Good Hair

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Ty and I went to see Chris Rock's "Good Hair" a couple of days ago. Good Hair is a movie that's difficult to categorize. Is is a comedy? Is it a documentary? Is it a social commentary? After watching it I'm not really sure. But, one of the things I love about the movie is it is one that will get people talking. Some have accused Chris of airing black people's secrets about the obsession with our hair in front of white people. Some have accused him of exploiting black women by making this movie. But, we see it as an opportunity to educate ourselves and the white community about the incredibly (and unnecessarily complicated) subject of black hair.

Given that Chris is not known as a documentary maker and how many of us really want to see a documentary anyway, I think the combination of comedy and documentary was a good idea. The movie, for the most part, keeps you entertained (although I found myself asking why some of the scenes were in there). There are many sexual references and one hair dresser in particular who talks a blue streak, unfortunately making the movie not suitable for children, IMO. We were warned not to take our 12 and 9 year olds and I'm really glad we didn't.

The movie touched on a couple of  really good points.  The first is the obsession in the black community (and with white people) about "good" hair or straight hair.   The term "good hair' basically means hair that is smooth and straight.  The closer to European, the better.   Chris talked about the damage that can be done by chemical relaxers.  But, this part of the movie was greatly exaggerated as Chris spoke with a white chemist who was shocked that women put sodium hydroxide on their hair.  Well, as a Chemical Engineer, it's not pure sodium hydroxide and you don't leave it on your hair for several hours as they did in the demonstration in the movie.  But, black people literally spend billions of dollars a year trying to make their hair into something it often simply cannot be.  People call us all the time asking how they can get their hair to look like Halle Berry's or Michael Jackson's or some other star who was either born with a completely different hair type or is paying several thousand dollars a year in achieving that style. 

Another great point made by the movie is the magnitude of the black hair care market.  Our women (and men) spend a huge amount of money on hair care products and most of that money goes to white companies who sell through Asian distributors.  We first started talking about this back in 2006 in this blog post The State of the Black Hair Care Industry  Al Sharpton put it graphically when he said we are the only people who wear our economic oppression on our heads. Most beauty supply stores are owned by Koreans and other Asians who have put a stranglehold on the market.  This was also documented in a film by (ironically a white guy) Aron Ranen. The film can be purchased on DVD here Black Hair DVD or viewed on YouTube here.   Being in the black hair care market, Treasured Locks has purposely avoided dealing with distributors.  Frankly, most of the products distributed through those channels are crap.  And secondly, the distributors have on many occasions flat out lied to us about product availability as soon as they have found out we are a black owned retailer.  Chris talked to women in a beauty shop who were spending $1,000 a piece on a "weave" (basically a wig sewn to the head). 

After watching Chris on Oprah and seeing the clips of the movie on YouTube and other places we felt most of the really funny parts we had seen already.  And, having been in the industry for a while now we weren't as shocked as shocked by the economic realities as a lot of people would have been. We definitely recommend "Good Hair".  But, if you see it and like it, definitely check out Aron Ranen's documentary also. 

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• Review: Good Hair (cinematical.com)
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• Will We Ever Be Able to Stop Talking About Black Hair Politics? [I Am Not My Hair (Mostly)] (jezebel.com)

Maybe

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There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Keeping the Faith

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For me, faith is more about a journey than it is a static thing or even a destination.  Life has to be lived forward but seems to make sense best when looking backwards.  Yesterday at church we sang "Amazing Grace".  I've always loved this song. I've probably sung it several dozen times over the decades.  But, almost every time I sing it it takes on new and deeper meaning for me.  Yesterday, these  lines struck me differently yesterday than they ever had before causing me to ponder where I am on my faith journey, what has stayed the same and what has changed.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.

And Grace, my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grace appear

The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

I don't know so much about it being Grace that taught my heart to fear.  Maybe that was a necessary part of the journey and it was because of Grace that I had all of that fear.  I was certainly full of fear at one time.  Fear put into me by religion.  Fear of an angry god who created me with the desire to torture me eternally.  Fear of not being good enough.  I always "believed".   At first I believed exactly what I was taught.  From the time I could talk or understand human speech, I "believed".  But, for me yesterday, when I heard "the hour I first believed", it was the hour when I was around 40 when I finally really "believed" in the nature of G-d, the inescapable love of God to steal a phrase from Thomas Talbott.  Not until I truly understood what Grace is were my fears relieved.  The dangers, toils and snares were the dangers toils and snares set before me by religion; the impossible task of living up to a code they told me I could never live up to.   And the task of loving a god who created the vast majority of humanity for the ultimate purpose of tormenting them for his "glory".  I knew I could never love that god no matter how hard I tried and since He could read my heart, I just knew that even though I "believed", I really was damned.

The past few days I've been having a conversation with my friend Kansas Bob and my friend Mike.  We like to think each of our stories, our paths is completely unique and, in some ways they are.  But, what I find really interesting is how much alike so many of our paths are.  I think everything Bob believes today I believed at one time.  I'm guessing everything I believe today, Mike probably believed at one time. But, today our beliefs are very different.  Bob is a Christian who takes the Bible much more literally than I do and as a result has a pretty different set of beliefs.   I look at Bob and see where I once was. Mike was a pretty fundamentalist Christian.  But, Mike is now an atheist.  I look at Mike and see where I sometimes think (fear?) I might be headed.  Most of my universalist friends have left the IC (institutional church) and wonder why I bother going Sunday after Sunday.  Not only going to church but going to a struggling church and serving on the (voluntary) staff of the church.  Sometimes I find myself wondering the same thing.  Yesterday, during the talk back time at church, someone pointed out that she learned that we can be in church with people who don't share the same beliefs and that is OK.  I said that, for me, what binds us together is not our beliefs but our values. What makes us "one" is our desire to see justice done in the world, our respect for every single human being on the planet because each human being is made in the "image of God" (or put in less Christianese terms each human being has a spirit that is of equal worth).  Interestingly, when I brought up that I think it's our values that bind us together rather than our beliefs, our pastor said that he finds that "thought terrifying" (I'm pretty sure that's the word he used).  I sat to wait to see how he would explain that.  What I think I heard him say was that, as a progressive pastor, he finds it difficult to put together a sermon that speaks to our common values and our common belief in a still speaking God while remaining true to the traditions and the "faith".  I guess as a professional clergy man that's really important to him.  To me, not so much.

For me, it's just the opposite that terrifies me.  When people are bound primarily by beliefs, what happens when those beliefs change?  What happens when a historical, archeological or scientific discovery changes what we know about something?  What happens when beliefs change, and beliefs are the only things binding people together, are excommunications,  people being labeled heretics, denominational splits, crucifixions and wars.  What brings Mike, Bob and I together is not our beliefs.  What brings me together with the people of Nexus is not our beliefs.   Our theological beliefs are very different.  What I've observed is as long as we are discussing values like justice, compassion,  human dignity and unconditional love, we're OK.  When we're talking about acting out of those values, we're OK.  But, when we start talking about beliefs, we begin to get divided.  Over the last few days, as Bob and I have been wrestling over the hypothetical eternal fate of Satan and his demons, Mike pointed out (rightfully so and probably with his eyes rolling back in his head), that it's just easier to not believe in Satan (and God) than to try to figure out what we believe will happen to a being that Bob definitely believes exists, I think almost certainly doesn't exist and Mike doesn't believe exists.  Really, the more I discuss this kind of stuff with Christians, the more I think about chucking the whole Christianity thing in. 

I said earlier that I look at Mike (my atheist friend) and wonder if that where I might be headed.  I think not though.  While I certainly don't believe many of the things I once did, I cannot see ever actually chucking the whole thing in.  To me, it's abundantly clear there is a "G-d", there is something from whence we all came and something that ties us all together. There is something to which we will all return.  That I know as much as I know anything.  I don't think there a binary reward system set up so that when we die we go to either eternal bliss or eternal torture.  But, I do think that what we do here matters and I want to share that with people who believe the same thing.  I don't care what they think about the Trinity, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or the Immaculate Conception.

The Invention of Hell

This video is over a year old.  But it just came to my attention:



Why would Spong say such a thing?  The church invented hell? Well, not the church alone, but the church in cooperation with the state (government).  The church took the pagan notion of hell, invented by ancient governments to control the masses, and used it for its own intentions.

Polybius, the ancient historian, says: 

"Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear
and terror of the invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously,
when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal
regions."

Strabo, the geographer, says:  

"The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds...For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue - but this must be done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, &c., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology.  These things the legislators used as scarecrows to terrify the childish multitude."

Timaeus Locrus, the Pythagorean, after stating that the doctrine of rewards and punishments after
death is necessary to society, proceeds as follows:  

"For as we sometimes  cure the body with unwholesome remedies, when such as are most wholesome produce no effect, so  we restrain
those minds with false relations, which will not be persuaded by the truth.  There is a necessity,
therefore, of instilling the dread of those foreign torments: as that the  soul changes its habitation;
that the coward is ignominiously thrust into the body of a woman; the murderer imprisoned within the form of a savage beast; the vain and inconstant changed into birds, and 
the slothful and ignorant into fishes."

Seneca says:  

"Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, &c., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors." 

Sextus Empiricus calls them "poetic fables of hell;" and Cicero speaks of them as "silly absurdities and fables" (ineptiis ac fabulis). 

Aristotle.

"It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state."

Bhagavad Gita- A Book Review

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I like reading different "scriptures" finding mostly the same wisdom expressed in different ways.  I've read the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching and I just recently finished reading the Bhagavad Gita.  The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient Hindu writing.  Mythically, it's a dialog between a warrior (Arjuna) about to enter battle and God (Krishna) incarnated as Arjuna's friend and companion.  The translation I read by Eknath Easwaran was fantastic. Click here for a link to the Amazon page:  The Bhagavad Gita.  He took about 70 pages just to introduce the scriptures so you would have an underestanding of the context and the terminology which can get a bit technical.  Each chapter is preceded by an introduction that tells  you what you are about to read.

The scriptures themselves are profound in my opinion.  The advice that Krishna gives Arjuna is about the spiritual path to enlightenment.  He pretty much recommends a middle path, not one of ascetism or of non-action but one of right action and devotion.  If I had to say one thing that I got out of it that stood out more than any others was doing right just for the sake of doing right.  Non-attachment to results is the goal.  I won't attempt to sum up the scriptures themselves because I know I could not do them justice.  But, if you are interested in the Bhagavad Gita, I cannot imagine there being a much better translation.

Zen Master Shayna

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Yesterday I was teasing Kayla about the "party of the year" she had attended the night before.  One of her "popular" friends just turned 14 and had a big bash.  Anyone who was anyone was there.  I asked if the paparazzi were there and reporters covering the red carpet.

Shayna, now a nine year philosopher and always wise beyond her years piped up and said "Popularity is just an illusion."  I couldn't have said it better myself.

Bengals or Bungles? Who Really Knows?

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We're four weeks into the Bengals season. This season had some of us lifelong Bengals feeling, once again, as if we actually might have a chance to contend. After the heartbreaking loss to a Denver team we were supposed to beat; on a fluke tipped ball, many of us thought "Here we go again." No team in the history of the NFL can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like the Cincinnati Bengals. But, the next week we beat a team we're not supposed to beat. And, the next week, we go toe-to-toe with the world champion Steelers and take them down.

Yesterday, it was the lowly Cleveland Clowns. They've been kicked around by everybody lately. Bengals fans were saying the right things. "Gotta watch out for them. They're a dangerous team." All that stuff. But, in our heart of hearts, we just knew we'd get the victory. We came out of the gate looking great. Up 14-0 and on the way to cruising to an easy win. But, wait, of that 14 points, 7 were scored by the defense. The offense started off dominant. But, then they decided to take of 2-1/2 quarters of the game doing nothing from the end of the first quarter until the end of the fourth. A missed extra point, a missed chip shot field goal and we're in overtime with the Browns.

Once again though, the new Cardiac Kids managed to pull out a win. So, we sit on top of the division after four weeks, one fluke play from being 4-0. But, as a Bengals fan even though "they" say it doesn't matter how you win, we all know we're literally three plays (one play in each victory) from being 0-4. We know we can play up to the level of a Green Bay or a Pittsburgh. But, we can play down to the level of a Cleveland. Four games into the season and I can't decide if this team is really good, really bad or mediocre. But, for a Bengals fan, that is a good thing. 3-1 is a good feeling, no matter how we got there.