Monday, November 26, 2007

Remember this?!

don't front, grown black folk. you know you remember those commercials for afro sheen and ultra sheen cosmetics that would come on during soul train back in the day. (the one below is for their blow-out kit.) actually, johnson products was the first black owned company to trade on the american stock exchange. like fubu and b.e.t. it's owned by white people now but back in the day, that company started a revolution.

i saw the commercial below and man alive -- all that black pride and love for the natural hair in the vibe of this 30 second blurb just blew me away. instantaneously, i was transported back to a childhood filled with aunts in dashikis, uncles in bell-bottoms and chunky high heels and pert near everyone with an afro. (you weren't going to get your grandma to give up her pin curls, because that was her thing from back in her day, but you know what i mean.)

ah, my 70's childhood. somebody was always coming back from africa, all enlightened and everything. somebody was always changing their name to something in swahili or arabic, something more in keeping with who they really were. someone was always going on about the struggle and progress and politics. what was happening, you know. finishing graduate school was the absolute pentultimate. everybody called each other "brother" and "sister," stuff like that. that was my world when i was a little munchkin. my godmother was my mother's little sister. would dress me up like a little doll and put my hair in afro puffs.

we were so beautiful. we were starting to truly love ourselves. what happened to us?



i want to be famous so i can declare war on weaves everywhere -- and any black woman who doesn't think that how she looks isn't presentable or acceptable, until she straightens her hair and dyes it some bizarre shade of blonde. i'm going to be a freakin' ultra blackgrrl superhero, just like cleopatra jones or foxy brown -- except instead of getting "the man" out of the community, i'm going to get him out of your hair.

2 comments:

faboo mama said...

Sorry...I've already taken the role of Soul Sista #1. ;P I do need a sidekick who I'm calling Afrospeck. I don't know why. We can make the Black Justice League, handing out smackdowns to the dark skinned sister with blond hair, blue eyes, and 5" fake nails, to the brotha who feels that his jeri-curl is not only a necessity, but still cool, to everyone processes, weaves, and heats but has the nerve to talk about "keepin' it real".

I have friends who'd die if they can't get that weekly press and curl and look at me with my locs like I'm a freak. They say, "Well, you don't even wear make up..you can do that sort of thing because you're like a free spirit. Me? I'll look like a slave if I don't press." I'm thinking, "You'll look like a bald, baby sparrow if you keep up with the hot comb." 45 years old in wigs because they can't stop pressin' it out.

"Don't cover up the nappy, be happy with your kinkin'." Digable Planets

Ed DuRanté said...

Amen, QE!!!