He discovers that for some black women, attaining "good hair" means either straightening or using extensions. Straightening involves the application of products containing sodium hydroxide, which a dermatologist and a chemist describe as potentially dangerous to the scalp and even to inhale in quantity (your lungs might get straightened). Leave it on too long, and your scalp or face can be burned -- something that has happened to some of the woman featured in the film.
I imagine a good many black women would tell Chris Rock that having "good hair" simply means having hair that is healthy, strong and abundant. Why must it also be straight? Yes, many black women enjoy their straight hair, whether natural or by way of extensions. They look great. But often they go back and forth among hairstyles; that is the way of women, unlike us male clods who settle on a hair style in grade school and stick with it like Rod Blagojevich.
Extensions involve braiding long swatches of hair to existing hair. Think Beyonce. Where does this hair come from? India, mostly, where some women cut off their hair before marriage or for religious purposes and can sell it for amounts that mean a lot in a poor nation.
What about the hazards of straightening? Rock shows a hair-raising demonstration of an aluminum Coke can literally being eaten up in a bath of sodium hydroxide. It may help to recall that another name for sodium hydroxide is "lye." God forbid a woman should put that on her head! What Rock doesn't mention is that few women do. If he had peeked in Wikipedia, he would have learned: "Because of the high incidence and intensity of chemical burns, chemical relaxer manufacturers have now switched to other alkaline chemicals." Modern relaxers can also burn if left on too long, but they won't eat up your Coke cans.
The popularity of Afros in the late 1960s and '70s asserted that natural hair was beautiful just the way it grew (and was styled, cut and shaped, of course; Angela Davis didn't look that good without effort). Classic Davis-style Afros have grown rare, but another "natural" style, braiding, is seen all the time nowadays. Many black women and some men use braids and dreads as a fashion statement.
The use of the word "natural hair" is, in any event, misleading. Take a stroll down the hair products aisle of a drugstore or look at the stock price of Supercuts. Few people of any race wear completely natural hair. If they did, we would be a nation of Unibombers.
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