Hello everyone and yes, I can say that I am still alive.  I’ve been semi-active on Twitter lately, but I went MIA as far as writing on this blog goes.  I tried,I’d sit down to write, I really would, but I’d become easily distracted.  Things like the special edition Billy bookcases from IKEA would grab my attention and hold it. So I felt like I was out of gas.   Yes, I know, this is a bad thing that a wannabe like myself should be telling readers.   So this is all to say that I’m sorry for being MIA and I’ll try to be a better ClandestineChic.

I was slated to write a post about Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” documentary about a week ago,when I first saw the movie in the theaters.  Then, I  figured I’d  scrap it since it’s no longer time sensitive in the world of insta-blogging, but something I saw a couple of days ago made me want to revive the post.  Also, brace yourself because this is sort of a long one.

A seven-year-old Clandestine Chic on Easter Sunday squinting my eyes at the camera.  Yes, my mother loved to dress me in pink: pink dress, pink purse and those damned pink ribbons.  However, what caught my eye about the picture was my hair (will explain later).

On Good Hair, some segments of the documentary stayed with me and were still clearly embedded while other parts of the documentary I thought were forgettable.   One segment that stuck out to me the most was the discussion of young girls getting relaxers and going through the pains of having perfectly groomed hair.   Not to give away any spoilers, but there was one very young girl with a relaxer, at one point she made a remark that it was what “you were supposed to do”.  Mind you, we’re talking about a 3-year-old young girl here.   Although I wasn’t that young when I got my first relaxer, I was still subjected  to the frequent press n’ curls that always left me suceptible to a burn, because I was so jumpy.  Well groomed hair was always a necessity, and that meant enduring weekly presses.   I can’t even count how many times I had to remain inside instead of playing with the other kids because my hair was newly pressed.

Another segment of “Good Hair” that was interesting and left me fuming at the same time,  was a group of 5 high school girls that were talking about their hair.  All of these girls, except one young lady with a nice shaped Afro had relaxers.   They told the girl with the fro that without wearing her hair relaxed, she probably wouldn’t get a job with her and that a wearing a suit and a fro to work would be a contradiction. I was  furiously shaking my head and I felt so horrible after seeing this girl’s face. I was 19 when I went natural after about 7 years of wearing my hair relaxed.   And I had no idea where I was going to begin.  I just knew that I was over sitting in salons for 5-6 hours at a time , increasingly thinning hair without much growth, and being admonished for not being able to take the burn of a relaxer for very long.    Slowly, one by one, my friends were starting to go natural as well and we were all looking for resources to help us learn how to deal with our hair.   Most of these resources were found online and were a big help during those first few months.  I learned how to rock twists, twist-outs, braid-outs and how to just let my hair be free.

Image Source: Jezebel.com

All in all, I’d say the movie was very interesting.  Yes, there were some segments I didn’t really care for,  and I thought there could be a bit more of a discussion about natural hair instead of so much emphasis being placed on weaves and relaxers.  I went went to see this movie, because I knew that there would be many aspects of the documentary to that I would be able to relate.  And when I saw the picture of me when I was younger, with my newly pressed hair, I can still remember everything that went into achieving my hairstyle.   The sacrifices I had to make all of these years, that I don’t  consider these days, because I’m not going to let my hair dictate anything anymore.   As for the movie,  whether it was a good or bad documentary in anyone’s eyes,  I am just happy that it was able to open up more changes for dialogue in the future.