HAIR AND BEAUTY LIMBO with Calamity Jane


A group of women, all strangers, came together one cold London night to debate the content of a film. The film was ‘Good Hair’ by Chris Rock, the African-American comedian, who spawned the deeply embarrassing yet begrudgingly representative documentary about black women’s ‘hair’ and its connotations in the black community. The concept was born after Rock’s daughter innocently referred to her friend with straighter, lighter, bouncier and flickable (yes we all know about the flick) hair, as having better hair than her own naturally thick and distinctly black solid mass.


So much ado about “Good Hair” dos


T


he ensuing debate among the women was acutely familiar as it typified the very discourse that regularly featured in my own conversations with friends. I was


leſt certain that we are experiencing a dawn of enlightenment among success- ful, attractive, powerful black sisters! And their desire for natural hair has become an emblematic manifestation of that growing consciousness. As these women take pride in their


economic and social prosperity they have begun to remodel their own identities, empowered to dismantle the existing cul- tural framework (rooted in prejudice) that has defined them and determine a new concept of beauty and strength embed- ded in ideals born from their experiences and expressed on their terms; damn the consequences! And sadly there are conse- quences; sometimes (but thankfully not always) too great to overcome.


66 | NEW AFRICAN WOMAN | WINTER 2011


AT THIS MEETING WE HAD: Te revolutionary idealist – with her hair shaved at the sides leaving a single strip of afro hair down the centre. She could have been a model from the pages of Vogue: “It is outrageous that we are still cow- towing to foreign perceptions of beauty. Our natural hair is a symbolic representa- tion of our struggle and survival. Where is our pride in our history? No other race invests as much as we do in hair care and now that we’ve revolutionised the indus- try the irony is that whilst we were busy consuming we relinquished the assets for others to reap the financial rewards. “We have become a mockery, an em-


barrassment, a tiresome regression of a people once deemed for greatness. I was at work recently when a white col- league had the audacity to purport loudly for all to hear about a black colleague he thought to be incompetent.. ‘if “home- girl” (accompanied with a whip of his


neck and snap of fingers – as though all black people gesticulate in this manner) spends as much time on her work as she does her weaves we’d all be better off’. I was mortified but sadly not surprised. We have betrayed all our secrets and now they make fools of us.” Tis young idealist typified the spirit


of her era. She embodied a self-righteous disdain for her fellow black sisters who found comfort in the ordinary. Strong and proud, her sense of self was determined by her defiance of convention. Tere was a sense of innocence in her rage.


Ten there was the Investment Banker – with her perfectly proper bob of re- laxed hair: “I work in a job where they struggle to pronounce my name correctly, why would I further differentiate myself by my hair choice? I’m one of few black people in the office and have to demonstrate my worth


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