Good Hair Page #7

the manufacturing,

and they also dominate

the retail level.

Koreans only sell

to Korean retailers,

but because

the profit margin is so large,

they will not sell

to other African Americans.

Are you Korean?

No, I am Chinese.

Chinese, sorry.

That's okay.

Are Chinese people in China

buying any black hair?

We would like to.

And second,

we're not Chinese.

We are Korean.

Korean. Sorry.

lmagine if I went

into another community

and just set up shop selling them

what only they use.

The question would be

whether they'd call the cops

or whether

they'd just shoot me.

But in our community,

anything goes.

And I think that a lot of that,

we got to blame on ourselves.

I mean, it's not like anybody else

needs black hair products,

so if we can't control

what nobody uses but us,

that is

real economic retardation.

How many

other black hair companies

do you know of

that are black-owned?

That manufacture

their own products?

That manufacture

their own products.

About four.

Out of hundreds.

So did the white man just buy up

everybody else's company?

Yeah. Yep.

In 1987, Revlon's president,

he said, ''Eventually

there are not going to be

''any black-owned

hair care companies.''

And then you could see

the gradual takeover

through the late eighties

into the nineties,

and now

very few of the companies

that market to African Americans

are black-owned.

No wonder the schools

and everything else is out of control.

I mean, you get up

and comb your oppression

and exploitation every morning.

Or you attach

your economic exploitation

to the back of your head

every morning.

Or you shove it down

or you put it on the nightstand.

''Here's my symbol

of economic exploitation.''

Lights out, go to sleep,

wake up,

and cover it back up.

How are you going to think right

when you're wearing

exploitation all the time?

That is a real grassroots need,

to recapture the fact

that we can't control something

as close to us

as the hair on our head.

People are complaining

that black people aren't making

any money off this hair,

but the truth is,

it's not our hair.

When and if my daughters

ever decide to buy hair,

it can come

from anyplace in the world.

What kind of hair

is the ponytail?

I guess it

would be considered--

It's called ''human'' on the pack.

What kind of hair is in there?

Oh, my God. I didn't know

you were going to ask

all these questions.

I would've called the lady

that I bought it from.

This is 100/ human hair.

Meaning that you can curl it,

do whatever,

and it won't melt.

This is 100/ real, baby.

So do you have any idea

what nationality

these humans were?

What part of the world

these humans come from?

Yes, lndian humans.

Janet Jackson's hair

is lndian hair?

It's lndian hair.

Who else got lndian hair?

Right now, I have lndian hair.

It's human hair, though,

and it's prayed upon.

Are you thinking--

Are you considering--

I see Jessica Simpson

has her own weave line.

Have you looked into having

your own weave line?

So there's a chance

you may join the weave empire?

I don't know.

It depends on if I can get

a straight connection to lndia.

Then I will, yeah.

You heard what Raven said.

''A straight connection

to lndia.''

Well, I guess

that's where I got to go.

This is lndia,

a land with a population

of over one billion people.

A quarter of the population

lives below the poverty line,

making about forty cents a day.

Good thing

they don't need weaves.

Overpopulation is at the root

of much of lndia's problems,

but there would be

even less room

if the lndians didn't

ship out most of their hair.

After software and statues

with eighty pairs of hands,

human hair

is lndia's biggest export.

My cab driver, Sanji, said

if I wanted to find good hair,

this was the place to go.

All right.

Mr. Murali!

Hello, how are you?

All right. Chris Rock here.

- All the way from America.

- Yeah, very good.

You are welcome to all this.

Now, I hear you the man

with the hair.

Yes.

You got

more hair than anybody.

Yes.

If I want some lndian hair,

you're the man to see.

Yes.

This is daily,

we are getting like this.

Collected from the temple.

Well, show me some more.

- Let's see some more.

- Yes. Come.

What are they doing right now?

Now, this is the hair

we have bought from the temple,

and they're

just segregating this thing.

And this is before washing,

we do like this.

Then we go for a washing.

Because there'll be some bugs.

It is all dead bugs

but some people,

they don't like to have

lice and bugs in their hair.

Yeah, I don't.

Whenever I buy hair,

I don't want no bugs in it.

This is the place

where we process human hair.

Weave paradise.

Yes.

So this is where

the magic happens, huh?

And everyone's got

a perfect weave on their head.

What are they doing right there?

See, this is what I mean.

I show you

that after washing,

they'll just put the hair

on the hackle,

there to remove this tangle,

and they'll remove

the top-side of the hair.

So then it will be bundled,

and it will be sold as bulk hair.

Okay.

Approximately

how many heads of hair

are processed every day?

- Not that, weight.

- Kilos?

So you don't even

care about the head.

You measure by the kilo.

We measure by kilo only.

You like Scarface. ''Keys.''

Kind of like cocaine.

The hair business is probably

an easier business to be in.

- Yes, it is a legal one.

- It's legal.

Are there hair farms?

Are there just places

where just a bunch of women

are sitting there growing hair?

No.

Everything's from sacrifice.

Tonsure.

Everything's from the sacrifice.

Do your other friends

sacrifice their hair, too?

Yeah. Everybody does.

Everybody does it.

I guess nobody in lndia

buys hair.

Why? We already have

our own hair.

It's like fish buyin' water.

Has anybody ever tried

to steal your hair?

No. Not yet.

If you see some black women,

just run the other way.

Okay.

Now, there seems to be

a great demand

for the hair all over the world.

Can the temple satisfy

all the demand,

or do people find other ways

to get the hair?

So let me get this straight.

Women fall asleep,

and while they're asleep,

someone...

Trimming their hair.

Takes their hair.

Does this happen a lot?

Somebody is cutting hair.

So you go see ''l Am Legend,''

and when you leave,

you go, ''l am bald.''

Hair is worth more than gold?

Yes.

And women are being scalped

to get this hair.

Ten inches and better?

It's like porno.

Tell me.

l'd learned that this good hair

came from a religious ceremony

called ''tonsure.''

And that's what I needed to see,

the tonsure ceremony.

If my daughters were going

to eventually wear this hair,

I needed to see what kind of

person's head it had been on first.

Over ten million people

tonsure their hair every year.

They tonsure their hair in exchange

for the gods' blessings.

Why do you tonsure your hair?

You ever think about your hair?

Thinkin' about seeing it again

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