‘Good hair’

Chris Rock’s latest documentary/movie Good Hair, has sparked a national debate among the black community in the US. It’s hard to find a cable channel that’s not talking about it. It focuses on  black Americans’ perception of beauty and the weave/hair pieces business. It had me thinking back to my childhood growing up in the country where you would hear this saying very regularly, ‘You have good hair’. In those days it made me feel among the privileged. But as I grew older, the importance of such things vanished. Then again anyone can buy ‘good hair’. It has become normal for someone to be wearing a hair piece or a wig. Most of the celebrities do it and the process has become so refined it’s hard to tell who is wearing the real thing from who is not.

All the debates are about black consciousness and black people accepting themselves and seeing themselves as beautiful. But is that the real issue? Is it that we think our hair is not good enough or is it that women just think it looks better? When women spend so much (trust me they can get expensive especially ones like what Beyonce wears) and buy these things is it that they are saying, ‘I don’t like who I am’ or are they thinking, ‘Hey this looks good on me.” A few years ago natural ‘dos’ were in but that, to an extent, has died off and HBO (hair belonging to others) is now all the rage. But is something really wrong with that? If we process our hair and wear hair pieces does it mean we do not love who we are and we are not embracing our ethnicity?  What do you think? Is it all much ado about good hair?