Last year, I heard a high level muckety-muck from Shea Moisture, Richeliu Dennis, start talking about how he wanted his products out of the black section of the drug store.
He actually started all this yakety-yak about "segregated shopping."
That's all it took to make the white folks feel guilty.
Shea Moisture products got mixed in with the white chicks stuff in drug stores before you could swing and snapping fingers in a circle two times.
So, I knew right then that what happened today was coming.
A year ago, I knew Shea Moisture was going to start marketing toward white women. That's why this ad didn't hurt my feelings like it did some black women today.
Last year, I thought to myself, "I don't actually care if white women use black products." But it wasn't long before I realized I was kinda lying to myself.
Selling to white women is a mixed bag. But what that original crack about not wanting to have Shea Moisture products "stuck" in the black hair care section? That actually worried me.
Furthermore, smaller black hair care companies will just get swallowed up completely if they need drug store sales in addition to black beauty supply sales.
New black hair care companies? Their stuff will be sold at black beauty supplies exclusively because they'll get buried in the whiteness in the drug store. Shea Moisture with its high brand name recognition will be one of the few companies to survive in the drug store environment.
And maybe that's the plan -- quasi-monopoly.
Rumor has it Shea Moisture has taken more than one giant step toward abandoning it's base. Not only is their advertising leaning into white women, I hear tell that they've actually changed their formulas and/or started coming out with formulas that don't nearly offer the protection my fine afro hair needs..
Like I said, that's the rumor. And if that's not true now? It probably will be soon if there's not enough back lash.
Trust me. I've already proven to myself that I can see into the future. I can teach you how to do it too.
Greed is always the name of the game here in the good ole U S of A.
But that's okay. Know why?
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
He actually started all this yakety-yak about "segregated shopping."
That's all it took to make the white folks feel guilty.
Shea Moisture products got mixed in with the white chicks stuff in drug stores before you could swing and snapping fingers in a circle two times.
 |
| Dennis Richelieu with a still from his white/light Shea Moisture Ad |
So, I knew right then that what happened today was coming.
A year ago, I knew Shea Moisture was going to start marketing toward white women. That's why this ad didn't hurt my feelings like it did some black women today.
Last year, I thought to myself, "I don't actually care if white women use black products." But it wasn't long before I realized I was kinda lying to myself.
There are some ingredients like Shea Butter and Castor Oil that are pretty cheap because white women don't want them. On the flip side, because some black produced hair products are NOT mass produced --because only black women want them-- and these black hair care products can get really expensive if there are high quality ingredient in them.
Therefore, in the all-about-me zone, my feelings on this Shea Moisture move toward whiteness were strongly mixed
Selling to white women is a mixed bag. But what that original crack about not wanting to have Shea Moisture products "stuck" in the black hair care section? That actually worried me.
Yeah, all of us know Shea Moisture is a black product. And we'll know to look for it even it's mixed up among the thousands and thousands of white women products.
But what about other black hair products?
If white drug store owners take Shea Moisture's lead and start mixing all the black hair care products together with the ten billion white chick products, I'll never find what's good for my hair.
I'll have to do research on each and every hair care brand to figure out if it's meant for my fine, afro, and damn near zero-porosity hair. I mean, have you seen how huge the white hair care section is? I'll be looking up 20 white companies for every black hair company I find...if I'm lucky.
Furthermore, smaller black hair care companies will just get swallowed up completely if they need drug store sales in addition to black beauty supply sales.
Don't believe me? Get in a time machine and go to a bookstore in the 1990s.
Go to one where the African American Literature is separated into an African American section then go to one where the African American books are buried in the 95% all white books.
In the second bookstore, you'll leave the store after three hours unsure there were ANY books by African Americans. You'll be in that second bookstore for hours and hours looking for a black face of a black author inside the book jacket.
When that mixing-the-books thing got fashionable for a hot minute pre-internet, I really couldn't find black authored books to read unless I got a black mail order company list THEN went to the bookstore looking for a specific title. I promise you, I could not just go to the bookstore on a whim and find a black authored book.
This describes what is about to happen to our hair care products.
New black hair care companies? Their stuff will be sold at black beauty supplies exclusively because they'll get buried in the whiteness in the drug store. Shea Moisture with its high brand name recognition will be one of the few companies to survive in the drug store environment.
And maybe that's the plan -- quasi-monopoly.
Rumor has it Shea Moisture has taken more than one giant step toward abandoning it's base. Not only is their advertising leaning into white women, I hear tell that they've actually changed their formulas and/or started coming out with formulas that don't nearly offer the protection my fine afro hair needs..
Like I said, that's the rumor. And if that's not true now? It probably will be soon if there's not enough back lash.
Trust me. I've already proven to myself that I can see into the future. I can teach you how to do it too.
All you have to do is know one thing: In this white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalistic society, if there's another few dimes to be made, even a millionaire will reach for them and abandon whoever he has to abandon to get them.
Greed is always the name of the game here in the good ole U S of A.
But that's okay. Know why?
I have plenty of black owned companies to get my hair care products from. And somehow I got started on my hair care journey by doctoring my own stuff and/or mixing my own stuff, so I'm not that Shea Moisture reliant.
And I'm more than willing to share the information I've found all over the internet.Stay tuned.
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
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