Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Hair

[Rhiannon12866]

John Oliver discusses the importance of black hair, the ways it can be a target of discrimination, and some ideas to address that.

[TexasTowelie]

1. I had my hopes that it would be about this version of Hair.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. LOL! I remember that very well, too!

But is that before John Oliver's time? Or did that play in Britain?

[TexasTowelie]

3. The musical was in 1967 while the Cowsills version was in 1969.

John Oliver was born in 1977 so it predates him.

As far as the chart rankings are concerned it rose to #1 in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It only rose to #2 in the United States. I can't find any information of whether it was released in the U.K. or if it ranked on the charts across the pond.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Wow, thanks for the research!

I guess we're dating ourselves, but I'm sure we aren't alone on DU...

[rampartc]

6. i was thinking more about the movie soundtrack.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Oh, so was I - there can't be too many people who missed this, it's ubiquitous!

Thanks!

[LittleGirl]

5. Waiting for the end was the best!

Laugh out loud funny!
I’m so happy that this topic was covered. I was so mad when that black wrestler had to cut his locks off. No, actually I was freaking furious when that happened.

Thanks for sharing.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Awww, thanks!

This was obviously an unusual topic for a pale British guy to address, but, like all his other subjects, John Oliver was through, informative - and most of all, humorous!

And I don't get it, either - what business is it of these morans how those who are different from them choose to wear their hair??

[mopinko]

9. soooo infuriating.

i just shared this on fb, tagged my state rep. illinois needs a crown act.

i'm so intensely proud of my heritage. if my ginger looks were still considered low class, if my scally cap was a signal of class, if irish and dogs were not allowed in the parks, like when my grandparents came here, i would have to just start burning shit down.
i honestly dont know where black people find the patience.

eta- i tagged my state rep, and she shared this-
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=10200SB0817sam001&GA=102&SessionId=110&DocTypeId=SB&LegID=133444&DocNum=817&GAID=16&SpecSess=&Session=&fbclid=IwAR1BB7-rhDiZ5WQvFQVZuwXUKUluywUA8TZrb4E_A28tkkFAMsAxKfpnuMo

apparently only schools, but it's a start.

[Warpy]

10. Hard to believe after nearly 50 years after civil rights legislation

and longer than that for school integration that so many white people haven't come to terms with the fact that African hair is different and is going to look different. I just wonder how long it's going to take conformists to figger that out.

I don't hold out a hell of a lot of hope for the corporate world, not in the short term.

[Rhiannon12866]

11. Makes no sense to me, either

After all the strife and uprisings of the '60s, it suddenly seems like there has been no progress at all.

[Warpy]

12. There's been massive progress

I remember Jim Crow and no one with sub Saharan African ancestry allowed to sit down at a lunch counter, stay in a motel, or vote to change any of the bullshit they had to go through on a daily basis. Yeah, I'd say a lot of progress has been made. It's just not enough when job applicants and students can be disqualified because their hair isn't straight.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I realize now that I lived in a pretty diverse community

I'm in New York, was in elementary school in the '60s and all of us were just kids. Nobody ever said anything, not my teachers or parents. I wish I knew then what I know now, but maybe I was lucky, I had no idea that anyone was "different," we learned more about the Civil Rights movement in high school. I still remember the lessons from my 9th grade social studies teacher, he talked about it quite a lot and he made those lessons memorable. I realize now that there has been progress, but not nearly enough.

[Warpy]

14. The one thing Catholic schools did right is integrate

so I also had the "just kids" experience in the 1950s. When I was 11, I went to public school in the south and I remember neighbors beaming at my parents about the "brand new all white school."

That all white school had Mexican kids, Cherokee kids, Asian kids, north African kids--all the colors of the human rainbow with only the sub Saharan African kids missing. I got the point, I just don't think it was the point they wanted me to get.