You can stick on as many qualifiers as you like but it’s obvious you **do **think you speak for all blacks.
Because clearly there is only *one *real black culture, and apparently it means living in the ghetto. :rolleyes: Gee if a white person here said “real black culture” = ghetto life, they’d be called a racist and it would start a multi-page trainwreck thread.
God help me if one more person uses that rolley eye smiley with me. Geez.
Let’s say I do think that; Who cares if I think that? So what. Seriously. As long as I don’t claim to speak for all blacks, then who cares what I think. It always amazes me that people have a problem with my own views on my experience in the black community. Sorry if it doesn’t match what you thought you would hear.
Also, where did I say ghetto = black. Point that out to me.
I’ve actually been wanting to catch this, because it seems very interesting.
Tangentially, I suppose, I should mention that I’m a white girl who got braided in extensions (well, braids then sewing the hair into the tracks) a few months ago and recently got them tightened, I have to say that I only have one thought on the matter: I can’t believe people regularly do this to babies. Well, small children, but you know what I mean.
Getting the extensions put in the first time hurt to the point where I was having to do some yoga breathing to get through it. Then, my head was swollen and in pain for a solid week- the first 3 days of which I couldn’t even lay on my head at night to sleep, because it hurt so badly. Then, I had months of itchy braids tugging at my scalp.
The worst thing, though, was getting them tightened. Oh god- I was bawling. It hurt so bad. I couldn’t help it and was totally embarrassed.
The weird thing is: I’m not tender headed at all- you can yank and pull on my hair all day and it doesn’t hurt me. When I was a small kid, I had very long hair and my mom would violently rake through it after I got it tangled into a giant matte. But man, these braids for extensions? I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.
(For what it’s worth, I’ll take them out when they grow out this time- I just figured that since I paid for them, I may as well get them tightened once, just to see).
Question–where does the pain come from? I’ve heard it’s bad (uh…not that I watch the makeovers on Top Model), but like, are they yanking at the hair that’s already there to put it in…or is it something like the tracks hurting the scalp…? Sorry if it’s a stupid question–I’ve never had them or seen them put in up close.
I remember Chris Rock saying in the movie and in his interviews that women do all kinds of painful things for beauty. I remember thinking that I’d never do anything painful for the sake of beauty and then I remembered the paying people to put hot oil on my arms/legs and to yank out hair from the follicles. I guess we all have our “rituals.” 
Basically, they section off your hair, then take chunk of hair and french braid it all the way around your head (so, horizontal instead of vertical). The braid is small and has to be super tight, so it doesn’t come loose and your extensions fall out. That hurts, but it’s just tight braiding.
Then, they take a needle and thread (thick thread, like upholstery thread thickness) and literally sew the weft of hair into the braid. This hurts because it’s just repeatedly pulling and tugging all over just to get the hair in, the needle angled, etc. Plus, everytime the needle goes into the braid, it’s yanking the already super tight braid.
Then, when it’s all said and done, you’ve this SUPER tight braid pulling on your scalp, now weighted down with this extra hair. Until your hair grows out a teeny bit (so, like a week for me), this hurts horribly. It’s just constantly pulling your hair all over your head. But because it isn’t your WHOLE head and just chunks, I think it makes it hurt worse (or feel like it does).
There are, of course, other kinds of extensions (I’ve done the bonded in kind which don’t hurt, but do rip out my hair), but this kind . . . good gravy, I have no idea how or why people do this to children. It’s the braiding that makes it hurt, which is what is commonly done to kids.
Here’s a Google pic so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about. But I can tell you that my extensions were tighter than that- they didn’t hang at all and were flat against my head. Ow.
My link didn’t work. Let’s try again: Click me!
The tone is invalidating the disclaimer and makes it about as meaningful as the tag “no offense” is when it is preceded by something offensive.
It’s also doing the exact same thing that you’re accusing (and are apparently displeased with) others of doing when it comes to describing reality.
Oh, I haven’t seen the movie yet. It’ll probably go in my netflix queue.
It’s interesting that you talk about this being done to kids. In my area (Detroit), in general the black girls have to wait to get their first weave or complex braid/cornrow style. Obviously there are some girls who’ll have them in young, but most young girls I see have the hair that’s pulled into ponytails (with the bead hairbands) that are then either braided or gathered in several spots down the hair (so it’s little puffballs going down)*. This still doesn’t look like much fun because you can tell that their hair is still pulled really tight, but it can at least be taken out easily.
My best friend in 6th grade was black and had her hair relaxed/straightened. One Saturday she called me all excited and said that she has a new hairstyle! Her mom had decided she was old enough for her first weave and so she had longer hair and braids in. Totally cute, but our classmates (mostly white Catholic school) totally ripped on her. 
She cried so hard that she went home and said she wanted it taken out.
Aww. What jerks those other kids were.
Invalidating what disclaimer? That I am only speaking for my own experiences and cannot speak for anyone else? How on earth can my tone invalidate that. Seriously. Ask yourself that for a moment. There are two options.
Or 2. I can admit that I don’t have that authority, even though I believe that most black folks probably know where I’m coming from.
I haven’t gone with option one. Is it a problem that my tone suggests that I am with option 2? Why on earth would that be a problem with anyone? It is my own opinion about my own beliefs that I am simply sharing with anyone that wants to listen. This has gotten really strange and bizarre. I laid down my opinion, I have repeated myself, and now the conversation has turned into something strange, so Imma go ahead and say peace.
Well, you do come off a bit condescending. When other people bring up stuff contrary to your experience, your response is something like, “I don’t think he’s lying…BUT…” or that person is weird/loony.
I do think he’s lying. I’m not saying he is, but I do think he is. But so what? I don’t trust Hollywood with the truth. Especially about a group of people that have been lied to their own selves so badly, not to mention lied *about. * I believe black people are a beautiful people. I believe that we were robbed of a lot of the natural self-love that a person would have for themselves during a period of our history that was as ugly as they tried to pretend that *we *were.
I love the 70s with all my heart and soul, and consider it a revolutionary time in black American history. The fruits of that revolution still blooms, and it is with great pride that I see my people embrace their beautiful blackness. There is no way I will allow Hollywood stars to dismiss those strides in anyway without me speaking up. People won’t agree with me, but so what? Why take it all personally? And that woman that made that comment about getting the white lady hair does sound loony to me. How is that condescending?
These kinds of issues are important to me, because I do believe that a revolution was necessary to undo a lot of the damage that had caused black self-loathing. I actually get quite emotional about it. It is always really strange to me to see people react all personally and emotionally about my views on it, though. Rolling their eyes at me, and making claims that I’ve said things that I haven’t (ghetto = black. Never said that nonsense). Just…strange.
ETA: You know how people say they are done with a thread, and then they come back? That annoys me. So this time, Imma do it like Bill O’Reilly and give ya’ll the last word, for real.
I hope that after you see the movie…you are going to deign to watch it, aren’t you?..you’ll come back to this thread and give your opinion.
Did we see the same film? Because that’s what I got out of it. Be proud of who you are. Look whatever way you want to look. Make yourself happy.
I think the reason people are giving you shit is because of things like this. You say you think he’s lying but you haven’t even seen the dang film. How the heck can you say he is (or even think he is) when you haven’t seen it?
zweisamkeit, you are forcing me to annoy my own self. I said I was done with this thread, but you are pulling me back in. It’s cool though. Usually, by this time, I’m pulling my fro out by the roots. I think I may be finally learning to not over emote on these topics.
Ok. Lemme ask you an honest question. Are my communication skills so poor that you honestly don’t know that I was referring to his interview and not the film? Are you honestly telling me that you didn’t peep where I explicitely said I think he is lying about what he said in the interview? Answer me that.
Now, let me ask you another question. If Chris Rock had made a movie about how much self-love black women have. How far they have come in embracing their natural beauty, despite media onslaught of images of white beauty…and about the fact that we do indeed struggle with someracism of our own in which we actually look down on white people and their hair,as opposed to calling it good hair…If he made a movie like that, do you think it would draw as large of a white audience?
I doubt it. I think Chris Rock doubts it too.
ETA: I want to add that Chris Rock has the right to shuck and jive in as many interviews that he likes. I reserve the right to call it like I see it.
I’m certain that the people who make the media that you object to think the exact same thing.
Hmm. Ok. I guess you may be right about that.
Maybe not, but you’re making A LOT of sense to me. 
Nzinga, regarding Chris Rock’s daughter’s “good hair” comment, have you considered that the phrase “good hair” as you understand it may be a result of your age, location, and upbringing and that for a child born after 2000, in Southern California, into a wealthy lifestyle, it may have a different connotation?
You say that Chris Rock must be lying because no black person ever referred to white hair as “good hair” when you were growing up, but this little girl’s context is completely different from yours.
