Fourteen years ago, Chris Rock made a comedic documentary about black women’s obsession with their hair. The doc was called “Good Hair.”
It explored the then-$9 billion black hair industry built on straightening, braiding, twisting, coloring, extending, and weaving the hair of black women. The doc insinuated that black women have greatly overemphasized the importance of their hair. They waste hours at the beauty shop. They risk hair and scalp damage to attain a subjective, fluid level of beauty. They foolishly attach their identity to the hairstyle of the moment.
Rock’s doc politely pointed out the insanity of it all.
Over the past decade, American popular culture has aggressively normalized and spread mental illness. So it should come as no surprise that in the years since “Good Hair,” black men have joined black women in their hair-brained hair obsession.
Cam Newton, the former NFL quarterback, is the poster child for this offshoot of the transgender movement. Matriarchal culture has produced a generation of black men who have adopted the mindset, values, and emotions of black women.
Last week, Newton appeared as a guest on NFL insider Josina Anderson’s podcast, “Undefined.” The conversation sounded like an excerpt from the 1990s chick flick “Waiting to Exhale.” Anderson provided Newton a platform to argue that his NFL unemployment is directly tied to his hairstyle.
“It’s been hinted,” Newton began, “and I’m not changing. People have hinted to where they say, like, ‘Cam, we want you to go back to the 2015, clean-cut Cam.’ But that was a different me.”
Yes, that was a Cam Newton who won the MVP and played in the Super Bowl. Imagine NFL teams wanting that version of Cam Newton back. How racist and unfair. Cam should file a lawsuit claiming NFL owners aren’t obeying the CROWN Act, the ridiculous California law that prohibits discrimination based on hairstyle and texture. The law is a bone the Democratic Party has thrown black women because Democrats know hairstyle is a critical issue for black women voters. Some people tie their votes to taxes, immigration policy, abortion. Democrats believe black women vote based on hairstyle options.
Newton thinks like a woman.
“My hair is deeply rooted in my culture and the people who look like me,” Newton told Josina.
I’m not sure how to accurately describe Newton’s hairstyle. He wears dreadlocks that are shaped into spikes that stand straight up. He looks like a clown. He occasionally covers his hair with a Mary Poppins-style bonnet.
What culture is Cam reflecting? Who originated this culture? Kunta Kinte? Frederick Douglass? Booker T. Washington? Martin Luther King? Marcus Garvey? Nelson Mandela? Malcolm X?
Maybe it was Madam C.J. Walker, the first black woman millionaire? Walker made a fortune in the early 1900s selling black women petroleum jelly and sulfur to put in their hair.
Among athletes and young black men, Cam Newton is not alone in his hair obsession. Many male athletes have adopted the belief that a feminized hairstyle is central to their identity and culture. Men are every bit as obsessed with their looks and modern fashion as women.
In an earlier interview with Josina Anderson, Newton and Anderson talked about attending a fashion show in Paris.
Pro athletes, particularly black jocks, dress outrageously and use their stadium and arena entrances to walk the runway as models. It’s all supposed to be cool and hip. It’s feminine. They’ve adopted the personalities of women.
From NBA star Ja Morant to NFL star D.K. Metcalf, black jocks spend an abnormal amount of time coloring their hair.
If Cam Newton were still in his playing prime, NFL teams would deal with his desire to be a fashion icon and hair model. But as a backup quarterback, no NFL team wants to deal with the distraction of Cam’s childlike, feminized identity. No coach wants Cam influencing his starting quarterback to waste time on fashion, dreadlocks, and cornrows.
Cam should have played tight end in the NFL. His personality quirks would be accepted. Tight ends are not leaders. They’re baby wide receivers, divas in training. The quarterback position is for leaders.
Despite all the efforts to emasculate football, the game is still hyper-masculine. It’s counterproductive to inject a feminized leader with a victim mentality into the QB room.
Cam is out of the league for the same reason that Colin Kaepernick is. Diminished skills made teams reluctant to deal with the victim mindset and obsession with looks and branding.
Cam should quit conducting interviews with reporters who will tell him he’s a victim. He looks weak. He behaves like someone who folds at the first sign of resistance.
The 2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton and the 2010 national champion Cam Newton – the clean-cut Cams – were resilient warriors who fought through adversity and criticism. They were “Super Cam.”
Unfortunately, Newton pivoted to “Supermodel Cam.” He succumbed to the matriarchal culture promoted across social media.
Nobody wants a transgender quarterback. Josina Anderson won’t tell Cam that. Only a man will tell Cam the truth. Real men are in short supply.