It is a Black Hair Issue - NOT Universal
I don't know why everyone wants to come about and complain that this movie tries to be about race, and that every race has bad hair issues. It is quite frustrating for me to read, as a black woman, about a white woman who says she has bad hair, a latina complaining about her mom and her bad hair, and all the other groups of people who want to interject their bad hair stories.
What non-black people don't seem to understand is that hair is a serious issue among black women. It is NOT universal. All black women go through the process of having to spend hours on their hair - this, unless they have "good hair" which means they have "white" hair. It is very frustrating to me that I have to spend nearly 3 hours a week on my hair - and it isn't like I have a perm or get fancy hair styles. I have been natural for a couple of years because I was tired of the burned scalp, the time spent under the burning hair dryer, the need to get a perm every 6 weeks, and just the problems associated with my hair. Even though I stopped processing my hair, I still have to deal with my natural hair, which is not easy. First, I am a lawyer and people look at me when I enter my firm like I'm crazy. I mean, even a black partner told me "where do you think you are going to work?" when I told him that I wanted to go natural.
The best thing I did with my hair that wasn't so time consuming was get braids - every two months I would sit for 10 hours on a chair to get my hair braided - and then I had to find a style that was 'acceptable' for the work place.
No other race deals with that collectively! I am so tired of everyone complaining about how Chris Rock made a movie about black women's hair and how everyone else have a problem. Greek gods, is the only thing Black people can talk about is slavery and Africa? I mean, can't people just recognize that some pains are specific to a particular group? I don't go and complain that black people suffered in the Holocaust, too, when people talk about Hitler and that event (and yes, there were about 250,000 blacks killed - and there were gays, and other "undesireables). I don't interject - "Oh, wait, well, there were black people, too!" It is silly, isn't it? To cry like a kindergardener "I'm suffering, too!"
Please people - please understand that it is so different for everyone - some groups have it easier than others - and when it comes to hair, black women have it the worse. Period. I love my hair - I love it a lot - and I play with it a lot, too. But it is unfortunate that I can't just jump in the pool like some of my white friends, and not worry about my hair too much. Or I can't be calm when it is raining outside -
It isn't to say that some white people don't have problems with their hair, or that other groups don't. But no other group has the same problems black women have with their hair - not to the same extention, and not to the same costs both socially and economically. And what I mean by that socially and economically, I refer to job loss - before getting my job, I had to get my hair pressed because I knew that if I went to the interview with my hair natural, that I would be considered militant and undesirable. Just think, when the New Yorker wanted to satirize Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, how did they depict them on the cover of the magazine? They had Michelle with a big afro! They didn't have her with her straight hair!
Also, in the late 80s, there was a newscaster for CBS who was fired for wearing her hair natural - her hair was nice and neat but they let her go because of it. No other race has to deal with the assumption that natural hair is militant or "Panther" or "Black Power" -- No other race has to deal with someone coming to their office and saying "Wow, your hair is better straight, it is more professional!"
Please consider these things before interjecting some outlier situation of an Indian woman with "nappy" hair - collectively, Black Women hair is an issue that is specific to black women! It is not universal.