed-potatoes-and-lye formula of a man’s ‘process,’ neither God nor woman nor Sammy Davis Jr., could straighten the kitchen. The kitchen was permanent, irredeemable, invincible kink. Unassailably African. No matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried, nothing could de-kink a person’s kitchen.”

How’s that for validation?

If a Harvard intellectual can celebrate the wonderful condition of the hair in our kitchens then why should we take heat from those who don’t have a clue?

Linda Jones is an award-winning journalist and writing consultant based in Dallas, Texas.  She is author of “Nappyisms:  Affirmations for Nappy-headed People and Wannabes!“