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Maoist movie reviews
"Good Hair" brings up Indian poverty, but stirs resentment toward
Asians
Good Hair
Directed by Jeff Stilson
Chris Rock Entertainment and HBO Films
Rated PG-13
95 minutes
2009
Reviewed November 2009
My first thought was that Chris Rock or whoever put this documentary
together should have studied Asian-Black relations in Los Angeles
before calling Los Angeles the weave capital and portraying Chinese
and Koreans as exploiters of Blacks, but this reviewer cannot say
Rock did not make an effort to penetrate the Third World context of
Black-hair products. In "Good Hair," Rock travels to India. The
documentary is one of the last places I expected to see a discussion
of the global class structure, but there it is. "Good Hair" raises
that many Indians only get cents per day, not even dollars a day.
("Good Hair" offers specific numbers, but I forget.) They can't
afford to buy hair at the prices Blacks and probably some
Euro-Amerikans pay.
In other words, Blacks may be experiencing hair-related racism or
historical racism compounded by white-oriented marketing and
Hollywood, but they are among the rich globally. Among non-prisoners,
there is far more discussion of Black hair by Blacks on a regular
basis than discussion of imprisonment, but it has to be said "Good
Hair" advances the discussion. "Good Hair" takes what could be a
trivial problem for some people and connects it to global inequality,
but not so much to exploitation.
To go further with this, such things as cutting off hair and selling
it to First Worlders, and then spending the dollars on health and
biotech stocks, cannot be the basis of wealth in India.
Unfortunately, "Good Hair" does not relate global inequality to
international exploitation other than to suggest that Indians are
being fooled by Indian businesspeople, so that is about as much as I
can squeeze out of "Good Hair" regarding imperialist economic
patterns. Truth be told, watching "Good Hair," one might not know
India exported other things to the First World, besides hair.
Chris Rock tries to sell "Black hair" to an Asian at a retail
business. Rock, himself Black and not speaking in a way that would be
sarcastic to a non-native listener, suggests that the hair, which
Rock describes as urban, straight from a "Baptist temple" might not
be clean. The Asian seems to agree. An Asian at another business
speaks broken English. The insinuation is that racist Asians are
responsible for the Black demand for real "Indian hair" and define
what is sexy. It would be one thing for Rock to do something like
this in a whole comedy routine about mutual misunderstandings; it's
another thing to pull this in a documentary, which is not just a
comedy, that an academic or journalist might participate in making.
The effect is to trivialize all racism and create an appearance that
Blacks complain or should complain about racism over one
non-subsistence good they are still buying, perhaps taking their
guilt about using hair weaves out on Asians. "Good Hair" ostensibly
explores both relaxers and weaves as manifestations of racism or
internalized racism, but is almost an advertisement for weaves as an
alternative to more harmful relaxers and perms.
"Good Hair" contradicts itself. On the one hand, it suggests that
Euro-Amerikans have pushed Blacks out of control of the Black hair
industry.(1) On the other hand, it says bizarrely that "whites"
located in Asia (presumably a reference to East Asians) are the ones
making money from "good/bad hair," not Blacks. More than just petty
bitching about anyone with light skin or a result of a black/white
binary, the inconsistency is good for the Democratic Party needing to
justify attacks on Asian countries. Militant-sounding lies about
opposing "white supremacy" contributed to Barack Obama's election.
With a Black president in place for global public opinion, militarism
toward Asian countries was renewed. Before Obama's election, there
were stories going around among Democrats and potential voters, not
in full view of the world, about "white" Arabs and Muslims oppressing
Africans.
Admittedly, this reviewer hasn't spent much time looking into the
numbers on Asian ownership in the Black hair industry, but I find it
interesting, even with the high per-capita GDP of southern Korea,
that "Good Hair" expects people to believe that the Chinese and
Korean proportion of investment is higher than the white proportion
in random industries. To start with, southern Korean assets in
non-bank U.$. affiliates according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic
Analysis were less than $30 billion in 2006, while Australian assets
were more than $100 billion. (The Australian population is smaller
than the population of southern Korea.) Instead of looking at the
history and the details of certain groups' ownership, the class the
Chinese and Korean businesspeople/investors are in, why Asians might
specialize in an area, what whites are doing instead of tending
stores in South Central Los Angeles, why whites might be less willing
to touch certain businesses or certain levels of a business, and why
majority-Black ownership of large industries is generally
unsustainable in the U.$. and current world economies, "Good Hair"
simplistically implies national oppression of Blacks by East Asians.
(What's next? Vietnam or Vietnamese females oppress U.$. females via
the nail care industry? Oh wait, comedian Anjelah Johnson already
took on nail salons.(2))
Hair is hair. There is only so much one can advance the production of
non-synthetic hair extensions. Hair products and equipment -- an
individual might only use so much. Hair salons are unproductive
sector businesses, as are retail stores and distribution centers.
Salon services cannot be exported. The United $tates has a large
unproductive sector, but this is based on exportable services,
unequal exchange, and other international exploitation. Even most
Black nationalist capitalists would sense in their own ways that hair
cannot be the basis of a Black nation economy. The question arises,
why a focus on the Black hair industry. Elsewhere in the media,
Democratic Party poverty pimps are talking about Black children's
needing food stamps (and then needing health care because children on
food stamps have higher health risks), but there aren't films being
shown about who owns the food companies or makes the food (which is
not to say there aren't still visceral reactions to Asian owners of
convenience stores almost two decades after the event that supposedly
made Ice Cube's "Black Korea" "understandable"). Unfortunately, the
partial answer to the question posed is that mother-country-whipped
people want to revive old west coast practices of cooperating with
whites to lynch Asians without building institutions separate from an
imperialist country state and an imperialist country economy. There
could be industry-specific/competitive reasons to concentrate on the
Black hair industry, or anti-Asian reasons. If someone wanted to just
talk about self-esteem, the expense of a weave, etc., why raise Asian
ownership so exclusively, even if it is true that Asians dominate an
industry. Why highlight Asian ownership, but not the general lack of
Black ownership of companies from which Blacks consume. Weaves may be
perceived as uniquely "black," but as "Good Hair" itself suggests an
increasing number of whites may be wearing weaves. One could argue
that Blacks should own the weave business in the proportion in which
they consume, but what might seem true intuitively does not reflect
what happens generally. Under imperialism, ownership in general has
undergone a change. Because of finance capital, it may be difficult
for a minority group (Blacks are 13% of the population) to own an
individual industry. Absence of majority ownership of industries and
individual units of production by an individual or group can mean
that capitalism has reached the imperialist stage, a parasitic stage.
Instead of addressing the real relationships between ownership and
consumption under imperialism and exerting leadership on avoiding
finance-capital and petty-bourgeois reformist traps for the Black
nation,(3) it is easier to undertake racist portrayals of Asians
under the pretext of exploring economic oppression connected to one
industry. It is disappointing to see Chris Rock's name on a film,
marketed as a comedy to Blacks, that this writer did not anticipate
being such a provocation. No number of eloquent poetic statements
from Maya Angelou regarding the importance of hair could change the
fact that the thrust of the movie is reactionary. This is not
someone's initial contemplation of an Asian tending a beauty supply
store; this is a movie production that presents the appearance of
being based on research and investigation.(4)
Some may not have noticed, but Black-hair product industry magnate
Madam C.J. Walker died in 1919. It's 2009. With the way the economy
works and decreased segregation, there is little reason to expect
Blacks to own the majority of any industry mass-producing or
mass-distributing products, even though buyouts are hypothetically
possible. If that presents a self-esteem problem, the focus needs to
be on the real causes, not pseudo-solutions like chasing Asians out
of town so one can feel better about buying hair and other
made/grown/sold-by-Asian products. The contemporary preoccupation
with who owns distributors and stores in imperialist countries itself
originates in parasitism, because those businesses are
unproductive-sector and the size of the unproductive sector in
imperialist countries is connected to a vast inflow of super-profit.
The above was not even to mention the international aspects of the
weave business. With neo-colonialism, most First Worlders consume
products that, above the retail level, may have originated in
foreign-owned enterprises. What are Black people supposed to do? Go
to India to colonize Indians there? Or exploit Indians by being
importers, wholesalers and retailers in the United $tates? With ideas
such as these floating around, it is no wonder people opt for
integrationism over Black nationalism. Some conceptions of Black
nationalism seek a co-existence with, or inclusion in, parasitism,
but it can be easier to opt for integrationism to increase living
standards and inclusion of Blacks in a country that is already
bloated with parasitism.
For a movie ostensibly dealing with racism or the consequences of
cosmetics and fashion marketing and mass media in a predominantly
white country, "Good Hair" shies away from critiquing Euro-Amerika,
and there is a reason for that, being colonized by whites. This
appears also in its discussion of interracial dating. Everyone is
criticized except whites. Instead of pointing to white female
pornography existing throughout culture, "Good Hair" ends up
effectively blaming Asians for Black males' dating white females and
avoiding so-called high maintenance Black females with weaves. Again,
the word "trivial" comes to mind. "Good Hair" has people talking
smack about Asians and cross-cultural dating, but this reviewer
doesn't remember hearing one word about prisons, for example.
(Although, in a way, "Good Hair" senses that integration in a
parasitic country, with internal competition and groups seeking to
maintain their status, requires lynching.) I guess that topic isn't
as uplifting as several minutes of film dedicated to an amusing
hairstylist competition and a white male hairstylist posing himself
as Black females' erotic partner in hair. "Good Hair" recognizes
implicitly that there is more Black male-white female dating than
Black female-white male dating, but instead of bringing out the real
gender aspects of Black-white relations it offers as entertainment
the idea that straight white males lack the style to attract Black
females.
The discussion of whites that "Good Hair" has gives way to other
things, but a sustained discussion could be unconnected to systematic
thought and would not necessarily lead to a correct practice. Part of
being an Oreo is talking trash about whites and complaining about
minor or small-scale instances of racism, only to fail to oppose
whites at the last second or when it is most needed, or fail to
produce a theory of oppression. Some people's idea of being more
Black or Latino than someone else is just bitching more. Bitching
about whites and then licking their ass, or bitching about whites
while licking their ass -- some people in the "people of color"
flattery business call this "coping" without concrete discussion of
when that becomes accommodation and collaboration. Yet, it is clear
that the Black Panthers were a peak. Since that once-Maoist movement
declined, politically there has been a drift, punctuated by
militant-integrationist outbursts,(5) toward integration of Blacks
with parasitic society and integration with more equality. If the
Black nation had self-determination, there would be less of this
passive-aggressive Oreo shit in the first place. When there is more
cross-cultural interaction, an expectation of integration, a sense of
injustice, partial acceptance of whites' myths about themselves, and
careerist individualism, there is going to be a kind of
passive-aggressiveness that is unhelpful (and which is in fact the
essence of many non-white comedians' discussion of whites).
In "Good Hair," it is stated that a Black female with natural hair
would have difficulty working in a legal profession with whites. That
could actually be an employment discrimination, civil rights lawsuit
situation itself. There have been lawsuits regarding natural-hair
styles. "Good Hair" (though my recollection isn't the best) doesn't
bring this up, and this reviewer suggests the reason is not only a
wish to avoid dwelling on the topic of Black female professionals who
have straightened hair or extensions, but also a desire to not offend
white females. Euro-Amerikan females have an interest in an informal
situation, of which they can take advantage. If style differences
were minimized, certain issues would not even come up. It would be
less possible for Euro-Amerikan females to use style differences for
economic and leisure-time benefit, to use style as an advantage over
Black females, foreigners, and others. And, there would be fewer
questions about the motives in a decision regarding the employment of
a Black female. "Good Hair" does little to offend white females; on
the other hand, "Good Hair" does not appear meant for whites to
watch, seemingly expecting, for example, the viewer to know the
difference between weaves worn by richer people and less expensive
sew-ins, etc. "Good Hair" does not challenge white females or white
males to change anything they're doing. Even if it did, one could ask
what good would that do, would, for example, white males really
change how they feel about curls, braids, locks, and straight hair,
and in what way. Would whites even see the movie. (What can happen
besides more discrimination lawsuits against the fashion, marketing
and media industries? And, what would it mean, for the struggle
against patriarchy, to re-sexualize Black females' hair/bodies for
whites?) This reviewer doesn't suppose "Good Hair" expects Black
females to put up with the consequences of keeping hair natural even
for the sake of self-esteem, so I hear a complaint without a
solution. One solution is Black separatism and decreasing whites'
influence in global media in order to improve Blacks' position in
cross-national interactions. Parasitism has eroded some of the basis
of Black separatism in the short term, but there is no reason to not
support struggles against U.$. imperialism that help to end racism in
the long term.
One problem with bitching is that it can remain just bitching, only
with anger taken out on third parties. So bitch about whites and the
boss, vent against white supremacy and denounce past U.$. injustices,
stroke the egos of people of various oppressed groups, and even pose
as anti-Amerikan, but elect a Black president to kill Asians in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (a president who appears to the right
of even George W. Bush on some fascism issues), vilify China and
migrants as if doing so were anti-capitalist, and stoke fascism --
the most reactionary defense of capitalism. It is possible to oppose
racism while opposing U.$. imperialism; instead of doing so,
coconuts, Oreos, Twinkies, and crackers, cooperate to loot the Third
World while dividing non-imperialist Asian nations, and while
stirring fascism up against capitalists in Japan and other countries
instead of prioritizing struggle against U.$. imperialism. "Good
Hair" is reminiscent of Democrats (of the kind to be smitten with
"Slumdog Millionaire") and phony "Marxists" trying to hitch India to
one or another exploiter class in the United $tates while pursuing
war against Muslim and East Asian countries. Earlier this month, the
New York Times published a story representing Koreans as oppressors
of Indians, and simultaneously insinuating that Koreans are Twinkies
obsessed with "English" and criticizing Koreans criticizing other
Koreans for speaking English. Also present is the notion that Blacks
and white have made advances in race relations and can now teach
Asian and Muslim nations a lesson, when what is really going on is
that there is more super-profit to go around in the United $tates and
Amerikans go on bashing and repressing migrants. Liberal cracker
whites and their Oreo and Twinkie collaborators, including
commentators during April/May 1992, talk about getting along and
multiracial solidarity against banks and corporations (without
addressing global U.$. parasitism), one day, and another day it's
punish those "ching-chong" Asians (with their secretive
non-English-speaking ways and Asian-language trade magazines!) and
Koran-studying "headbangers" for doing something other than putting
money into Wall Street and the U.S. Treasury.
It is important to deal with exploitation, not just talk about
inequality. Without addressing exploitation concretely, the door is
open to many different utopian and crackpot fantasies. To say that
some whites oppress Blacks, some Asians oppress Blacks, some Blacks
have higher income than Asians, some Asians have higher income than
Blacks, and companies employing U.$. workers generate a profit -- it
sounds materialist, but is not informative for practice unless there
is some quantitative knowledge, knowledge of the relative size of
things. Amerikans and people in non-U.$. nations relate to
super-profit in certain ways under particular conditions, not in the
ways reactionaries try to impress on others. In the First World,
seemingly concrete, but vacuous talk is great for opportunism leading
to fascism, not much else.
"Good Hair" responds to those saying that use of relaxers and weaves
is self-expression. For example, some object to the idea that
artificial straight hair is inauthentic for Black people. Obviously,
those who can afford the best weaves are more likely to emphasize
self-expression, and it is the case that U.$. people in general
defend style with Liberal ideas. Perhaps trying too hard to show that
Black females are pressured to wear weave, "Good Hair" suggests that
Black females who wear weave wear those weaves that would make the
average Black non-celebrity go broke. This reviewer would agree with
"Good Hair" that "self-expression" is often inaccurate in various
contexts, but if the choice is between pointless bitching by
so-called conscious people and dropping the issue, there are reasons
to drop the issue. Were it not for the global content of "Good Hair,"
it would have been difficult to justify having this movie review on
this Web site. I doubt Martin Luther King, Jr., would have made much
such unnecessary comments about Asians, but there is a point at which
contemplation, separately from Black nationalism and opposing
international exploitation, of racism affecting the Black nation
gives rise to reactionary attacks on foreigners.
If at a given income level Black females spend more money on hair
style than white females, nonetheless Indian females without
extensions do not have access to the same jobs, and one can ask how
the Black females got to that income level in the first place.
Because of borders, Blacks can and do enter exploiter classes, and it
is in this sense that this writer most agrees that Black females'
wearing weave is not just about "self-hatred." There is a
class-related interest. In the last four decades, Black nationalism
and the development/enlargement of the Black bourgeoisie have
diverged. This reviewer has not touched on all the class, gender and
nation aspects of Black females and style and their entanglements,
but various critics (including some employing Black nationalist
rhetoric) of Black separatists and Black nationalists -- the kind to
accuse Marcus Garvey and others of aligning with racists or fascists
-- unite with U.$. parasitism and thus dispose themselves to engaging
in racism and supporting fascism. The material basis of Black support
for fascism is exploitation of the Third World, super-profit.
Some Oreos want to reduce their cultural and visual distinctiveness
from whites, or look down on Black culture. That's not the only kind
of Oreo. (Analogously, some act as if the only coconuts worth talking
about were those who don't like Latino food, etc. The words
"coconut," "Oreo" and "Twinkie" are mistakenly used to attack on
cultural grounds people with correct ideas. The people using
"coconut," Oreo" and "Twinkie" this way are often the real coconuts,
Oreos, and Twinkies, not the people they are criticizing.) While
Euro-Amerika goes on oppressing the Black nation, both those for and
against the idea of "self-hatred" may serve as quislings, and it may
be in their exploiter interests to do so. There are fascists who
don't wear their hair natural, and there are fascists who do wear
their hair natural and traditionally, so it is possible to be overly
concerned with cultural questions.
Notes
1. Others have come off as arguing as if the problem were not the
"good/bad hair" idea, but who owns the relevant industries. Aron
Ranen claims that Koreans are "slowly making inroads into taking over
the Black manufacturers." The owner of a hair care products
manufacturer complains about "Asians" cutting her out (get it:
"Asians," not "Korean Americans"). The Black owner says, "We are a
nation within this nation, and we're just giving everything away, and
we cannot do that any longer. We have to stand up and fight. We are
beautiful Black people, and if we have to wear our hair short, so be
it. Let's wear it short, but let's get this under control where we
control the industry and not let someone else come in and then set up
and take all our revenue out of the community." Again, this coming
from a manufacturer of hair care products. Most Black females aren't
suddenly going to wear their hair short, so what are those with an
occasion to use Black nationalist rhetoric going to do about the
foreigners and Asians of migrant background?
A film or commentary may have ass-covering words like, "So, don't
encourage anybody to throw a rock through a Korean beauty supply
store," but there are various, government and non-government
consequences to approaching a topic in a certain way that flow from
the approach regardless of intentions. Rather than opposing U.$.
imperialism, reactionaries are spreading fear of an alleged Asian
mafia ruining Black business and the whole U.$. economy (for example,
a "cabal" of Asians in oil-exporting countries and East Asia
threatening the dollar's status), and supporting an entanglement of
intelligence, police and military agencies, the White House, and a
real mafia, in the service of fascism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p96aaTSdrAE
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsWrY77o77o
3. Others with unrealistic fantasies have a
get-your-shit-together-type message for Blacks.
""I think we have Black people who would get up and actually
become an owner," says Robinson. "You got them on the corner
selling dope. Same thing, just a different product. You keep an
inventory. You're a salesperson. It's just a different product.""
"Guess who sells your weave? Koreans capitalize on Black beauty's big
business,"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_7_63/ai_n25397136/
4. One of the main points of the "people of color" storytelling
racket in U.$. universities is to oppose science, so I am not
persuaded by the defense that "Good Hair" "does not take itself
seriously." Another is to be "playful." Academic storytellers acting
like it is acceptable and even laudable for "social science" graduate
students and professors to not know the difference between a mean and
a median take themselves seriously. Whether it takes itself seriously
or not, a discourse can be reactionary.
5. By "militant integrationism," I don't refer exclusively to
"revolutionary integrationism," but "revolutionary integrationism" is
relevant.
Invented by Trotskyists, "revolutionary integrationism" rejects Black
nationalism and seeks integration of Blacks and whites in a single,
fascist country, which MIWS argues would be the result of a labor
aristocracy seizure of power. "Revolutionary integrationism"
emphasizes unity of Black workers and white workers. "Revolutionary
integrationism" has given rise to anti-Asianism. While purporting to
be more radical than "Black nationalists" and others, and though all
employees receiving above the minimum wage in the United $tates are
exploiters, one article contains:
" . . . This notion obscures the ability of Latinos, especially
lighter-skinned Latinos, and Asian Americans to move up toward
the white end of the American racial-social spectrum through
intermarriage and other mechanisms of social advancement. It
also obscures the very significant class as well as racial and
ethnic diversions among the various "peoples of color." What
does a third-generation Japanese American doctor really have in
common with an undocumented Mexican immigrant farm worker? What
does an Indian immigrant computer technician have in common with
a black janitor who cleans the office building where the former
is employed?"
"Revolutionary Integrationism: The Road to Black Freedom,"
http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/864/fraser.html
The notion to which the article refers is specific, but the point is
to elevate working class solidarity over any oppressed nation unity
or uneven oppressed nation struggle. In comparison to other
literature of the left wing of parasitism, the article puts forth a
more purely patriotic message.
While waiting for the achievement of the fascist utopia, those
influenced by "revolutionary integrationism," including phony
"Maoists," have supported policies and practices of integration while
supporting the continuation of lynching. The integration co-exists
with imperialist country oppression of the Third World, internal
privilege differences, and racism.