10 point essay

What is Good Hair?

1.Good Hair has many definitions. Good hair should not be seen as one special type of hair. It is important to see all different types of hair as good because it can all be seen as beautiful. Limiting ourselves to a certain type of hair isn’t right.

2.I have a lot of friends that are black and say how they want to marry a guy with “good hair” so they can have pretty babies with nice long hair. My roommate tells me how she wants to marry a guy with Asian in him so her babies will be mixed and automatically have “good hair”. See how the desire for good hair goes to extreme. So it seems to be that she might be limiting herself to finding a man because her desire to have kids with “good hair”. Who knows how your kids hair may come out you can’t predict it. But whatever hair they do have it should be considered good hair. People with that mind set will pass that on to their kids and they will live with the constant question “do I have good hair?”

3.-30% to 34% of all hair products in the U.S. are purchased by African American women. And the film contends that hair weaves -- worn by women of all ethnicities but especially notable among black women -- make up about 65% of hair-care revenue.

-Historically, long, straight tresses -- along with pale, white skin -- defined beauty in the United States. Black women, our complexions the hues of a cocoa rainbow and our hair often kinky and short, didn't fit the Eurocentric ideal, and we were made to feel less soft, less lovely, less womanly.

-“Hair became a thing that we obsessed over, searing it into contrition with hot combs and lye, and assigning it the attributes of good (straight/wavy) and evil (naturally nappy.) Indeed, Madam C.J. Walker, a black woman widely regarded as America's first black female millionaire, earned her fortune devising products and techniques that made our hair "behave."

- It is estimated that hair weaves make up to 65% of the $9 billion hair business. That means a whole lot of people wear weaves. Not only black women, but Caucasian women also.


4.Good hair is like having the latest cell phone. Some people are blessed and have it already. And some will do anything to have it. While others are content with having any kind of cell phone and still think theirs is good because they haven’t fallen into societies trap of what is good or best, what you like or have should be how you can determine what is good.

5.Little black girls that have course, nappy, and short hair go to school and face humiliation because they don’t have hair like the white girls that is fine, straight, and long just because they don’t look like everyone else they get laughed at, picked on, and taunted with the phrase “you don’t have good hair.” It is sad that this idea of good hair starts at such a young age and it continues all through life.


6.Some people believe that good hair means to conform like to the European style like hair and the battle for better stronger and longer hair and they believe nappy hair is no good. Others contrast and say good hair isn’t the texture or how fine it is, good hair is keeping your hair maintain and healthy no matter what texture you have. They believe Good hair is how ever you want your hair to be and it should be accepted.

7.One of the causes of this issue is how the media portrays beauty with hair. Every magazine or model photos or any icon the woman have beautiful long full hair. Whether it’s a weave or a perm all the black woman hair has changed to what society says is beautiful. The effect is we see all our famous black woman with this type of hair we began to think what they have is beautiful and what we have is not and we must change and do whatever it takes to our hair to be beautiful like them.


8.“The idea that black hair is unsightly and unmanageable has been reinforced by the majority culture since slavery. Comparing black women and relaxing with white women and the quest for blondeness, as Rock has done, is facile and inaccurate. Black women covet straight hair not just for vanity’s sake, but for social and professional acceptance.”
-She is saying that the theory of good hair goes all the way back to slavery times. Black women hair has always been considered bad and seen in a negative way. To say the way a person hair is unprofessional isn’t fair, when that’s the hair they have been born with naturally. It isn’t fair to black woman that they have to conform because the dark nappy hair they were born with isn’t seen acceptable in society.

9.There is nothing cute about nappy thick hair. You can’t do anything to it. Who wants short course hair? Nobody! Good hair is the Euro-centric look. See all of our beautiful superstars, they have beautiful hair. We should all want that. Girls should do anything and everything to get their hair done like that to have good hair if they weren’t born with it. It must suck to be born with nappy hair. Save yourself the trouble of getting picked on and get a perm, everyone is doing it, why wouldn’t you?


10.A young black girl with course hair and doesn’t like it.

Me: What do you think about your hair?
Girl: I hate it, it’s so thick and poofy I can’t do anything with it. It says at the same length I wish it grew more.
Me: So since you hate it what do you do with it?
Girl: I just put it in a ponytail if I can’t get it done or I just get a weave. I had a perm once before but my hair so that option is out.
Me: A perm? What made you do that to your hair? You didn’t know the risk of the damage you might have caused?
Girl: Yea I knew, but I wanted my hair to be straight and silky. I was tired of the jokes I had to hear about my hair and tired of managing it. I wanted to have good hair and people to like it.
Me: Good hair? You think straight and silky is good hair?
Girl: yea, duh! Don’t you see how all the models and famous people look so beautiful with their long, silky, straight hair. I want hair like that! I want to be beautiful!
Me: Yea it’s nice, but I don’t think it will make someone beautiful just because that’s how their hair is. I think good hair can be your hair. Natural hair is beautiful. As long as it looks clean and it’s being maintained.