Good Hair: The Insanity Continues

If you haven't seen it already, watch this YouTube video and tell me if you think it is an example of self-hatred or a normal day in a black household.

Here's the take from several women on "Tell Me More" an NPR show hosted by Michel Martin. Responses to the exploration of black hair was painfully telling. In black America, hair is political and personal currency. We are obsessed by hair and what it says about us.

For some of us, our self-esteem is built on the shaky foundation of hair. Others have chosen friends and lovers based on physical characteristics that include, sometime partially, sometimes chiefly, hair. Whom among us will admit that when we envisioned having children with our loved one, among the many things we fantasized about was how our child's hair would look?

We've been bullied for things we can't change like the texture of our hair; we've done the bullying because we couldn't change the texture of our hair. One of my most salient memories growing up was spending summers with a cousin who pressed her short hair every DAY in an effort to always have it laid neatly against her scalp Twiggy-style. I eschewed the pressing comb in favor of brutal whacks of a brush and lots of hair product. We both paid a price: On even the steamiest Maryland days, neither of us went near a swimming pool.

How did we know back then what I know to be true now. Whole personalities have been assigned based on a black woman's hair. We read hairstyles like fortune tellers read tea leaves. We anticipate, predict and stereotype based on the trajectory of the strands atop the head in front of us.

Check this out from a columnist friend who penned this piece upon her return from a screening of Chris Rock's docu-flick, "Good Hair.

And here's evidence that it isn't just our hair that battles the standard of beauty. My friend, Mary Sanchez, a columnist at the Kansas City Star, received this from a public relations exec. Dear Mary: I'd love to offer you leading NY facial plastic surgeon, Dr. Sam Rizk, who has masterminded the technique behind Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery, to give a pure NATURAL looking result for African American faces."

I won't bore you with the whole thing. Dr. Rizk's flak mentions that not every nose is created or treated equal ... she includes a bit of anatomy and eugenics in explaining differences in skin and cartilage from race to race... and ends with a cheerful offer to set up an interview with Dr. Rizk and/or one of his patients.

If I attributed all of this to self hatred it would render a judgement not always deserved. Some people want a different nose, or wider eyelids or hair unnaturally straight or curly. I go through periods where I wear my hair natural and other times where I wear it chemically straightened. One of my best discoveries has been cute wigs for when I want to change my hair color or temporarily take on a funky new look. But in some cases, like the YouTube video, it is clear self-hatred is alive and well.