I agree, Amanda.

In his review of Chris Rock's latest film Good Hair, Brian Prisco of Pajiba wrote the following. Emphases mine:

Good Hair follows a smart path from a simple question: what does it mean for a black person to have good hair? Make no mistake, this question — and this film — is meant for a black audience. That’s not to say a person of a different race couldn’t enjoy or appreciate it, but Rock is making the active decision to put the question to his people for his people.

Then there was Bob Cannon's concern in his review for Moviefone:

The question is, can a film this ethnocentric cross enough racial and social lines to approach the box office numbers of Michael Moore, the gold standard in successful documentary filmmaking?

Oh, was that the question?

My first reaction was, I have never seen a review of any of the majority of American movies that states, "this film is meant for a white audience," even though that statement would be accurate. Chris Rock, along with any other multi-million earning black performer, is not successful solely because of a black audience. Case in point: the first people I ever heard quoting Chris Rock in my presence were two white male teenagers in the late 90s. I don't think any of my black female friends have ever quoted Chris Rock to me.

My second reaction was akin to the feelings of Margaret from Jezebel. Emphases mine:

Almost every critic praises Good Hair, but for the most part, their reviews stick to a summary of the film and analysis of Rock as host/narrator. Several say they found themselves surprised by the information presented - possibly because, judging from photos found online, none of them reviewers actually have black hair. While this latter fact doesn't disqualify them from critiquing the quality of the film, the reviews do come from an outsider's perspective, like The New York Times' take, which notes, "One of the happy consequences of Good Hair should be a radical increase in white-woman empathy for their black sisters."

However, unlike Margaret, I do think that the reviewers' lack of black hair, or more precisely, their lack of knowledge about and historical perspective on black hair, does disqualify them from accurate critiquing the quality of the film. For instance, when Brian writes the following,

There’s a heartrending scene where Rock interviews five high school girls about what it means to look successful. Four of the girls are overweight with shiny straight tresses, and one adorable gal who looks like a young Jill Scott sits in the center with a subdued Afro. The larger girls then use her as an example — “no offense, you look cute but…” — of how to look unprofessional. As the girls explain how women with Afros don’t look trustworthy or successful and how they imply a disregard for rules or proper fashion, the camera pans in on the young girl quietly sitting sadly.

he doesn't notice that Chris Rock doesn't bother to question who decides what is "trustworthy or successful" or what is in "proper fashion." It's not like black women are running Fortune 500 companies. Okay, except for one Ursula Burns, who seems to have been successful in her ascent to the top of Xerox. And her hair also happens to be natural.

Also, thanks for the "overweight" qualifier. Always relevant when writing about black women.

Or when Brian writes,

Rock bookends his movie with the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show in Atlanta, GA. Having seen Blow Dry, I knew that hairstylists would go to ape-shit lengths to sculpt Barbies like a Food Network Cake Challenge. Having also seen Stomp the Yard, Drumline, and Snaps, I should have known that black people would take this to levels of sublime showoffsmanship which would make a peacock blush. But you’ve also seen those films and shows. Can you blame them? That shit’s bananas. (I don’t speak jive.)

he shows his behind by asserting that he knows black people because he saw and Stomp the Yard and Drumline? In the words of Angry Asian Man, that's racist! FYI, I don't speak jive either, turkey.

As if I know about white people because I saw Fired Up or Juno or Never Been Kissed. If Brian or Bob, or any reviewer, had mentioned School Daze, I would give them partial credit. Brian also neglects to mention Jason Griggers, the blindingly white stylist in the movie, who is favored to win the hair styling competition.

So who is the Amanda starring in the title of this post? She is one of the people who commented under Brian's review, and I share her sentiments. Emphases mine:

. . . My only concern is that you (apparently) asserted that the movie is meant for a black audience, basically just because it focuses on the cult of Good Hair as it relates to black people. (That is, if my interpretation of those paragraphs is correct.)

I'd like to offer that it would be valuable for all races and ethnicities to see a film like this so that we can understand the very particular effect that the "straight hair ideal" has on black women. In my humble opinion, saying that this movie is only for black people is a disservice to the message of the film. Good Hair might very well have a message of empowerment that is intended for a black audience, but I think that it is equally if not more important for other races/ethnicities - I'm going to venture that it's particularly important for whites - to see the time and effort black women spend on their hair. We need to have our eyes opened to the fact that society's projection of straight hair as more beautiful and professional is inherently discriminatory, and it forces black women to spend outrageous amounts of money at salons if they want to be taken seriously - both as professionals and as *beautiful* women.

If only blacks see this film, they may feel empowered, and they may experience some kind of epiphany about their relationships with their hair. Maybe. I can't claim to know, as I'm not black myself. But it is not up to black people to change society's perceptions about their hair - it's up to everyone else. That's why I think that the message is best received by people of all racial and ethnic groups, not just by a black audience.

And here is another comment I enjoyed, under Margaret's review:

@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: "I was talking to a friend of mine (black) who wondered if Chris Rock explained to his daughter that the reason her hair did not look like Mommy's is because Mommy wears a weave."

What. You. Said.
Times like, a kabillion.

It just staggers me the way everyone, including Mr. Documentary himself -- and I've met him, and he's cool, and can you tell, I'm really really disappointed -- is manifestly, steadfastly, resolutely ignoring this.

Considering that their two daughters were prominently featured, Malaak Compton-Rock, Chris Rock's wife, was glaringly absent from the film. I wouldn't assume she has a weave, but her hair has definitely been straightened. Chris never talks about his wife in the film, nor does he talk about his own decision to marry a black woman, not who has natural hair, but who has straightened hair. His decision comes off as hypocritical, considering the lengths he goes to in the film to show how harmful the straightening process can be, and how exploitative the weave business is. As Beet at Feministing Community puts it,

. . . it seems Chris Rock is criticizing black women who modify their hair to look straight yet he hardly even dents the larger issue of beauty standards shaped by society that constrict black women and contribute to their "need" to do this in the first place. This movie can be used as a reason to criticize black women who wear a weave but it doesn't really answer the question that if black women wore their hair more naturally, would they be accepted? . . .

I will leave you with this quote from actor Tracie Thoms, whose hair I would love to have growing out of my head:

"To keep my hair the same texture as it grows out of my head is looked at as revolutionary. Why is that?"

Why indeed. :|


Ooh, here is my favorite part of the movie:

Chris Rock: How old were you the first time you got a relaxer?

Maya Angelou: Ooh god. About 70.

Chris Rock: 70?

Maya Angelou: Mmhmm.

Chris Rock: You went your whole life?

Maya Angelou: Not my whole life. I'm still alive!

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Black in America and The Goal

(I couldn't find a related video, but I always have issues with my hair.)

These are two things that would appear to have little in common. However, as I have been consuming both media over the past few days, I have noticed some similarities between Eliyahu M. Goldratt's The Goal (the book; not Goal, the soccer movie whose sequel I surprisingly enjoyed) and Black in America. They both contain stories about the lives of Americans. Also, they both continue to irritate me.

One of the many problems with Black in America was illustrated for me in The Goal. The Goal is supposed to be a education novel about how to become a successful operations manager. In reality, it is a step-by-step manual on how to destroy a family. The main character, presumably-white guy Alex Rogo, devotes every waking moment toward saving his failing mechanical plant. I say presumably white, because there is no mention of anyone's color or race in the book until page 191, when foreman Mike Haley enters the story for three pages. "He's a big black man whose arms always look as though they're going to burst the sleeves on his shirts." Oy vey, Mr. Goldratt. Alex also calls a child "Fat Herbie", names his plant malfunctions after him, then tells his children about it. Nice.

During the few hours that Alex is actually at home, he ignores his wife Julie and their two young children, because he brings his work with him. So Julie leaves Alex and moves back in with her parents. Instead of listening to Julie's pleas for him to stop working so hard, Alex enlists his own mother to take care of him and the children until Julie comes to her senses. Then the children end up moving in with Julie and her parents for the summer. I have 57 more pages before I finish The Goal, but eventually Julie and the children return home, in my opinion because Julie's parents want them out of their house. Throughout the course of the novel, Alex takes Julie on a few dates so he can "relax with her." He never changes, though, nor does he ever consider what Julie needs. In fact, after Julie returns, Alex gets a promotion which carries the new responsibility of running three plants. When the two of them celebrate the position over dinner, Alex feels guilty. For a moment.

. . . why do I feel it's inappropriate to toast my promotion?

"The family paid too big a price for this promotion," I finally say.

"Alex you're being too hard on yourself. This crisis was about to explode one way or the other."

[Julie] continues, "I gave it a lot of thought and let's face it, if you had given up, the feeling of failure would have spoiled every good part of our marriage. I think you should be proud of this promotion. You didn't step on anybody to get it; you won it fair and square."

That passage comes a few pages after this one:

" . . . I'll really try to understand your work," [Julie says] . . . "Look, Al. I know that leaving you must have seemed selfish on my part. I just went crazy for a little while. I'm sorry--"

"No, you don't have to be sorry," I tell her. "I should have been paying attention."

"But I'll try to make it up to you," she says.

What does all of this have to do with Black in America? In both parts of the CNN special, there was a noticeable focus on single mothers and absent fathers. And when I say focus, I mean much of the special blamed every ill in the black community on children raised by mothers who weren't married to their baby daddies. Yes, at one point Soledad did actually say baby daddies. This blame game was particularly questionable during the first half of Wednesday's "The Black Woman and Family," when Soledad followed the story of a single black father struggling to raise his two elementary-school children. The story that followed was about a woman who was raised by a single father, but started having her five children at the age of 17 by a 30-year-old man. Now 29, the woman had to work two jobs and received no support from her children's father. "If I don't make it, we don't have it," she said regarding the family income.

Soledad kept contrasting these stories of woe with a married couple who had five children that were enrolled in, or heading off to, universities. However, Soledad didn't take into account the class of the various families that she interviewed. The married couple had taken over a successful family construction business, and they clearly have some money in the bank. But all of the single parent families featured in part one of the special were poor. Soledad conveniently did not feature any single parent families who weren't poor, even though it was clear that the poverty of the families was the problem. The poverty determined the families' ability to acquire proper nutrition, health care, education and housing. This became blatantly obvious when Soledad interviewed Kriss Turner, the successful, single writer of Something New. If Ms. Turner decided to become a single mother, I doubt her child would turn to a life of crime, drugs, teen pregnancy, or whatever other things can be blamed on single parent households. Her child would probably matriculate in a good school in a good neighborhood, because Ms. Turner could afford it.

Back to The Goal. The two children in the novel were technically born into wedlock. However, their father Alex was absent. So absent that their mother Julie had to take a mental-health vacation from their dysfunctional home. And in the end, their father didn't change at all, but their mother still goes back to him.

Now, what would have happened if this woman had some self-respect? What if Julie had stood up to her husband and said, "I'm not going to let you treat our family like this ever again. I'm taking our children and making a home of our own. I'm not living this 'Cat's in the Cradle' nightmare."? Or, what if Alex dropped dead of the stroke that would most certainly develop after working nonstop at a failing plant for over three months? Those children would have probably been better off. Alex truly did not care about how his lifestyle was damaging his wife, or how it was affecting his children, the people who would later decide whether to put him in Shady Pines. He proves this by not finding a job with shorter hours, but instead taking a new job with three times the responsibilities.

Yet the CNN special "report" would have you believe that the best thing for the children would be living at home with their father. A father who couldn't properly feed himself or his children without an intervention by his elderly mother.

Maybe this is why some black women, and some non-black women, are raising children on their own. Maybe they don't want to raise their children with someone who is a liability, rather an asset, to their family. Or maybe they're lesbians. I wouldn't know, because from what I gathered from Black in America, there are no gay black people in America. More precisely, there no gay black people in American worthy of a Soledad O'Brien interview.

I have many other grievances about Black in America. Here's a gentleman whom I don't know airing some of them:

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My Kid Will Have My Hair.

At least, my biological kid will. And if she's a girl, how I look forward to the years of painful coiffure ahead of me and her.

My hair was and is the thickest conglomeration of kinky strands I have ever encountered. I bet my present and former hairstylists would say the same thing. The kicker is, I have an extremely sensitive scalp. Combing my hair in its natural state is a horror. And making it easier to comb by chemically straightening it burns my scalp, even if my parts are greased and the relaxer is mild. That's why since my junior year of college, I've kept my hair in braided extensions. I still get it straightened every so often to make it easier when I take the old braids out and get the new ones put it. Now that is a harsh trial. :(

Whenever I think of doing my future kid's hair, I get all worried. Then I think about something else, like teddy bears or ice cream. How am I supposed to do my kid's hair when I can't do my own hair? Then I came across this New York Times article via Racialicious: "I Have Taken On My Daughter's Hair And Won," by Randal C. Archibold. Mr. Archibold writes:

I’ve been doing Lyla’s hair since she has had enough hair to do, receiving my first lessons from my wife and subjecting Lyla to my continued training by my sister, mother-in-law and other female relatives. Combing and brushing and, most important, braiding her hair seemed another way to help out and participate in the joys of having a daughter.

I had never even thought about having my partner do my kid's hair. One, because when I imagine my kids, I've always thought that their hair would just be magically done all the time, without anyone doing it, like on TV. Two, since I haven't married the soon-to-be-lanced Elijah Wood yet, I'm not really confident that I'll be having these kids with a partner.

But after reading this article, now I'm having all these visions of my partner doing my kids' hair. Just like he'll be staying home with said children for their first year, until they go to daycare and preschool, etc. And he'll be happy to do it. I'm aiming high, because why shouldn't my partner take care of our kids? Hello, they're his, too. I'm not going to be the Primary Parent (scroll down for reference) just because I have the vagina. Our kids will know that both of their parents are equally responsible for them and equally capable of raising them.

My favorite part is where Mr. Archibold talks about his inspirations: his cousin's husband Kirk, and Brad Pitt, whose daughter Zahara has helped him empathize with "white people who might be having a little trouble with black-person hair." Mr. Pitt apparently endorsed Carol’s Daughter hair products in last October's issue of Esquire, which got him quoted in the Say What? column of Essence.

On the other side of dealing with a black daughter's hair, I also discovered this article via Racialicious: Black Baby is Born to White Pair.

A Park Avenue fertility clinic's blunder has left a family devastated - after a black baby was born to a Hispanic woman and her white husband, the couple charges in a lawsuit...

...Despite the alleged baby bungle, little Jessica was born healthy.

The Andrews, however, fear that because of the circumstances of her birth "she may be subjected to physical and emotional illness as a result of not being the same race as her parents and siblings," according to their suit.

According to the couple's attorney, Howard Stern (insert joke here), the baby doesn't look like them. Really? Because when I look at that photo and hear, "One of these things is not like the other," the voices in my head are talking about that confused looking white guy on the left.

Furthermore, his wife? Is not white. I don't know what the New York Post is talking about. Then again, do I ever? The woman is clearly a dark shade of Dominican. Even if the baby had been conceived with that man's sperm and that woman's egg, considering the mestizo history of the Dominican Republic, there is a good chance the baby would have come out brown anyway.

If this couple wanted a pure white baby, they should adopt one, or find an acceptable Aryan egg donor. And if after three years, these people still can't get over the fact that their daughter--this woman's biological child--will not "get lighter over time," then those people should give this child to a family who will love and appreciate her, regardless of the "abnormality" that is her dark skin. Angelina is always looking.