Good Hair, But with a Price

As one would expect with Chris Rock at the helm, much of Good Hair (2009), the comedian’s documentary on the ins and outs of African American hair, is funny, lighthearted, and entertaining. However, several sequences of the film are troubling and, dare I say, heartbreaking.

Case in point: one scene reveals three soda cans submerged in a diluted form of sodium hydroxide, the product that African American women and some men (e.g., Al Sharpton) use to straighten their hair. The first can, which has been floating in the solution for an hour, is now completely clear with no recognizable Coca-Cola label whatsoever. The second can, which has been submerged for 3 hours, is in even worse shape. But the third soda can, which has been sitting in the solution for 5 hours — the amount of time some women leave the solution on their hair — is no longer. It has completely disintegrated. (Later in the film, a drop of the product eats through a thawed chicken breast, leaving in it a hole the size of a golf ball.)

Other disconcerting discoveries:

• Black women spend extreme amounts of money on their hair (minimally $1500 or more per weave) essentially to achieve the same kind of hair as that of white or Asian women.
• Indian women, girls, and babies (yeah, a screaming 12-month-old baby) sacrifice their locks in a religious ritual called tonsuring. Offering up their hair to the gods, the females shave their heads completely bald with no knowledge that their “gifts” are shipped to African American (and some white) women all over the United States.
• Men are generally not allowed to touch the hair of black women, a reality that turns some men to the arms of white or European women.
• Some three-year-old girls, whose scalps are not yet fully formed and are still extremely sensitive to harsh chemicals, receive the sodium-hydroxide relaxers so that they too “can look pretty.”

Sadly, these parts of Good Hair remind me of the doll experiment conducted during Brown vs. the Board of Education, which found that black children preferred white dolls over black ones because the former were “prettier and smarter.” Indeed, in the documentary, Rock reveals that some black kindergartners want only to look like their female classmates, whom we can only assume are white. Similarly, he shows us attractive African American teenagers who are genuinely concerned that, after they graduate college, they will not “fit into the workforce” without some form of extensions or non-”nappy” hair.

Being a white female, these are thoughts that I have never had to contemplate. Of course, I’ve compared my hair with that of other (white) girls whose locks were curlier and lusher than mine; but I’ve never had to worry about whether I’ll get a job based on the natural length and style of my hair. Moreover, I’ve never considered spending close to a month’s salary to glue, braid, or weave another woman’s hair into/onto mine. And finally, it’s never crossed my mind that some men of my race may gravitate toward the women of another race because of what lies underneath my natural hair. But thanks to a comedian on a mission — to show his young daughters that’s it’s not what’s on their head but in their head that’s important — I will now think more deeply about these things and what they suggest about our society as well as white and black culture in general.

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