Hair Media

See, this is what I love about youtube. Videos like this make me really happy youtube exists because it lets me know, "Oh shit! I'm not the only one who thinks about this!" My friend Khalilah sent me this video last night. This is the sort of thing I would have really appreciated even when I was in high school when my best friend and I were transitioning from straight hair to locks. What I love about it it, is that I feel it really does what I feel advertising does best but in the reverse. Instead of promoting the same old, self  hating, "you're not good enough" tactics that we are all susceptible to, it puts spin on having natural hair as if that is a revolutionary idea. And at this point in time, maybe it is. I'm not saying that is completely successful. It uses the tools that exist and the tools of the enemy have the messages of the enemy embedded within. It's a good beginning though. Like my mom always says, "They may mean it for evil but I mean it for good." I wonder if "good" can start to be redefined in advertising, not simply as an idea but an actuality.

In a "Race Class and Gender" class I took a year ago, I remember discussing with my professor the idea that advertising is not necessary for anything that is truly beneficial to the people, that a "good" thing will make itself known simply through it's sheer necessity and the idea of selling something which is needed is the beginning of corruption. Well, being born in a capitalist  society and someone who fights often a losing battle against excess consumerism, I do understand the validity of this. But as a person who lives in a capitalistic society, I recognize that the odds of my dropping out of that society to go live off the land, which we are successfully destroying every second of the day, is highly unlikely for many reasons. And don't think I haven't thought about it.

I am a black woman, and as a black woman born in a country, which uses media to negatively stereotype or negate the beauty of black woman, this video is like a little spark of something which was has been a seed in my mind since I was fourteen years old. Okay India Arie! I am not my hair! It's true. But hair defines the way the world sees us just like fashion does because is the kind of society we live in and in the mainstream media, the only resources I can find about how to take care of my own hair in it's natural state are......I can't even get started on how little there is, how sparse, incomplete and inconsistent. There's a clear message behind how little information even hair dressers have on how to take care of natural African American hair. With the creative, critical and positive use of independent media, that message is beginning to change. And that's good.