Don't eva mess with a sista's hair

"Don't you ever touch a black man's radio, boy! You can do that in China but you can get your ass killed out here, man!"

Chris Tucker - Rush Hour

Well my computer is back yeahhh! Its partially fixed meaning the hardware is supposedly fixed (new harddrive, new video card, pockets flat flat flat) so now I've just got to re-install all my software and hopefully get everything back to where I want it which may take at least a solid 24 hrs of work. Must say with all the computer drama I've been through lately I'm a bit tentative and waiting for the next crash but I live in hope. Anyway last night I stayed up til about 1am working on it while listening to Joan Armatrading or leaving things to install while watching the Raptors play or Alias or Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search. Anyway needless to say when it is fixed the land will be aflow with jiggy drinks and the people will be content. (but that's another blog)

Oh for you youngsters and the North American raised who may be asking who in the world Joan Armatrading is I guess the best way for me to describe her is she was Tracy Chapman before Tracy Chapman but with a bit of a rock n roll edge. Actually her work kind of transcends genres so some of her stuff is folksy like Tracey Chapman, some's more funky, some more rock and roll but all in all good music (and the best part is I got the CD new for like 6.99). Oh and she a West Indian ,Kittitian born I believe.

Anyway the reason I used the quote from Rush Hour above was because I wanted to to flip that to what happened on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model show last night. For those who haven't seen the show let me break it down for you. Everyone has heard of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition right? Tyra Banks, Molly Sims, Heidi Klum, Christie Brinkly, Cindy Crawford, Cheryl Tiegs, Naomi Campbell, Rachel Hunter, Kathy Ireland and a host of supposedly the most beautifulliest women in the world have been in its pages over the years. Yes I know beautifulliest aint a real word but I using it for emphasis. Well last year they decided to do a model search and let the SI (Sports Illustrated) readers choose one amateur to join the professional models in the magazine so over the course of a few weeks the magazine showed various girls and readers were allowed to vote online until finally one of them was chosen.

This year they decided to get some additional publicity and do it all as a reality show with the winner getting in addition to a chance to be in the magazine a one million dollar modeling contract.. Yea pretty sad my watching reality TV but hey it's girls in swimwear every week so I make no apologies. Leave me 'lone! Plus as a West Indian, people who duz take criticism to the level of professional sport ya kno I can sit down and watch and laff and practice my criticism artform (how I gine get betta if I don't practice nuh?) and make bare sport of the girls.

Anyway nuff said. The drama this week involved a black contestant, Betti's hair style. Last week the judges said they didn't like her long weave so this week when the hairstylists showed up to do all the girls' hair they removed her weave and left her hair in this afro-ish, puffy look. To tell you the truth it really didn't look great ok enough pretense it did look real real bad when they had first finish doing it. I mean don't get me wrong the 'unbeweavable' style she had previously 'naa gine mek it' either but the new style ended up making her look almost troll like. I mean in all seriousness they had her looking like a pencil wid a big eraser on top.

I mean seriously I did really feel for the girl. I remember when I was growing up in Barbados if you went to the barber or ya fadda or brother or friend who cutting ya hair and he gave you a bad haircut; put patches in it or cut it uneven or aint round it up properly you would be subjected to comments like 'cuhdear lil boy dat barber really unfair you doah. ya mean you sit down an let he unfair you head so?' or the barber would have to deal wid 'man looka how you unfair dat lil boy head doah. man you like you aint nuh real barber fa true ya kno, you like you is a barber friend'. Well looking at Betti's hair after the hairstylists finished all I could think was 'cuhdear Betti dem unfair ya too bad fa troot.'

Anyway Betti was not at all pleased. After probably spending money and nuff time sitting in a hair salon waiting until 3:30 pm to finally get her 10:30am appointment to get her weave did so she could look good on TV these folks just up and take it out and left her looking all busted. It naa go so. So Betti spoke up. She told the hairdresser and anyone in earshot that she wasn't pleased with the hair and rightly said that she had never seen a SI model with this type of hair inferring that they were ruining her chances at winning the contest by leaving her like that.

Well as Paul Keen's Douglas would say. Who tell she say dat! For the rest of the show the hairdresser and the other models were all complaining about why Betti behave so, how she feel she is a diva, she didn't have to act like that, she got nuff attitude and a whole bunch of talk about her behavior.

Now from my perspective Betti was very restrained (at least what they showed on TV) after they had left her looking worse that a reject from Soul Train. She raised her voice a bit but didn't scream, just enough intensity to make them realize she was upset and she wasn't cussing anyone just telling them like it is. But no even the other black girl (who ended up getting the boot) had talk for Betti.

Now these people obviously didn't know that you "Don't you ever touch a black woman's hair ! You can get your ass killed out here, man!" Its just not done. Hair is a serious thing. You ever see how many hair magazines are out there for black women? Just from looking at that you have to realize that when it comes to hair the sistas don't play. Yea sometimes it aint gine look like all that but black women don't willingly let no-one play up in their hair to end up looking like Donna Summer's downtrodden step sister. To me those guys are lucky that Betti didn't act a fool up in there.

Anyway, Betti avoided getting kicked off. Actually the hairstyle turned out not that bad in the end. I think Betti braided it overnight and the next morning comb it out and it actually looked respectable and since they ended up on a 70s style photo shoot this week she did well. But how long will the hair remain that way one wonders because she's obviously not comfortable with it and as she said they don't put nobody in SI with their hair looking so.