I know, I know, everybody and their mom has an opinion on the Chris Rock vs Will Smith smackdown. BUT I'm not here to discuss either Chris or Will's actions in this. I'm hear to talk about Jada.
Now, I don't really have an opinion on Jada either, but I do wanna talk about her hair. Until the Oscars, I didn't realize that Jada suffered from alopecia. For those that don't know, alopecia is:
Alopecia is an autoimmune disease that makes your body think of your keratin in your hair and your nails as a foreign enemy, stunting its growth. Sometimes this results in hair loss. In Jada's case it looks like she opted to shave her head to avoid a patchy look. Shaving one's head can be a very freeing but emotional process. Ask just about any woman and she'll tell you that she did something drastic to her hair during a stressful or traumatic time in her life. And I can say that if you're stressed enough that your hair is falling out, you're definitely stressed enough to shave your head. Most infamous being Britney Spears.
Gif description: YouTube creator Chris Crocker in his famous video, quoted crying "Leave Britney Alone!"
Alopecia isn't contagious but it can be hereditary, which can be even more disastrous within the black community when there's so much value and identity tied to our hair. The black hair industry is a multi-billion dollar one, and nobody understands that better than Chris Rock... supposedly.
Gif description: Chris Rock shrugging and talking into a mic at The Breakfast Club radio studio.
Back in 2009, Chris Rock produced a documentary on Black hair and the stigmas around it entitled "Good Hair." I know, right? Who knew? Supposedly, the idea came after his daughter asked him why she doesn't have "good hair." Good hair is often recognized as straight, fine, fair, flowing - the traits that Black women have to undergo arduous treatments to obtain and maintain whereas most other ethnicities can just hop up out of bed and turn their swag on. And yes, these are processes that we willingly undergo, but we do so because of the socially-perpetuated Eurocentric beauty ideals that Black people see everyday. From a little girl's first Just For Me kit to middle-America redlining Black people in the hiring process for "unprofessional locs" to military elites having to worry about the neatness of their hair when they're miles away from another person who's had their hands in a kitchen like yours. (And you better know what kind of kitchen I'm talking about). And if your heart isn't breaking at the thought of a three-year-old Black girl asking why she doesn't look good enough for the rest of the world, then you're part of the problem, my friend.
What's bizarre is that Chris Rock would go through the ordeal of producing a Sundance film to show his daughter some positive vibes around Black culture, and then proceed to make a joke at Jada's expense. Regardless of whether or not he knew what Jada was going through, it's not a great joke. And Will's response was a bit out of line. But I have to wonder how much her hair has emotionally impacted Jada that Will was willing to defend her honor so aggressively. Especially if you think back to Jada's daughter having her big lyrical debut with a song about whipping her hair back and forth.
Gif description: Willow Smith's music video whipping her braids back and forth, whipping her braids back and forth. Now you're gonna have that song stuck in your head all day. You're welcome.
I don't think there's a problem with shaving your head. However, if you didn't feel that there was much of a choice in doing so, that could add resentment towards your body for betraying you and towards anyone that draws attention to it. When cancer patients lose their hair, it's yet another thing piled on top of everything that's going wrong. There's people who will be very sensitive to those going through cancer, because cancer obviously sucks. But there's also people that will try to assuage any emotional struggle towards hair loss because "it's just hair." But that hair is yet another thing that one can't control in their life. And with such a strong tie to one's self, it's jarring that you can't figure out how to get control of your own body. Why do you think women get so frustrated during their period? It's not the hormones, it's the raging fire demon inside that is resistant to spell charms.
Gif description: Megan Thee Stallion, dressed like red velvet royalty, waving a wand with a disapproving side glance as she sits on her leather throne.
There's such a strong connection to one's hair. It's a part of one's identity, how they express and represent themselves. It's got cultural ties, ceremonial removal, and it's got me riled up enough to make regular blog posts about it. And the fact that our hair also contains melanin means that's just another part of our blackness to be proud of... theoretically. There have been times where I was so ashamed of my hair that I didn't want to go to school, and that was when I was in high school and later college. I know people who have said they've experienced the same in elementary school children. A child should never have that level of self-hatred.
The problem with the Chris Rock and Will Smith altercation is honestly in the response that people have. If you're picking a side, you're pitting black people against each other and saying that there's a proper way to behave in public in front of white people, which is problematic. But what's really frustrating is that you have to assume Jada was already worried about how she was being represented in public to be that offended by Rock's joke. I mean, the Smith family has already been the topic of so much gossip and the butt of everyone's joke. Sadly, I think society was missing the black relationship drama. Remember how hyped people got into Beyonce and JayZ's business back when Solange threw down? I guess Becky with the good hair is still ruining homes, but this time it's in the metaphorical sense, shading Jada's hair. And again, there's nothing wrong with Jada's look as it is. The issue is that she's clearly sensitive about it. I don't know the celebrity protocol here. I'd picture a celebrity group chat where people are like "hey so-and-so isn't cool with people joking about this right now, so maybe save it for the next award season" and then George Lopez is like "aight bet" or something. Sure would save some of the drama. But realistically, you're not gonna know what it's like to be a black woman with self image issues unless you are a black woman. There's so much pressure from ourselves, our community, our society, our wallets (hair maintenance is expensive, okay?) and then to be in the public eye as much as Jada is, she's clearly going through something. Even Jada's response to the whole ordeal was about "healing," which is pretty cryptic but I'm gonna let that go. Again, I'm not a Jada stan. I'm just saying.
"I knew women wanted to be beautiful, but I didn't know the lengths they would go to, the time they would spend—and not complain about it. In fact, they appear to look forward to it." ~ Chris Rock, Good Hair
I don't think I have to explain to you how the ideal whiteness is placed on a pedestal in our society. You can see it, and you don't have to look very hard. So what, right? I mean, capitalism has it's claws in just about everything, might as well chalk white beauty up to that, too, right? Well, racism is a thing, yes. I've ranted about that before. But in this particular context, it's not outright racism or microaggressions from other races. It's us doing it to ourselves, and that's what really sucks. Our own people are often perpetuating the Eurocentric beauty standards within our community, meaning that even if you have someone who's proud of their fro, odds are they are a singular voice within that area and will probably be mocked by other black people. And even in cases where black people aren't directly reinforcing these Eurocentric beauty standards, the fact that we are the ones who continue to outline "good hair" means that we're adding to that image.
In Black culture, there's so much pressure placed on our hair. But there is also a sense of community and togetherness involved. My mom has never given me the whole puberty talk, but before I was old enough to write, I felt the sting of Eurocentric beauty standards. Eurocentric beauty standards favor Western traits of long flowing hair and light skin, and as a kid, you see it represented everywhere before you even know the words to articulate it. However, if you're lucky, you'll find yourself among people eager to show you representation of your own people. With my mom, it was in Black Barbies and connecting with the downstairs neighbor to braid my hair in an awkward silence. With my sister, my auntie, and my granny, it was taking trips to their favorite beauty salons to style my hair however they deemed fit. With my high school friends, it was spending time sitting on my balcony reuniting after my first college semester break, braiding into the late hours of the night, learning how to hide Marley hair into my own hair and disguise myself as someone who had their life together. And now, with my very white mother-in-law, it's the times spent sitting over the electric kettle to dunk the ends of my braids to seal them, a trick that I never would have learned on my own. It's a way to bond, and to feel beautiful, and I think that's why so many women subject themselves to it.
Let's look back at Chris Rock's film Good Hair.
"Chris Rock, a man with two daughters, asks about good hair, as defined by Black Americans, mostly Black women. He visits Bronner Brothers' annual hair convention in Atlanta. He tells us about sodium hydroxide, a toxin used to relax hair. He looks at weaves, and he travels to India where tonsure ceremonies produce much of the hair sold in America. A weave is expensive: he asks who makes the money. We visit salons and barbershops, central to the Black community. Rock asks men if they can touch their mates' hair - no, it's decoration. Various talking heads (many of them women with good hair) comment. It's about self image. Maya Angelou and Tracie Thoms provide perspective." -- IMDB
I have to assume that Chris Rock, even being a black man and having done his foray of research on black hair, does not mean that he has become an expert on black hair and still has much to learn. I didn't learn about alopecia until I saw posters in a doctor's office, and even then I never thought it could happen to someone like me because I was "healthy." But after experiencing my own hair breakage after years of kiddie perms and relaxers, I started to notice the same posters on display in the beauty shop. Maybe Rock didn't know Jada had alopecia. After all, her style was definitely giving Amber Rose vibes, and who's to say this wasn't a chosen look instead of a sullen defeat in the battle of "bad hair?" Well, maybe that's why Will Smith reacted the way that he did. Maybe it wasn't just a "my wife ain't laughing" knee-jerk reaction, maybe Smith isn't "whipped," which is also a problematic thought. Maybe Will didn't realize how hurtful the joke would be to Jada because he too is not a black woman and does not personally know what she's going through. But then when she made it known, he was determined to support her but didn't know how, and somehow landed on landing a hand on Chris Rock. It's not an excuse, I'm just speculating like everyone else here.
When I was in college, there was a group of black girls who clearly had an opinion about me wearing wigs. They never outright said it to my face, but they would whisper amongst themselves with disapproving looks in my direction. One day, I said I've had enough. If they're gonna look at me, I'm gonna give them something to look at. I took this fake banana that I had (I'm quirky, I can't explain why I had a fake banana), and I managed to loop it into my naturally nappy locks. I put on a banana yellow long-sleeve shirt and away to class I went. And do you know what the girls said to me?
"You should wear your natural hair more often."
I knew they were tripping because I hadn't even put in the effort to comb my hair or make it into a stylish fro. It was literally a "just woke out of bed and chose violence" sort of style, so the only reason they had anything to say was either to make it known that I knew they were talking about me, or that they really thought that I must hold that much self-hatred to hide my real hair under wigs all the time that the one time that I didn't, they felt the need to embrace me and encourage me to let my scalp breathe. Either way, it didn't quell the anger that I already had towards them. After all, I didn't think that wearing a wig meant that I hated my roots. I just didn't know how to tame them. I didn't understand how one of my white female peers could throw on a hoodie or a messy bun on a bad hair day, but me putting in enough effort to match my wigs to my outfit was a sign that I had given up. But sure, I'll admit that I would be ashamed of my natural hair in it's roughest state, because who wouldn't? After all, you can't really shove all this into a messy bun, and I was probably still reeling from the bandana debacle from high school and didn't want to risk it with my professors. Maybe I did have some internal self-image issues to deal with, but I had the privacy to deal with it on my own and only respond to the haters when I chose to. Jada does not have that luxury.
But if you can't get enough of the Chris Rock drama, I'm gonna hand the mic over to YouTuber Harriyanna (warning for those at work, she curses but you gotta let her do it cuz she's out here dropping truth bombs with the ladybug bonnet on, okay?) to break it down for you why so many black women are upset about this. And if, like me, you're tired of hearing "who was in the right?" debates, I suggest you ignore all of that and watch Good Hair and make your own decisions.
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