Nappy Weaves and Corporate Thieves
I've seen two surprisingly interesting documentaries recently, and they both deserve an endorsement here for entirely different reasons.
Good Hair, a Chris Rock doc-omedy about African American hair culture will appeal to a very narrow audience, basically: Black women, black gay men, and parents of black children (are you listening Sandy and Angelina?) Anyone who falls outside of these three demographics will not get Good Hair, as proven by an inebriated Lex who stumbled home with his newest conquest just in time to belch, "what the f**k are you two watching?!?" (This blog would not be complete without mentioning that Lex's late night "friend" not only had the porntastic moniker "Bobbi Beach" but she also fell flat on her face with a loud crash while attempting to go pee, and then tried to blame it on "throwing her purse in the bathtub"... sending T-Relly and I into a fit of unbridled laughter).
It was difficult to continue watching Good Hair during the hot mess unfolding around us, but T and I persevered through the hilarious ending culminating in the over-the-top "Hair Battle" at the famous Bronner Brothers Atlanta Hair Show. Not entirely a comedy, Rock's deadpan delivery perfectly complements a subject matter that weighs heavily in the African American community. Hair relaxer (aka "creamy crack") has a larger financial/cultural chokehold on black women than Apple Bottom jeans and boots with the fuuurrr, and despite being a toxic form of sodium hydroxide, black mothers slather it on their 5 year-old daughter's scalps in hopes of a perfectly straightened coif.
There is definitely a message in this movie – Rock touches on cultural beauty ideals and the raping of an industry by foreign interests – but the majority of it will go over most of TWL reader's soft silky heads.
In contrast, everyone uses water, and everyone should be absolutely required to sit down and watch Tapped. It's going to be difficult for me to write a humorous blog here, because quite frankly, Tapped scared the s**t out of me.
Bottled water is quite possibly the world's greatest scam since Odowan Okon of Nigeria promised to send me my lottery winnings for a simple advance fee of $500. Since 1985, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola have been bottling up a commodity that all of us can get for free and putting it in a snazzy, "healthy," plastic bottle at a 1600% mark-up. Aquafina and Dasani brand water are literally taken from municipal water sources (i.e.: tap water) and rebottled for convenience. And what price are we paying for that convenience? Two massive trash patches twice the size of Texas hovering in the Pacific Ocean, and twenty-five years of poisoning our children with bisphenol A (BPA), a molecule found in plastic is related to: "obesity, prostate cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, liver disease, ovarian disease, disease of the uterus, and low sperm count in males. (I'm seriously considering force-feeding bottled water to all the men in Twin's condom blog so they will stop reproducing!)
The "holy s**t" moment of this film really hit home for me when they showed a beach from one of the most Southern islands of Hawaii where the sand and coral has been completely replaced by tiny plastic particles. Less than 30% of all water bottles are recycled, and soo many end up as trash in our oceans that plastic levels were found to be 46% higher than plankton levels near the Pacific trash patches.
I know many of you are not on the eco-band wagon, and are probably scrolling to the "boring" check box as we speak, but let me appeal to your vanity for a moment and tell you a little secret …. 40% of all bottled water is drawn from municipal water sources … So that cool little bottle of $1.99 Voss you are chugging down right now is telling us all, "You are a sucker!"
I know. I was one too.
Tapped is an excellent documentary and can be found at http://www.neoflix.com/store/atl20. For more information on the film and it's sources, check out the website: http://www.tappedthemovie.com/
7 comments:
I know you can get all of this from the links and watching the movie, but I'll recap what I found most compelling about bottled water here.
1) When purchased by the bottle, that bottled water costs you more per gallon than gasoline!
2) The EPA regulates all municipal (tap water) sources, in a city like San Diego that means tap water is tested 300+ times per month. The FDA regulates bottled water, but only if its sold in a state other than its produced in, and even then there is one person who "watches" over this for the entire industry.
3) Independent tests have shown that tap water contains less toxins and contaminates than bottled water.
For your convenience, here are some links to re-usable water bottles:
http://www.reusablebags.com/store/nathan-stainless-steel-flip-straw-bottle-p-1401.html
This one in insulated, both are BPA free.
http://www.rei.com/product/789589
WINDBAG ADVISORY IN FULL EFFECT: i have a lot to say and after NHF's dry-ass comment you might want to get a snack before jumping in.
I must disagree that the film Good Hair is only for black folks or for white people that struggle with their hybrid children’s hair. I think this film is for EVERYONE and should be required viewing in classrooms to teach that hair in general is an obsession and wrestling with black hair aint no joke. Don’t get me started on my Jheri curl years where Care-Free activator juice ran freely and I slept in plastic caps like a moron.
And thanks to the movie, I will never say such horrible things to women of color as I have in the past. Just a few weeks ago, one of Lex’s conquests was visiting and her weave was a hot mess. It was crooked and looked like it could walk on its own. Normally I would crack a joke or two but thinking of the struggle to obtain “Good Hair” I kept quiet.
I used to be brutal. Just ask one of my best friends, CJ from Hollywood, who is a weave queen and always well maintained but sometimes she takes a little too much time between trips to the beauty shop. One time she tried to disguise weave that gone rogue, that was seriously growing out in the front, with a head-band. When that head-band inadvertently slipped back to reveal jacked up hair that was nappier than even the nappiest hair in the Zulu tribes of Africa (I still remember it like it was yesterday. The head band was blue and my gasp was audible), I made fun of her (something about the hair-stylist needing a machete to get through those naps) and now I feel bad about it.
On the water-bottle front: DUH! I’ve been arguing this with idiots for years. The problem is people think they are precious and once the marketing machines got to their weak and feeble minds that bottled water was better it became tough to convince them otherwise.
the water issue is real, but you can save yourself a lot of time and just watch the story of stuff: http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/
Watch the other shorts there for true enlightenment.
I believe strongly in the old adage, "everything happens for a reason". I never visit this blog and when I do, it's to see if there is anything about me. Well today I decide to check it out for ideas for a blog for a client, and I run into the "creamy crack" posts.
First T don't feel bad about your comments to me, I will not reciprocate! Anyone who wishes to go down the path of weaves (and that means hair extentions for those of you who think we're talking about color highlights), has all the confidence in the world and couldn't care one bit what anyone thinks, not even the guy who's paying for the weave. BTW none of you muthafers, don't wear weaves, have no idea what you're talking about, watching one little show doesn't make you an expert! I'm not an expert on Drags from watching Priscilla Queen of the desert, so STFU!!! (at first I thought this was funny, now just piss me the F off!) Stick to your nerdy shit, and leave us sistas alone!! Don't go there! Don't go there!!
TWL readers I apologize for the late notice on these but a few advisories and alerts have just been issued.
We've got the following, all in full effect:
**LOST MY SHIT ADVISORY**
I'm not an expert on Drags from watching Priscilla Queen of the desert, so STFU!!!
**CHARGED UP SISTA ADVISORY**
Stick to your nerdy shit, and leave us sistas alone!! Don't go there! Don't go there!!
**WINDBAG ADVISORY**
(the entire comment applies)
and finally a couple of alerts:
**ENTITLEMENT ALERT**
not even the guy who's paying for the weave.
**SELF ABSORBED ALERT**
I never visit this blog and when I do, it's to see if there is anything about me.
*Author's Note*
I just wanted to mention that the word "Creamy Crack" was used in the film by Rock, not something I made up on my own.
This was a great documentary, hitting on cultural beauty ideals that are unrealistic and the great lengths that people will go to to obtain them - and in no way makes anyone an expert on the subject. Natural or synthetic ... it's entirely a personal choice ... and I'm not knocking either one of them.
I do think it sucks that the people who are making money off of the black hair industry are not the ones who actually USE the products. The majority of hair weaves are human Indian hair, that is removed from temples (where young Indian women shave their heads as a religious sacrifice) and sold in bulk for thousands of dollars to Asian-owned companies. The woman who shaved their heads do not see a penny of this profit.
It's a really interesting (and funny) look at a subject most people know little about. I recommend it to everyone, but noted that it would have little interest or relativity to those who've struggled with black hair issues.
If anything ... I think T's comment above reflects his new appreciation for black women and what they have to go through to obtain a look that was fashioned by a white industry.
*golf claps from afar*
Take this comment from a former editor:
Best column yet, MM. Nice work.
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