Good Hair or Good Sex? Which would you choose?
To say that Chris Rock has stirred up deeply rooted emotions, warranted or unwarranted, amongst black women in his new film, “Good Hair,” would be an understatement. The movie, a satirical look at black women and their hair, has received critical acclaim from the critics, but sneers and snubs from the “Sistas” and is now a water cooler topic.” “Why examine ourselves and put our business out in the public?. Don’t we have enough troubles?,” they ask.
It is staggering the amount of money spent by black women on their hair, contrary to their white girlfriends. Collectively, we spend over 9 billion dollars for our hair to look white every year ,and individually over $800, and this is just on relaxers alone. To take it even one step further, many women, have happily forfeited a prospective love making session, terrified that their hair might get ruined! Some even charge the men if their hair gets messed up!
My appointment at my hairdresser’s salon, who has now become one of my closest friends, is etched in stone for every Thursday at 10am. Come hell or high water, I am there at 9:50am sharp, eating either ackee and salt fish and dumplings or mackerel and dumplings, at the Jamaican restaurant adjacent to her salon, waiting patiently for her to arrive. She usually saunters in at around 10:15am, cursing me lovingly under her breath as she complains, “Sandy, why can’t you ever be late for a change?” I ignore her and eat continue to eat my food.
As a young girl growing up in Jamaica, Jaffreys was the relaxer of choice by everyone. This chemical relaxer, the mother of all relaxers, guaranteed to make you look like an Indian girl, instilled enormous pain, made tears run freely, and created scars and sores in your head every six to eight weeks. I, along with every other little Jamaican girl, endured pain and agony at the hand of our stylists. While Dottie, my mom’s stylist and now mine, creamed my hair from roots to end, I silently begged for death to either myself, Dottie or my mother. ‘Sandy, hold your darn head straight nuh gal pickney,” she would say. “Yu mada said that the last time your hair was not done properly and is blaming me. You know how she is.” “Well, maybe she should have married a coolie man and not my dry head father,” I wanted to say, but of course I held my tongue and cried silently instead.
To this day I attribute my obsession with weaves, the Remy kind of course, to the abuse I was put through as a child in my mother’s attempt to ensure that I was seen as a little coolie girl, versus just being straight black. Many women, we conclude, ignore their lovers in order to keep their hair intact, while others prioritize their looks over other important tasks. Whereas I might not forfeit the lovemaking, however, I must admit that in the past, Remy hair has won in the fight with my monthly car payment. “The leasing company was already rich,” I rationalized, and, “At least I could take the bus and still look fly!”
While there is no thought in my head at this moment about a prospective lover or husband, I am however consumed with the burning question, “I wonder if de Remy Goddess that I buy comes in a body wave style?” As I am going on a cruise in a few weeks, I must organize my hair in advance! There might be something to Chris Rock’s movie after all!
