Charles Easley

Gabby Douglas and her hair raising story

Gabby Douglas is an accomplished, young African American woman who is an Olympic champion, but her history-making performance in gymnastics was momentarily eclipsed by something as trivial as her hair.

Holy hot combs, Batman!

This young gazelle was out there running, jumping, tumbling and delivering Circus du Soleil-inspired performances while millions watch in amazement, yet some – including a significant number of African American women – chose to demonize her because of the condition or state of her hair?

Let’s see how well your “hairdo” holds up under those types of conditions.

We have not seen folks turn on a black woman on Twitter this bad since folks dogged Tami Roman from “Basketball Wives,” and she deserved it with all her ratchet behavior.

One person on Twitter wrote: “Why hasn’t anyone tried to fix Gabby Douglas’ hair?”

Another opined: “gabby douglas gotta do something with this hair! these clips and this brown gel residue aint it?”

If critics stopped for a moment to considered her back story, how Gabby had to leave her family to train at a very early age and lived with a white family in Iowa, maybe they would cut her some slack.

I went to school in Iowa. Not only are you hard pressed to find someone there who remotely knows anything about black hair, but I don’t think they even had one shelf of black hair products in the entire state.

Gabby had her own response to all the controversy: "I don't know where this is coming from. What's wrong with my hair? I just simply gelled it back, put some clips in it and put it in a bun. Are you kidding me? I just made history. And you're focusing on my hair? I just want to say; we're all beautiful inside out.”

Gabby, this is coming from an historical and prevalent undermining of black women and their beauty and worth. On the surface we may say we are all beautiful inside and out, but how much of the negative hype have African-American women themselves internalized?

Some would argue that a woman’s hair is her crown and glory, and I am not here to debate whether you want to rock the weave or go natural, but there seems to be a sort of collective consciousness of self-esteem issues if this much energy is given to this young lady’s hair.

It is like there was an unseen black female sports reporter during Gabby’s performance, giving secret commentary:

NBC Analyst 1: "She has shown such great poise during her overall performance."

NBC Analyst 2: "There was a slight hesitation in her initial approach to the balance beam but she pulled off an incredible routine."

Black Woman: "I have to say that her dismount earned her every bit of her overall score of 9.8, but truthfully I was too distracted by how busted her kitchen looked."

The sad thing is, this entire controversy speaks to a larger issue of some African American women’s obsession with hair. Chris Rock’s documentary pays homage to this ongoing fascination.

Gabby should be a role model for women committed to physical fitness, but we have women who would rather chance serious health concerns like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. They would risk loosing a foot because they don’t want to sweat their hair out.

Gabby, I say let your haters be your motivators. Diva, hold your brown-gelled head up high and introduce a new floor routine set to the music of India Arie’s “I Am Not My Hair” and laugh all the way to the bank with the millions you will earn in endorsements.

And possibly to placate some of your detractors, maybe one of those endorsements will be from a black hair care product….smile.

Paltrow tweets the n-word, really?

Gwyneth Paltrow is in the news, but not for a film role or her fashion statements on the red carpet. Rather, she finds herself in the midst of a controversy for tweeting the n-word.

The backdrop for all this drama was Paris, where Paltrow was attending Jay Z and Kanye’s “Watch the Throne” tour with BFF Beyonce. She was backstage and must have caught a case of rap vapors, because she was snapped in a photo among hip-hop moguls and then tweeted “Ni**as in Paris for real.”

The tweet went viral and, well, that’s when Paltrow’s tweet hit the fan!

She immediately tried to contain the controversy by saying in a subsequent tweet: “Hold up, it’s the title of the song!”

Yes, Paltrow was correct, but therein lies most of the problem.

Maybe because of Paltrow’s relationship with some of her high-profile black buddies she felt comfortable enough and “down” enough to use the phrase without fear of consequences. I do wonder how the same picture of Paltrow using another rap song title -- “B*tch better have my money” -- would go over? Do I think she used poor judgment? Yes. But can we really lay the blame at her feet?

Russell Simmons rushed to Paltrow’s defense (big surprise). In a recent article he spoke of an earlier concert featuring his protégé Jay Z, and in an almost dreamy recollection of that concert he shares, “Every white girl (and there were a lot of them) was singing it to their man…“Ain’t no n*gga like the one I got!” EVERYONE was singing every word of every song for the entire set, which ended with “N*ggas In Paris.” White, black – everyone was singing along.”

Hmm, I wonder if this is the vision Martin Luther King Jr. had of black and white unity?

It seems Paltrow has a lot of black supporters in her posse. Singer The Dream, who initially claimed to have sent the tweet from Paltrow’s phone (yeah, right), goes on to school us less-evolved consumers of popular culture:

"N---a doesn't have any power over me which is why this will be the last thing I say about it," he wrote. "A word means something when u react to it! ... Context is everything. Meaning it in the context as a Song which is how we Sold it to the world!!!!!!”

So, if we follow this logic, then, ladies, the next time some poor drunk slob calls you a hoe or slut at the club, you should not be offended and certainly should not react.

Well, I think we all stand corrected by this very informed singer, rapper and cultural critic on the historical complexities of the n-word as it relates to the derogatory narrative of a specific marginalized community and the apparently diminished cultural impact of using the n-word in a contemporary lyrical context.

According to these so-called artist and media moguls, we are all being too sensitive and not accepting of their progressive stance on selling the n-word to the masses while lining their pockets and elevating their famous profiles.

I have spoken often about the unpredictable and uncomfortable process of co-opting culture. You do not get to pick and choose how the mainstream will process and use signifiers of a culture. We cannot hold Paltrow and others to a different standard when we ourselves cannot agree and adhere to a similar standard of respect.

The amazing thing to me is that, for some reason, artists like The Dream, Jay Z and Kanye are fine selling the n-word to the world. But at what cost? Yes, any artist has some artistic autonomy, but when you are linked to a marginalized community, you become an extension of that community and right or wrong a de-facto voice of that community.

Simmons speaks proudly about this utopian culture he and artist like Jay Z have crafted where black, white and other cultures come together in a synchronous celebration of the n-word. According to Simmons, they use it because the n-word is no longer relevant.

I wonder why a word associated with such historical disdain toward African Americans is so easily cast as irrelevant. Could we get away with using similarly derogatory terms for other groups while artists get rich and famous?

Maybe to test this theory, Simmons will be invited to give the commencement speech at Morehouse and salute the group of hopeful, educated young, mostly African American men by saying, “Congratulations, n*ggas!” Or maybe Jay Z will one day refer to his new daughter at her sweet-16 party as one of the most beautiful n*ggas he has ever seen?

It seems to me that the reason we continue to have controversy over the n-word is that we are not as evolved as Simmons and other artists who profit from selling it all nicely wrapped in concerts, bling, music videos, cars, and general hip-hop culture think we are. Maybe, just maybe, the word still has more power and is more relevant than they would have us believe.